Controller Fields for Contact Form 7 vs Display During Conditional Shortcode

Contact Form 7 is an excellent WordPress plugin and one of the top choices of free WordPress plugins for contact forms. Controller Fields makes it even more awesome by adding dynamic content capabilities. This plugin provides new form tags for select fields, checkboxes, and radio buttons so you can use them to control the display of other fields and content. Some examples might include: Hiding or revealing additional form fields based the current value in a dropdown Hiding or revealing content when users click a checkbox Hiding or revealing information based on which radio button is currently selected Controllers and controlled fields can be nested The possibilities are endless! View Demo Preview this plugin in the WordPress Playground, a sandbox environment where you can explore the features of this plugin, both in the WordPress backend as an admin user and on the frontend. WHAT DOES IT DO? This plugin creates three (3) new form tags for controlling the appearance of other form tags (aka “controller”) and a special form tag generator button to output the HTML needed to wrap the controllable form tags inside. HOW TO USE IT After installing and activating the plugin, you will have four (4) new buttons at the top when creating or editing a Contact Form 7 form: select controller, checkbox controller, radio controller, and controlled form tag wrapper. Most of the options in their tag generators will be familiar to Contact Form 7 users but there have been some upgrades. Id Attribute The frontend script relies on unique IDs for the controller form tags, so be sure to always set one! Options There are three (3) ways you can define your options. The first method is simply typing your options with each one on a new line, e.g.: Apples Bananas Dragonfruit The second method is similar, but it allows you more control over the value and label by using | to separate them, e.g.: fruit_1 | Apples fruit_2 | Bananas fruit_3 | Dragonfruit The third method is dynamic in that you can use a shortcode to populate your options with two important provisions: The shortcode should NOT include the normal square brackets ([ and ]). So, instead of [my_shortcode key='value'] you would use my_shortcode key='value'. Any parameters in the shortcode must use single quotes. That is: my_shortcode key='value' and not my_shortcode key="value" Shortcodes used here should return a string value with the option or option group HTML. Default value This field can take static text or a shortcode. If using a shortcode, the same syntax applies from the options field. However, this field also has a few more needs: The text/shortcode must first have apostrophes converted to it’s HTML entity code, ' After that, it must be URL encoded so that spaces become %20 and other non-alphanumeric characters are converted. Placeholder Only available for the select controller form tag, this field can take static text or a shortcode. If using a shortcode, the same syntax applies from the options field. However, this field also has a few more needs: The text/shortcode must first have apostrophes converted to it’s HTML entity code, ' After that, it must be URL encoded so that spaces become %20 and other non-alphanumeric characters are converted. Read Only Attribute Simply check this box if you do not want to let users edit this field. It will add the readonly attribute to your form field. Disabled Attribute Simply check this box if you do not want to submit this field in the form. It will add the disabled attribute to your form field.

Display content conditionally based on a schedule. Choose from three scheduling modes: Date Range – Show content between specific start and end dates Recurring – Show content on specific days of the week during a time window Custom – Use PHP strtotime expressions for flexible scheduling Gutenberg Block The Display During block provides a visual editor with: Sidebar controls for all three scheduling modes Date/time pickers for start and end dates Day-of-week checkboxes for recurring schedules Live status indicator (active/inactive) Optional fallback message when content is hidden Copy as Shortcode toolbar button Shortcodes The [display_during] shortcode works in the Classic Editor and anywhere shortcodes are supported. Date range: [display_during start_day_time=”June 1, 2026 8:00 am” end_day_time=”December 31, 2026 11:59 pm”]Content here[/display_during] Recurring schedule (new in 2.0): [display_during days=”mon,wed,fri” start_time=”09:00″ end_time=”17:00″]Office hours content[/display_during] Custom strtotime: [display_during start_day_time=”Sun 8:00 am” end_day_time=”Mon 8:00 pm”]Weekend content[/display_during] With fallback message: [display_during end_day_time=”June 1, 2026″]Register now![display_during_message]Registration has closed.[/display_during_message][/display_during] Shortcode Parameters start_day_time – When to start showing content (strtotime string or date) end_day_time – When to stop showing content days – Comma-separated days for recurring mode (mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat,sun) start_time – Start time for recurring mode (HH:MM format) end_time – End time for recurring mode (HH:MM format) timezone_location – PHP timezone identifier (defaults to site timezone) message – Plain text fallback message (legacy; use nested shortcode for rich content)