Hey guys,
I have activated the Contact Form 7 plugin. I understand that this plugin allows people to contact me, without them seeing my email address. Is that correct?
I am not entirely sure how to edit in the contact form.
Is this form also the same thing for people to subscribe to my blog?
Sorry to sound so stupid, but I hope someone can help me. 
Maria
Hi Maria
Yes, Contact Form 7 lets people send you email without exposing your email address, and I use it for the contact forms on my site, along with the CAPTCHA plugin that goes with it......the CAPTCHA plugin isn't necessary but if you find that you're getting more than just the occasional spam from your contact form, you may want to consider adding that.
NO it does not subscribe people to your blog (RSS Feed or email).....to do that you either need to sign up for a free account with Feedburner, or use a paid service like Aweber, and get the form code from whichever service you choose, put it in a Text Widget, and drag the Text Widget into your sidebar.
With Contact Form 7, the default contact form works just the way it is when you add it to a page, but if you want to edit it, there should now be a button/link that says "Contact" below your Settings link.
You should have at least a basic understanding of HTML because the plugin doesn't add the HTML tags the way that the Post Write box does, but you'll see that it uses paragraph (<p>) tags to separate the fields, and you can modify the text that displays but DON'T modify what is in between the brackets (the [ and ] symbols that look like squared off parentheses).
You can either modify the default form, or create a NEW one, and I recommend creating a new one, then using the new one on your contact page - that way if you don't get it right you can always revert to using the default form.
There is some decent documentation that comes with the plugin and at their site on how to create new forms, but basically you just use the button in the upper right to generate tags that you can use in the box on the left to build your form.
Thank for your help, Trisha. Much appreciated as always.
Unfortunately the bottom four paragraphs of your reply sound like gobbledegook to me. Not through your fault, believe me, but through my own complete ignorance of 'computer' lingo and knowledge. 
Starting at the fourth paragraph from the bottom. Yes, I do now have a 'contact' link in my settings. My default contact form has, however, not yet appeared on my homepage. Do I have to do something to get it there? I'd like to have it in my sidebar, if possible and might create a 'contact' tab on my navigation bar as well. I have looked through my widgets, but there is nothing there called contact, so I assume I have to 'get it' from somewhere else.
Third paragraph from the bottom. As will now be more than clear, I have absolutely no knowledge of HTML, I am not even sure what it is or what it does...
I think what is important to me at the moment is actually getting a contact form on my site. I am more than happy to use the default form for now. So if you can help me getting it there, I will be very grateful.
I forgot to add just now that I do see that it is better to create a new form and not tinker with the default form. That part I did understand... 
You must log in to post.
