Tutorials
A collection of missives and messages, along with nerd talk and company carryings-on.
Can’t Update Gravity Forms? Can’t Install Add-Ons? Your IP May Be Blacklisted
By Carl HancockWe have seen a rise in the number of people reporting issues automatically updating Gravity Forms, downloading or updating Gravity Forms add-ons from within their WordPress Dashboard. Upon investigation, we have discovered that the issue is typically due to a shared IP address being blacklisted by one of a number of Internet security firms. This is a common problem with shared web hosts. Unlike most VPS and dedicated solutions, shared web hosts will share an IP address across multiple customers. If one customer does something malicious (intentionally or unintentionally) he can get that IP address blacklisted by one or more internet security providers. In other words, one user of a shared IP address can easily ruin things for all users of that shared IP address. To be clear, this can also happen on VPS and dedicated solutions. You can accidentally get your IP address blacklisted, or the previous user of that IP address may have gotten it blacklisted. But it is much more common with shared web hosts that use shared IP addresses. This is an issue that web hosts should not ignore. If they are providing customers with blacklisted IP addresses, it’s like providing a user with a stolen… READ MORE
Read moreGravity Forms CSS Visual Guide
By Carl HancockView Guide (HTML Version) | Download Guide (png) We’ve put together a simple visual guide to help illustrate the structure of a form and the CSS class relationship.
Read moreCreating a Modal Form with Gravity Forms and FancyBox
By Carl HancockThere have been a few questions on how to create a Gravity Form in a modal window. For this example, we’re going to use the jQuery script “FancyBox” to create the modal form. Basically, what you’re going to do is to create a form, embed it in a simple page and then link to it from the page you want to include the modal form. Pretty simple right?
Read moreClearing Default Field Values with jQuery
By Carl HancockA few people have asked about automatically clearing the default field values on focus. While that’s not a feature in the current version of Gravity Forms, It’s easy enough to accomplish with a little bit of jQuery goodness. This script will remove any default value from input fields and textareas on focus, and if you haven’t changed it, will restore it on blur.
Read moreGravity Forms Feature Highlight: Entry List Customizer
By Carl HancockOne of the cool features of the Entry List that a lot of people haven’t yet put to use is the handy column customizer. When dealing with forms with many columns, Gravity Forms provides you with the flexibility to pick and choose which fields are used on the Entry List page.
Read moreGravity Forms Feature Highlight: Admin Only Visibility
By Carl HancockMany people are using Gravity Forms as a simple contact us form solution, it’s quick and easy to setup a form and have it live in a matter of minutes. Because of this, some of the more advanced features get overlooked. One of these is the Admin Only Visibility setting for fields.
Read moreGravity Forms Feature Highlight: Admin Labels
By Carl HancockOne of the great features of Gravity Forms that most people don’t know about is the Admin Label. This feature is available for every field and can be found as an option under the Advanced tab when editing a field in the form editor. It is the first option under the Advanced tab and allows you to rename the field for admin only use. What this allows you to do is call the field one thing on the frontend using the field label (ex. “Would you like to sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers?”) and refer to it as something else (ex. “Newsletter Signup”) when viewed in the administration tool.
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