"Contact us" form in a custom template

Question

I have created a template in which I need to place the "contact us" form.

I can currently think of two ways to do this:
1)

echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('customer/form_edit')->setTemplate('contacts/form.phtml')->toHtml();

2)

Create a cms block with an id "contact_form"

and content:

{{block type="core/template" name="contactForm" form_action="/contacts/index/post" template="contacts/form.phtml"}}

then call it my template with:

echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('cms/block')->setBlockId('contact_form')->toHtml();

What would be the difference between those two approaches, and is there a better one?

Answer 1

If you have already a template the do call it like:

echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('core/template')->setFormAction($this->getUrl('contacts/index/post', array('_secure'=>true)))->setTemplate('contacts/form.phtml')->toHtml();

Because your 2nd way it like adding additional step to call same result. While 1st way does have wrong block because you don't need that, you just need to call block core/template and just set FormAction to it.