News & Updates -

Gravity Forms 2.6 RC 1: It’s Time to Test!

By Gravity Forms Published February 4, 2022

We are excited to announce the release of Gravity Forms 2.6 Release Candidate 1. Packed full of new features that significantly improve the form building experience, we can’t wait for you to test 2.6 RC 1 and share your thoughts and feedback with us!

Read on to get an overview of the top features in 2.6, as well as how to install 2.6 RC 1, and best practices to help you get started today…

What’s New with Gravity Forms 2.6?

Gravity Forms 2.6 boasts a number of exciting new features including a a relocated form Submit button, a new intuitive form embed process, and an impressive redesign of the UI for the Choices fields.

Let’s take a look…

• An Inline Submit Button – With 2.6 you will find the form Submit button has been moved from Form Settings into the form editor. A long-awaited feature, you will now be able to easily inline your Submit button, as well as alter the settings, all without needing to leave the editor or use CSS Ready Classes.

• A New Form Embed Process – Embedding a form in your website has never been easier with the Gravity Forms 2.6 new Embed Form flyout. From within the form editor, you will now be able to select where you would like a form to be displayed – this can include an existing page, post, or custom post type (with the use of filters). Equally, you will also have the option of creating both a new page or post, as well as viewing the form ID, and copying the form’s shortcode if required.

• An Improved Layout for Choices – With Gravity Forms 2.6 you will find a new and improved Choices flyout that is responsive to page width. This extra space allows for a much better user experience, enabling you to easily view and manage the Choices options within the form editor. The Choices flyout also sees support for Bulk Choices, as well as our most popular third-party add-ons. And for our developers out there, you will now find it easier to inject other input fields into the Choices UI, again creating a better user experience for all involved.

• New Merge Tag Search – An improved merge tag UI sees search functionality added in, enabling you to easily search for the merge tags you need.

• Saving Forms via Ajax – With 2.6, the form editor will save any form changes using Ajax, giving you a much faster experience when making updates.

Gravity Forms 2.6 also includes further security and accessibility enhancements, a number of bug fixes, and other useful additions, ensuring the continued improvement of the plugin.

Any questions on any of the new features available with 2.6? Feel free to contact our friendly and knowledgeable Support team.

Get Started with Gravity Forms 2.6 RC 1

We are asking all members of our community to test 2.6 RC 1 and get in contact with any comments, questions, or feedback. This will help us to continue to identify and make the necessary changes and improvements needed before the final release of 2.6.

To install 2.6 RC 1 on your test site, follow these simple steps below…

Note: It is important to note that 2.6 RC 1 is not recommended for production sites – you should install and test beta in a sandbox environment.

1. Open your WordPress staging environment and if you have the current Gravity Forms plugin installed, you will need to Deactivate and Delete it from your site.

2. Switch over to your Gravity Forms account page. Under Downloads, you will find 2.6-RC-1.

3. Download the beta and upload it to your WordPress development site – it’s as simple as that!

For those who previously installed 2.6-beta-1, if you don’t have automatic updates enabled, simply update the Gravity Forms beta plugin within your WordPress dashboard.

Once you’ve installed 2.6 RC 1 you’re good-to-go, although have a glance over our best practice top tips below before you get started…

Best Practice for 2.6 RC 1

Here are some top tips for testing Gravity Forms 2.6 RC 1…

• Don’t Install 2.6 RC 1 on Your Live Site – As we mentioned, 2.6 RC 1 is not recommended for production sites. Even if you test 2.6 and think everything is working, you should still not use it on your live site.

• Question for Support? – You can reach out via our normal help channels if you have questions on the features and updates within Gravity Forms 2.6.

• Give Us Feedback – The beta period enables us to collect feedback from our customers and evaluate it quickly before release – if you have any suggestions or discover any issues, please contact our Support team and let us know!

Gravity Forms 2.6 Release Candidate 1 Changelog

• Added a form editor notification for forms that have legacy markup enabled.
• Updated text and styles of the splash page.
• Updated image submit button behavior when image has not been selected.
• Updated style of submit button in the editor.
• Updated the location of the choices UI trigger to the general settings section.
• Updated how unsaved changes are handled in the choices UI.
• Updated product field to use a label instead of a span for the label text.
• Fixed display issue in the choices UI for new forms.
• Fixed an issue that causes settings to disappear when user inserts a merge tag in a hidden field.

For more information on the features and changes released during the 2.6 beta period, check out the Gravity Forms 2.6 Beta Changelog.

Ready to Install 2.6 RC 1?

Gravity Forms 2.6 RC 1 is available for you to install on your sandbox environment – we can’t wait for you to try it out. Just pop over to your Gravity Forms account to get started with 2.6 RC 1 today!