Good plugin with terrible usability

Sorry to read your awful experience,

The look is complicated[…]

agree that the UI could be better, that ain’t my forte. If you are a UI designer, I would welcome contributions.

[…] and the code is messy.

I am assuming you’re talking about the HTML markup? Problem is that you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs, to get grid layouts you need messy looking HTML.

in some situations, you may save the form and lose changes you’ve made.

that sounds like you have an error on your server, either in the backend or on the js console. The editing/saving procedure uses the WP core edit.php page and as such is the same as any other custom posts.

Furthermore, I also noticed that this plugin ends up being incompatible with popular plugins like Conditional Fields PRO, since it is impossible to add repeaters or multistep tags without having to resort to manual HTML editing

well surely that’s up to the author of that plugin to make it compatible. I am not sure about the PRO version, but the free one **is** compatible, and Jules Cole and I have gone to some extent to fix that.

I really admire the attempt to try to make a more useful interface for CF7, but I think this plugin needed to be rethought with a UI focus.

A better UI would be great, but this plugin is way more than just making grid layouts. Its an attempt to simplify the creation and maintenance of complex forms that would normally require a lot more time ane effort without the automated functionality provided here.

If you need a better UI to make simple forms, I would recommend some of the other plugins such as WPForms which has a really nice UI

As I believe this plugin is an excellent contribution to the community and thinking about its potential, I took the liberty of sketching some ideas that could improve the plugin’s usability.

I designed some screenshots of how the form editor look might work. Note that I reorganized the flow of adding fields a bit:

01: https://snipboard.io/aZDQM2.jpg
On this screen, I think we could cut out distractions. Also, I organize the fields into elements that can be inserted into columns that can be inserted into rows.
Columns can have adjusted sizes (such as 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 2/3, 1/4, etc.). Rows take up the entire width and are filled with columns. Elements are stacked vertically within a column. You can only add a field within a column.

02: https://snipboard.io/fNmkEi.jpg
On this screenshot, we have a slightly more complex form. Notice how it is possible to organize the fields in columns and rows.

03: https://snipboard.io/1IlNBU.jpg
As the plugin is today, all fields are editable directly from the interface. I understand the practicality of this, but it means that there are a lot of editable fields and a lot of buttons, which makes the whole interface very confusing.
So I thought of editing the elements in a modal, by clicking on the pen icon that appears on the mouse hover.

04: https://snipboard.io/vceZFn.jpg
Likewise, when clicking “Add Field”, a modal opens revealing the usual CF7 shortcodes.

05: https://snipboard.io/Qbf6Mm.jpg
When adding or editing a field, before editing the shortcode, we would have the option to add a label or a description. I think it’s important to limit this feature to only relevant field types. This doesn’t make sense for an acceptance field, for example.

I’m not a developer, so I don’t know the level of complexity of this proposal. It’s also just a start, I’m probably missing important features since I did it quickly. But I think an adjustment in this sense could already significantly improve the user experience. The idea was not to think of anything very innovative, but to try to reorganize what already exists.

If you like the ideas and want to move forward in that direction, I’d be happy to help. I am available at [email protected] for a more direct contact if you prefer.

Anyway, congratulations for the work so far, my intention with the review was not to criticize your work lightly, but just to warn new users that the plugin is not user-friendly and to say that this is its biggest flaw. But if we can fix that, I think your plugin has what it takes to become indispensable in any WordPress installation.

Hey @wiliamjk good of you to put in the effort for a constructive feedback ??

I think the best would be to take this to the GitHub repo and put into a one or more issues. This will allow us to get a conversation going and include code references to see how we can make some of these happen