[docs] new reference guide on contact forms in Gatsby

marcysutton commented 5 years ago

Summary

A common question in Gatsby is how to build a functioning contact form (it is also a key workflow). Without a server runtime environment, it isn't exactly intuitive how to hook up a form action to submit data.

The first step to improving that workflow would be to create a reference guide in the docs; reference guides are technical documentation outlining the various ways to build things in Gatsby (as opposed to tutorials, which are step-by-step instructions). Check out the docs templates and [Gatsby Style Guide[(https://www.gatsbyjs.org/contributing/gatsby-style-guide/) for more information.

Here are some of the potential points to include in such a guide:

Link to the Adding Forms doc
Briefly mention creating accessible forms because it's a common barrier on the web, and we should take every opportunity to educate
Use cloud/serverless functions for form action, like Netlify, AWS Lambda or Azure
- This could also mention Netlify's honeypot feature for spam prevention
Stand up your own API server, i.e. with Express or similar
Try services like FormSpree (be sure to test to make sure it works for submissions!)

This could be added to the docs sidebar under "Adding Website Functionality", under Adding Forms. The title of this one should differentiate that it is about hooking up the contact form, more than building out the markup; something like "Building a Contact Form" perhaps?

This is up for grabs if anyone wants to take it on!

dyyyl commented 5 years ago

I can try taking this one up!

marcysutton commented 5 years ago

@dyyyl awesome. Let us know if you have any questions!

dyyyl commented 5 years ago

Hey @marcysutton! I'm getting close to PR time, but I'm struggling to add the new article to the sidenav. Can you please point me in the direction on how that's managed in the repo? Thanks!

dyyyl commented 5 years ago

Hey @marcysutton! I'm getting close to PR time, but I'm struggling to add the new article to the sidenav. Can you please point me in the direction on how that's managed in the repo? Thanks!

Actually, scratch that! Managed to figure it out, PR is out! Really enjoyed working on this one 😄

gillkyle commented 5 years ago

Merged in #14768

gatsbyjs / gatsby

[docs] new reference guide on contact forms in Gatsby #14564

Summary