If you’ve read my recent reviews, you may have noticed (or rather you probably couldn’t fail to notice) the wonky opt-in forms. There was a 3-inch blank space above each of them, and nothing I did made it go away.

I was really frustrated. That was a new one!

Trying to Get Help For The 1Shoppingcart Optin Form Formatting Problem

At first, I thought it was because I’m using an ANCIENT theme, but no. Yesterday, I was putting a 1Shoppingcart optin form on one of my clients’ sites, and aaargh! It did the same thing! HUGE white space. Not cool!

So I called up 1Shoppingcart’s tech support…

They basically told me that the formatting problem when using their optin form wasn’t THEIR problem. They provided a plain form and the formatting came from whatever style sheet I might use. I should go to my web guy and have him fix it.

Hello!!! I AM my web “guy”! And I feel that they should be able to give me some sort of help with that.

I also kept Googling this issue, and while I didn’t find the solution outright, I found a fantastic resource that eventually solved my problem! It’s also a resource that will hold a very special on my roladex and my bookmarks from now on!

The Solution To the Formatting Problem

So here’s where I found the solution:

1ShoppingcartExperts.com

They came to the rescue! Or rather Tyler Sorensen, who is the expert behind it (or one of them).

I sent an email, explaining my 1Shoppingcart Optin Form Formatting Problem and he emailed me back on the same day!

And… he provided the solution! Wow!

I bet you want to know what the problem was, and how it was solved, so here goes…

Apparemtly, WordPress inserts a break whenever there’s a line break. So while I couldn’t see the break code snippets (at least not in my own blog, but I COULD see them in my client’s blog), I eliminated the break thingies in hers, and that fixed it. I also eliminated all the line breaks in my own blog!

And magically, the white space disappeared!

So if you find yourself with extra white space, and you have your form lined up prettily like in the example below, just remove the line breaks! Or any commands you can find.

The Example for the 1Shoppingcart Optin Form Formatting Problem And Its Solution:

For your amusement and edification, here’s the code that caused all the trouble, with the personal info removed, of course.  I also didn’t include the part with the actual form, for space reasons.

Anyway, check out the “before” version (with line breaks) which is so much prettier looking, but unfortunately, not very functional:

<form name=”form1″ method=”post” action=”https://www.mcssl.com/app/contactsave.asp”>
<input name=”merchantid” type=”hidden” id=”merchantid” value=”XXXXX”>
<input name=”ARThankyouURL” type=”hidden” id=”ARThankyouURL” value=”XXXX”>
<input name=”copyarresponse” type=”hidden” id=”copyarresponse” value=”1″>
<input name=”defaultar” type=”hidden” id=”defaultar” value=”XXXXX”>
<input name=”allowmulti” type=”hidden” id=”allowmulti” value=”0″>
<input name=”visiblefields” type=”hidden” id=”visiblefields” value=”Name,Email1″>
<input name=”requiredfields” type=”hidden” id=”requiredfields” value=”Email1″>

And here is the “fixed” version, where there all the linebreaks have been deleted:

<form name=”form1″ method=”post” action=”https://www.mcssl.com/app/contactsave.asp”><input name=”merchantid” type=”hidden” id=”merchantid” value=”XXXXXX”><input name=”ARThankyouURL” type=”hidden” id=”ARThankyouURL” value=”http://www.myfavoritewebstuff.com/talkspot”><input name=”copyarresponse” type=”hidden” id=”copyarresponse” value=”1″><input name=”defaultar” type=”hidden” id=”defaultar” value=”XXXXXX”><input name=”allowmulti” type=”hidden” id=”allowmulti” value=”0″><input name=”visiblefields” type=”hidden” id=”visiblefields” value=”Name,Email1″><input name=”requiredfields” type=”hidden” id=”requiredfields” value=”Email1″>

Obviously, the code will need to be inserted while using the html editor in order to result in actual optin forms…

Will I give up on 1Shoppingcart? Absolutely not. I still think they offer the best integrated autoresponder/shoppingcart system anywhere, especially in that price range. If you want more, you need to be willing to invest into InfusionSoft, which is not only expensive, but also technically much more challenging than 1Shoppingcart.  I’ve been told it  pretty much needs a dedicated tech person!

I’m actually planning a special site for 1shoppingcart help, especially for new subscribers! It will be free for anyone who signs up for 1Shoppingcart through my link!  Coming up in the next weeks. I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, if you want to try their system for four weeks for FREE, just CLICK HERE!

A Question for you:

What should I call my new 1shoppingcart help/coaching site?

www.1shoppingcartHelp.com or
www.1shoppingcartcoach.me or
www.1shoppingcartcoach.info

Please let know in the comments section!