Would like to condense some code.

[eluser]Damien K.[/eluser]
Yes, set_value() form helper function will use post data if available otherwise it will use the default value if provided as the second parameter -- e.g., set_value('email', '[email protected]').

I would imagine that most people in the community use this sort of approach.

If you are using the code I provided before, then set_post() will do all the 'magic' for you and you don't need to pass this data explicitly via $data (there still may be other data you might want to pass via $data). Note again that set_post() is not a CI build-in function--I've extended CI_Input to have this custom-made function to set post data so I don't need to pass it the 'normal' CI-way via $data.

I don't want to encourage you to detach yourself from passing data via $this->load->view('contact', $data), because this is 'common CI practice' and everyone does this! Furthermore, you still need to pass data, for example, page title using this method.

I'm probably only a few out there doing it the way I presented. It saves me a few keystrokes and it is intuitive for me. You should only try my approach if it is intuitive for you too -- don't try to force a square into a circle! There are more than one right way to do things. Feel free to inquire further -- it is a fairly big jump from where you started to the code I provided.