We've got a brand new Formidable Forms launch. You’re going to love your new form experience!
Are you looking for a way to simplify and speed up the way you build forms and even enjoy doing it?
You're in luck. We’re excited to tell you about some big Formidable Forms changes. Version 4.0 comes with fantastic new ways to improve the way you build forms.
Our overall aim, as ever, is to make form building enjoyable with a simple, straightforward experience, even when you have complex needs. All the changes are designed to improve your experience and make creating forms with Formidable faster.
So, say goodbye to your form building worries with 4.0. Make sure you update your sites so you don't miss out.
We're hope you enjoy our new form builder as much as we do. Keep on reading to find out exactly what has changed with Formidable Forms v4.0.
Save time with our brand new form builder!
Our main focus for v4.0 has been to improve the form builder and the overall user experience. Anything we can do to improve your user experience is a win all round. That's why no stone has been left unturned.
The form builder has been completely redesigned to be clean, modern and user friendly. It's now full-screen, allowing a better use of the space with less clutter to help you find the settings you need. When you load a new form, you'll find a refreshingly simple interface.
The sidebar position has been switched around to create a better flow with more space in both the builder and sidebar. The new sidebar now houses all the form options that used to be available in an accordion under each field. You can toggle between each field without anything moving around. Just click on the field you want to change, and the options will appear in the sidebar, ready at a glance.
You can also change the order of radio, select, and checkbox options, with a quick drag and drop interface. This makes it much faster to add, change, and rearrange the choices. The process behind the scenes is also faster, making it much more enjoyable to build Formidable forms. Plus, you see it all happening live so you know what you'll get.
All these changes are designed to make everything quicker and easier. With less clutter, you can find whatever you need in fewer clicks and speed up your form building process. That way, you can spend more time on other aspects of your business.
Edit longer forms in just a few clicks
Good news if you use long or multi-page forms. Those forms will be even easier to edit thanks to the new sidebar.
Pages and sections can now be collapsed, to make long forms easier to manage. You only have to expand the bit you want, without the hassle of trying to go through everything all at once. This makes it much easier to find the field you want to change with mo more endless scrolling.
Long forms have also been improved by only saving the fields you have clicked on. So, if you have a form with 100 fields, you click on 3 of them and update, only those 3 fields will be processed and re-saved.
Use placeholders alongside default values
We have made some important changes when it comes to placeholders.
A new separate placeholder option has been added to make it more intuitive. Now you'll have the option to have both a placeholder and a default value. Existing placeholders will automatically be moved to this new setting.
A placeholder has also been added for drop-down fields, which covers fields with auto-complete enabled.
Just a heads up. This has changed the way that default values work in a confirmation field. These will no longer be allowed and instead will automatically be set as a placeholder. It simply didn’t make sense to have a default value when confirming.
You can also toggle between the different ways of setting default values instead of seeing all the different settings at once. This makes it more clear that text default values, calculations, and watching lookup fields all get a value into the field that will override the other settings. You'll also see fewer settings until you need them.
Access add-ons without ever leaving the form builder
Speaking of making things easier and quicker, you can find another exciting change with our add-ons.
If you've been enjoying using our range of handy add-ons and integrations with your favorite apps, it's about to become even easier. We recently added the option to install add-ons from the Formidable ? Add-ons page, but now we've eliminated steps to start using them.
You can now find all integrations in the Form Actions section on your form builder, whether they are installed or not!
There's no need to leave the form builder and add more disruptions to your workflow to download an add-on. This way saves you time and you can get back to whatever you were working on. Why waste time with extra clicks when 4.0 makes this so much faster?
Features de-cluttered to improve user experience
While we were busy bringing you a new form builder, we've also de-cluttered to make everything more streamlined. That means cutting some of the excess in our new form builder design but also in settings that are mostly unused.
We have removed the following:
- The option to disable HTML 5 didn't make the cut. This is a thing of the past and was only being used on 1% of Formidable sites.
- The option to load jQuery CSS on all the pages in Formidable Pro. We load this for you whenever Formidable needs it.
If you are using either of these settings, they will still appear for you. But once turned off, they will be gone forever.
Update to the best WordPress forms plugin
We hope you love the new Formidable Forms. Our redesign is all about saving you time to make your user experience simple and enjoyable with the best form building experience around. We have much more planned, with Formidable Views coming up next for a full redesign, followed by the form styler.
Don't miss out on the chance to save yourself time and boost your efficiency. Update to v4.0! We're excited to see what you think of the new builder. Feel free to get in touch with any queries or feedback.
