probonodesign

<p><strong>Putting a form on your site isn’t the hard part anymore. With a popular free plugin, anyone can stand one up in minutes. The real work comes after that — getting it to a state where it actually runs well on a Japanese-language site.</strong></p>
<p>A furigana (reading) field, postal-code-to-address auto-fill, a confirmation screen before sending, a thank-you email to the sender, spam protection — the things a Japanese-site form obviously needs aren’t there by default in the usual plugins. You patch the gaps with add-ons or a second plugin, look up mail-merge tags, and sometimes edit HTML. Every field you add stacks on more setup. And the moment you reach for a confirmation screen or more advanced features, you often run into a monthly or yearly charge.</p>
<p>Probono Form Basic exists to remove all of that “work that comes after putting up the form.” It builds in the conventions a Japanese-language site needs from the start, and lets you complete a form <strong>just by clicking field buttons</strong> — a free, one-time (buy-once), made-in-Japan plugin. No coding, and no per-feature add-on fees.</p>
<h4>Running into these snags with the usual form plugins?</h4>
<ul>
<li>No built-in furigana field or postal-code-to-address auto-fill, so you fill the gap with add-ons or by hand</li>
<li>Just showing a confirmation screen before sending means adding another plugin or more configuration</li>
<li>You have to look up mail-merge syntax or HTML to get the notification and auto-reply you actually want</li>
<li>Every new field means learning a custom syntax, and the setup gets fiddly</li>
<li>Confirmation screens, advanced features, and add-ons sit behind monthly or yearly charges, and costs keep piling up</li>
</ul>
<p>Putting up the form isn’t the finish line — it’s the start. Probono Form Basic takes on exactly the day-to-day work that comes after.</p>
<h4>With Probono Form, you just click buttons</h4>
<p>Probono Form Basic builds your form <strong>by clicking field buttons</strong>. Name, furigana, email, phone, postal code, address, inquiry details — click the ones you need, and the form appears in the live preview on the right. No HTML, no memorizing shortcodes.</p>
<p>There are only three steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Install the plugin and click “Activate”</li>
<li>Click the field buttons to build your form</li>
<li>Paste the generated shortcode into a page</li>
</ol>
<p>That’s it — your Japanese contact form is live. The features that are expected but tedious to set up — confirmation screen, auto-reply, spam protection — are <strong>built in and working from the start</strong>.</p>
<h4>How it differs from a typical form plugin</h4>
<p>We won’t name names, but the differences from a typical form plugin are clear.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Setup effort</strong> — Typical plugins often expect you to learn mail-merge syntax, HTML, or a custom notation to get the form you want. Probono Form Basic is built to be assembled by clicking buttons, with no code.</li>
<li><strong>Fit for Japanese-language sites</strong> — Whether the essentials a Japanese site obviously needs are built in, with no add-ons: a furigana field, postal-code-to-address auto-fill, automatic honorific (san), a confirmation screen. Probono Form Basic was designed from scratch for Japanese-language sites.</li>
<li><strong>Cost</strong> — Many plugins lock the confirmation screen, auto-reply, spam protection, or add-ons behind a higher monthly or yearly plan. Probono Form Basic is free, with a one-time (buy-once) philosophy. Costs don’t grow with every renewal.</li>
<li><strong>Data handling</strong> — Probono Form Basic does not send what visitors submit to external servers, and it does not track usage. Everything stays inside your site (except the postal-code lookup for address auto-fill — see “External services”).</li>
</ul>
<h4>Why “Japanese optimization” actually matters</h4>
<p>On a Japanese-language site, how easy the form is to fill in directly affects how many inquiries you get. Probono Form Basic solves that concretely.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Postal-code-to-address auto-fill</strong> — When a visitor types a postal code, the prefecture and city are filled in automatically. No more making people type out a long address by hand — and fewer drop-offs.</li>
<li><strong>Automatic furigana generation</strong> — As the visitor types their name, the furigana (reading) field is filled in for them, removing the stress of entering readings manually.</li>
<li><strong>Automatic honorific</strong> — In auto-reply emails and on the form, the honorific “san” is appended to the name automatically, keeping things polite by Japanese business norms.</li>
</ul>
<p>“Fill it in without hesitation, in Japanese” — that obvious-but-overlooked baseline, with no special configuration.</p>
