Anti-spammer Master & Form Reform working together

General information

Both packages offer some of the same anti-spam tools. You can use them at the same time if you wish, it doesn't matter.

They might work slightly differently or offer different options. For example, Form Reform and Anti-spammer Master deal with URLs in Text Areas differently.

The only Anti-spammer Master settings you'll have to manage within For Reform are:

1. Enabling it in to work with Form Reform
2. Deciding whether it will show a message or fail silently
3. Adding a Form Reform honeypot block if needed (more on this below)

Everything else is managed through the Anti-spammer Master settings form on the core Spam Control dashboard page.

Setting up Anti-spammer Master & Form Reform

Anti-Spammer Master for Form Reform provides a new Form Handler plugin that runs Anti-Spammer Master from within Form Reform's submit pipeline.

Simply insert the Anti-Spammer Master handler into the pipeline like you would any other handler. This will usually be at the top of the pipeline before, after or instead of Form Reform's Spam Detect handler.

Set it up to fail silently or display an error message when Spam is flagged.

The spam checks you configure in the Anti Spammer Master dashboard settings at Dashboard > System & Settings > Permissions & Access > Spam Control will then be applied to the Form Reform submission.

Honeypots and timers

Use them in your forms

Using honeypots and timers with Anti-Spammer Master and Form Reform is easy:

• For honeypots, simply add a For Reform honeypot block to your Form Reform Form and enable the option in Anti-spammer Master.
• For timers, simply enable the option in Anti-spammer Master. There's nothing to set in Form Reform.
• No need to set either the honeypot or timer handle fragment in Anti-spammer Master's settings

You can add as many honeypots to your form as you'd like, although one is usually enough.

Since Form Reform has its own honeypot checking system, you can disable one or the other or use them both at the same time. It doesn't matter, as Anti-spammer Master and Form Reform won't step on each other's toes.

What are honeypots and timers?

If you're not sure what honeypots and timers do, it's simple:

• A honeypot is a visually hidden input that should not be filled by the user. Normal users will NOT see it and won't try to fill it. Bots will see it and will most likely fill it up. Anti-Spammer Master will mark the submission as spam if the honeypot is filled.
• A timer is an input that allows Anti-Spammer Master to calculate how long it took for the form to be filled and submitted. Bots often fill forms in a matter of seconds. Forms filled too fast will be marked as spam.

Improving accessibility

It is good practice to put your honeypot blocks after the submit button. Putting it after the submit button will ensure users with disabilities using screen readers will not fill the honeypot accidentally. Other measures are in place to avoid that, this is just an extra measure but an important one.