Most will agree that easy user interaction and data collection is important for most blogs, websites and web applications. Providing users high quality and intuitive input forms may be just what is needed to make your users take the time to fill in and submit the information you’re trying to collect. Gravity Forms is a fully featured form management plugin for WordPress and it is really simple to use and maintain. It features a drag and drop interface, with an advanced notification routing, lead capture, conditional logic on fields, it has the ability to create posts from the external forms and much more. Basically it allows you to create any kind of form with WordPress in minutes. I have tried several form solutions, but honestly after trying Gravity forms I started to use it on tripwire magazine for contact forms and the community link submit service. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think in a comment.

Gravity Forms is a premium WordPress plugin and it shows. The features included in this plugin are really amazing and for most websites and blog you will find what is needed. On their website they have described all the features in a really cool and organized way and if you need forms on your WordPress website I recommend you go there and take a look. Just click the image or find it here.

When on the features page Clicking on one of the 28 feature feature highlights takes you to a detailed description to give you an idea of how it works and how it is managed. It is one of the best feature documentation I have seen so far for a WordPress plugin.

Lets look at Gravity Forms plugin interface

Gravity Forms adds a “Forms” section to the left sidebar of your WordPress admin area, from which you can easily access the large number of features Gravity Forms provides.

Clicking on the New form link takes you to the Form Editor. It is an interactive editor with drag and drop making optimal use of the limited space available inside the WordPress environment. Elements is only shown if needed or active and it makes the interface simple and easy to use.  First thing you do is configuring the form with title, description, css, confirmation details (ex. mail, redirect to page etc.).

Once the basics is in place you can add fields to the form. The form properties area will then collapse and elements will be added below it when clicked to the right.

Clicking in a form element will unfold it and allow you to set it up. Changing the order of elements is done using drag and drop.

Form elements available in Gravity Forms

Standard Fields

In the Standard Fields section you find the typical HTML form elements and the ability to add text and HTML code. This is the basic stuff needed for most forms. With these elements you will have simple validation like input is required and duplicate checking. You can also set up conditional logic on when to show the elements.

Advanced Fields

The next section is Advanced Fields and it is where you find the more advanced fields that fx. makes setting up a contact form so simple. If you add an email or website field for example it will automatically do basic validation on emails and urls entered.

The address field adds a complete address setup and you can specify if you want an International, an US or a Canadian address layout.

Post Fields

The third type of fields is for creating WordPress content from whatever users fill into a form. You could use this to allow readers of your blog to create guest posts. There are really many interesting way you can use this functionality. The fields correspond to concepts you know from WordPress and it is quite strait forward to use.

Managing the forms and the submitted Entries

Once the forms are online users will start submitting information to you. Fortunately Gravity Forms have a great interface for viewing, marking and deleting entries. Each form has its own page with entries.

On the Edit Forms over view page you can see how well your forms convert and do bulk actions, and access configuration.

Notification is important for both you and the user of the form. Here you set up the message you get when the form is submitted and the message you are sending the to user, if any.

My conclusion is that Gravity Forms is an excellent forms solution for WordPress. I have used of for several month now and it just works for me.

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