<h4>The tedious parts are automatic — so configuration stays minimal</h4>
<p>Probono Form Basic includes many features, but <strong>the number isn’t the selling point</strong>. What matters is that the processing a contact form actually needs works automatically from the start. Misdelivery prevention via a confirmation screen, an auto-reply to the sender, spam suppression, double-submit prevention — the parts that are tedious to build yourself are covered automatically just by adding the fields. So there are very few switches you actually need to touch. Read the list below as “what’s already working behind the scenes.”</p>
<p><strong>Form basics</strong><br />
Unlimited form creation, duplication, deletion (single/bulk), form renaming, 12 field types (name, furigana, email, phone, postal code, address, inquiry type, inquiry details, checkbox, radio button, file upload, terms agreement), required-field settings, real-time preview, shortcode output</p>
<p><strong>Confirmation screen</strong><br />
Show/hide the confirmation screen, customizable title and message, editable button labels, success/error messages</p>
<p><strong>Email</strong><br />
Admin notification email, subject customization, CC/BCC settings, auto-reply to the sender, reply-template selection</p>
<p><strong>Style</strong><br />
Form border on/off, 5 color themes, button shape, button fill, font size</p>
<p><strong>Japanese features</strong><br />
Postal-code-to-address auto-fill (zipcloud API), automatic furigana generation, automatic honorific (san)</p>
<p><strong>Spam & misdelivery protection</strong><br />
Honeypot (bot trap), submission-time check, double-submit prevention, misdelivery prevention via the confirmation screen</p>
<p><strong>Other</strong><br />
Responsive design, loading spinner on submit</p>
<h4>What changes after you install it</h4>
<ul>
<li>Clicking field buttons gives you a complete form, confirmation screen included</li>
<li>Visitors just type a postal code to fill in their address, reducing mid-form drop-off</li>
<li>The moment an inquiry arrives, the sender receives a polite auto-reply</li>
<li>Honeypot and submission-time checks suppress bot spam</li>
<li>One plugin lets you create unlimited forms for different purposes (contact, document request, recruiting, and more)</li>
</ul>
<p>The time you spent agonizing over “how do I build this form” goes back to “how do I respond to inquiries.”</p>
<h4>Free and one-time — all of it</h4>
<p>Everything above is <strong>free</strong>. No monthly subscription, no yearly renewal fee. “Try it free first, confirm it fits my site, then decide” — being able to make that call is the real value of a buy-once philosophy. Use it as your site’s inquiry desk without worrying about creeping costs.</p>
<h4>Why you can use it with peace of mind</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>It doesn’t collect submissions</strong> — What visitors enter is not sent to external servers or tracked as usage. Submissions stay within your site and your email (except the postal-code lookup for address auto-fill).</li>
<li><strong>No conflicts with other plugins</strong> — Probono Form Basic works independently and does not clash with other form plugins, avoiding trouble when switching or running side by side.</li>
<li><strong>Continuous development by Japanese developers</strong> — Built and maintained by developers who understand Japanese-language sites, keeping pace with WordPress core updates.</li>
</ul>
<h4>When you want to go further (Pro)</h4>
<p>When you need AI-powered text polishing or more advanced Japanese features, a separate Pro version is available. See <a href="https://form.prbn.org" rel="nofollow ugc">https://form.prbn.org</a>. Even the Basic version is more than enough to set up an inquiry desk for your Japanese-language site.</p>
<h4>Just install it and try</h4>
<p>A form isn’t something you “perfect before you publish” — it’s about quickly getting to a state where you can receive inquiries. Probono Form Basic gives you that desk with nothing more than <strong>clicking buttons</strong>. Free, buy-once, and no submission collection. There’s nothing to lose.</p>
<p>Install it, press “Activate,” and click the field buttons. From that day, your Japanese-language site has a contact form that simply works.</p>
<h3>External services</h3>
<p>This plugin connects to the zipcloud API to retrieve address information from Japanese postal codes. It is used to automatically fill in the address field when a user enters a postal code in the form.</p>
<p>The postal code entered by the user is sent to the zipcloud API only when the postal code field is used and the user inputs a value.</p>
<p>This service is provided by IBS Co., Ltd.:<br />
– Service URL: https://zipcloud.ibsnet.co.jp<br />
– Terms of service: https://zipcloud.ibsnet.co.jp/rule/api<br />
– Privacy policy: https://zipcloud.ibsnet.co.jp/policy</p>