For a full list of the changes we've made, visit our Changelog. We always keep this as up to date as possible with all the changes we make, big or small.
If you're not already using Formidable Forms and are looking for a WordPress form builder plugin, take a look at our range of intuitive form builder features. Learn just how easy it is to create a simple contact form and complex WordPress forms. Building forms is easy and enjoyable with Formidable Forms.
Great new design!
Congratulations formidable team! I am impressed by your courage to make such a big change in the user interface! It may take some time to get used to, but my first impression is very good, very intuitive. Already like it !
Thanks Eric!
We appreciate the encouragement. It seems like for every person who loves the new UI, somebody doesn't. We hope to continue working to find the balance where everyone loves and enjoys working with Formidable. We love feedback (Both positive and negative) so let us know what you like and don't like in the new version so we can continue to make improvements.
Hi, I'm cool with the new interface on v4, good job guys.
I love Formidable, but I'm very concerned about this update.
I know the team at Formidable cares and listens to their users which is why I've taken the time to write some specific feedback...
I'm a web and UI designer myself, so I understand the challenges involved in doing a redesign like this. It's a complex system. As such I want to make some suggestions, in hopes that Formidable can continue to be the great tool I know it to be...
1. Please. Don't go full-screen. We need easy access to the standard WordPress interface. I switched from Ninja Forms to Formidable for this exact reason. Removing the WordPress UI hurts the experience and makes it harder to navigate. If you feel it's necessary for some reason, maybe you can make it an option.
2. Don't make us name our form before we start. Adding a modal at the beginning interrupts the flow when we building a form. Often, I prefer to start adding fields before worrying about what to name it. More importantly, I see no easy way to rename a form later. This might sound trivial but details like this matter in the overall experience.
3. In Form Actions, if you have more than 6 options, the icons take up 2 rows even when there's more than enough room to fit them on one row. This results in an excessively tall menu that should be straigh-forward and compact. The fix is simple. Currently in your CSS ".frm_actions_list li" set to "width:15.6%". Using a flexbox would allow for more intelligent space handling. Or just use "em" instead of percent. Then reduce the padding
4. In the form actions screen the missing right column removes critical functionality such as adding "field keys".
5. When making a form, it used to be easy to make 1/3 or 1/2 width fields. This used to be easy, but now there are CSS classes are hidden under "Advanced" section, and more importantly, the class options like "frm_third" are nowhere to be found. This not only makes styling form slower, it requires us to have the class names memorized.
I feel the push simplify everything has made Formidable harder and slower to use (instead of the intended result). Removing the WordPress UI "traps" the user in the interface with no clear way back the standard dashboard. Removing the right column has removed critical functionality.
Formidable is a powerful tool that professionals like myself use on a regular basis. Drastic changes to it's UI are going to be disruptive (even if all the changes are good). My best recommendation is to go back to the original layout (which was excellent overall) and make more iterative changes rather than complete overhauls. Or... give a "Try the beta" button until this interface has the bugs worked out.
I've been impressed with the power and flexibility of Formidable. I honestly believe it's the best form plugin out there. I'm happy to expound or clarify any or my concerns.
Hi Steven, I responded to your help desk ticket so I won't rehash every detail here, but we have addressed many of your concerns in a 4.0.01 release that should be available in a couple of hours.
Thanks for the reply. It's good to hear that many of these things are being addressed.
I appreciate the changes you've made so far. I have another piece of feedback.
Under "Actions & Notifications" when you edit the email message, the available fields pop-up on top of the field you're writing in so you can't actually see what you're typing (once you get to the right side of the field).
Also, the box is very short so you can only see a couple of field entries, so you have to scroll to find what you're looking for.
This field really needs its own space. The original setup made it easy to see all the available fields at a glance, and it didn't cover-up what your typing.
Let me know your thoughts.
Great awesome update, love the modern look, and everything looks much simpler and easier than ever. Thank you very much.
Hi,
It was a "little" shock to see the changes in the U/I after updating to 4.0. Am not sure if I love it, since I was very familiair with the old workflow.
Anyway, time will tell...
Good luck with the busy times to come and keep on going the good work !
Nice work on the update. Will take some getting use to but overall it's pretty good.
Any reason why forms can no longer be set to draft though? That's a core part of wordpress on the whole and it's been missing from recent versions of Formidable.
How to speed up form after submission. There's a 1-2 second delay on multipage forms after clicking submit. Is there a setting to make it submit faster? 😀
Hi there,
If you could create a ticket from our Support page, our team will be happy to take a look and see if there is anything we can recommend to speed up your form. Thanks!
This is not so good wp formidable plugin.
The login admin is very slow