Probono Form Basic

Build a Japanese contact form by clicking buttons — no code. Postal-code-to-address and furigana built in. Free, one-time — made in Japan.

Paul Fernhout

cfkurtz

<p>NarraFirma is companion software to the textbook <a href="http://www.workingwithstories.org" rel="nofollow ugc">Working with Stories in Your Community Or Organization: Participatory Narrative Inquiry</a>.</p>
<p>Participatory Narrative Inquiry is a form of Participatory Action Research in which groups of people share and work with their stories of personal experiences to understand each other and to make collective sense of complex issues and situations. You can use it to help the people in your community or organization discover insights, catch emerging trends, make decisions, generate ideas, resolve conflicts, and connect people.</p>
<h4>What is NarraFirma?</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<p>It’s a checklist. NarraFirma provides practical guidance as you work, with questions for you to answer, recommendations based on the conditions you describe, activities that help you make decisions, and just-in-time advice.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It’s a journal. NarraFirma helps you keep careful records about what happened in your project, and it gives you places to reflect on what happened. This reminds you to keep learning as you work, and it helps you to document your project for future reference.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It’s a kiosk. NarraFirma helps you collect stories, on-line and/or off-line, based on question forms you design (with sample questions you can copy). Because story collection is integrated, there is no need to export or import data.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It’s a workstation. NarraFirma helps you explore and interpret patterns in your data (stories and answers to questions about stories), creating annotated visualizations you can use to make sense of the stories you collected.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h4>Why choose NarraFirma?</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<p>It’s portable. You can install NarraFirma anywhere, as a WordPress plugin or a Node.js web application. Web hosting is inexpensive, popular, and well supported. You can also install NarraFirma on your local computer and use it off-line. (Whichever installation method you choose, we strongly suggest that you set up SSL security on your web site before collecting or entering confidential or important information. Many hosting providers can help you with this task.)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It’s a team player. With NarraFirma your team can work on projects together in real time without having to hand files back and forth. You can plan your project, collect stories, discover patterns, and reflect on what you’ve learned – together.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It’s an open book. NarraFirma is open source software. So if you have a question about how something works, you can just look at the source code to find out. If you need the software to do something it can’t do, you can add new functionality yourself or ask someone else to add it.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It works in the real world. One NarraFirma installation supports multiple projects, forms, data sets, and reports. Why? Because real-life story projects are rarely simple or predictable. So go ahead and make a mess. NarraFirma is ready for it.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Donations</h3>
<p>We have spent a lot of time developing NarraFirma. We appreciate donations, and will use them to keep working on it. You can donate at <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=DGVVDT2D49QA8" rel="nofollow ugc">PayPal</a>.</p>
<h3>Need some help?</h3>
<p>I offer training in the use of NarraFirma and consulting for PNI projects. If you are interested, check out my web site at <a href="cfkurtz.com" rel="nofollow ugc">cfkurtz.com</a>, or send me a note at cfkurtz at cfkurtz dot com.</p>


NarraFirma

Participatory Narrative Inquiry in a box. Gather stories and make sense of challenges and opportunities in your community or organization.

Probono Form Basic vs NarraFirma