AFB – Auto Form Builder with AI, Contact & Conversational Forms

Changelog

1.4.4

• New: UK Mobile format for the Phone field — validates UK mobile numbers in domestic (07700 900123) and international (+44 7700 900123 or 0044 7700 900123) formats, with optional format-as-you-type. Existing phone fields and other formats are unchanged.
• New: “Minimum Days From Today” option for the Date field — require the selected date to be at least a set number of days after today (e.g. 3), enforced in the browser and on the server. If a fixed First Allowed Date is also set, the later of the two applies. Existing date fields are unchanged.
• Improved: The Month & Year (calendar) and Time (clock) field icons now sit on the left, matching the inside-the-field icons for a consistent look across all fields (with right-hand placement kept for RTL sites).
• New: Inside-the-field icon support for the Drop-down field — show a built-in or uploaded icon at the start of the dropdown, matching the other fields. Dropdowns without an icon are unchanged.
• New: Auto-fill field values with conditional logic — automatically set a Text, Textarea, Number, Email, Phone, or URL field to a fixed value or copy another field’s value when your conditions are met. If the visitor edits the field their input is kept, and an auto-filled value is cleared again if the conditions stop matching. Works independently of the existing Show/Hide rules, so a field can use either or both.

1.4.3

• New: Month & Year field — collect month/year with an easy custom picker (year arrows and a single month grid), or year only with a year dropdown. Works with conditional logic, entry details, admin/user email notifications, URL prefill, AI form builder defaults, and AI Conversation forms. Existing Date fields are unchanged.
• New: “Block Future Dates” option for the Month & Year field, so answers cannot be later than the current month or year — ideal for questions like “When was your business established?”. Combine it with the Earliest Month/Year setting to bound both ends.
• New: Save your Customize design as a reusable theme, then apply it to your other forms with one click. Saved themes live in the Customize → Theme panel; existing forms and themes are unchanged.
• New: Label icons — add an icon next to any field label from a built-in library of 40+ icons, or upload your own PNG/JPG. Control the icon color, optional background chip, and size per field. Fields without an icon are completely unchanged.
• New: Inside-the-field icons — show an icon at the start of Text, Email, Number, Phone and URL fields, separated from the value by a divider. Choose a built-in icon or a PNG/JPG and set its color, background and size. Fields without an icon are completely unchanged.
• New: Popups — show any form in a popup without installing a second plugin. Create unlimited popups (modal, slide-in, sticky bar, full-screen, welcome mat, floating launcher), pick the pages they appear on, trigger them by time, scroll, exit intent, clicks and more, cap how often they show, and choose what happens after a successful submission. Fully keyboard accessible, loads nothing on pages without an eligible popup.
• Improved: The Popups editor now warns you about unsaved changes before you close it or leave the page, so popup edits are no longer lost by accident.

1.4.2

• Fixed: Name field with separate parts now labels each part correctly (e.g. “First Name” and “Last Name”) in the submission details, email notifications, and stored entries, instead of showing “Name” twice.
• Fixed: When only First Name and/or Last Name are marked required, the required asterisk now appears next to those parts.
• Fixed: The required asterisk no longer appears on every individual radio button or checkbox option — it now shows only on the field’s own label.

1.4.1

• New: URL prefill for individual Name and Address components — First, Middle, Last and Suffix, plus Company/Organization, Address Line 1 and 2, City, State/Province/Region and ZIP/Postal Code can each read their own URL parameter, so composite fields can be pre-populated from a link without workarounds.
• New: AI Assistant and AI Conversation are now active by default on fresh installs, and are enabled once on upgrade for existing sites. If you deactivate either, it stays off.
• New: “Build with AI” now always appears in the “Create a new form” dialog. When the AI Assistant is inactive it guides you to activate it, and when it is active but not yet connected it guides you to connect AIDA.
• New: Dismissible dashboard and Add-Ons prompts that walk you through activating the free AI features and then connecting AIDA, so the AI features are easy to discover.
• New: Export / Import button on the Submissions and Partial Entries screens that links straight to the CSV export and import tools.
• Fixed: URL-prefilled dropdowns (including searchable dropdowns) now fire the same change event as a manual selection, so conditional logic evaluates on page load and dependent fields show or hide correctly.

1.4.0

Released: 2026-08-06.

• New: AI Assistant (optional, off by default) — connect a free AIDA account to bring AI to your forms:
  • Build a form with AI from a plain-English description.
  • Document-to-form — upload a document and turn it into a ready-to-edit form.
  • Automatic conditional logic generation as part of AI form building.
  • One-click submission summaries and AI-drafted replies.
  • “Ask across your submissions” — answer questions spanning all entries of a form.
  • Admin AI chat assistant — a built-in assistant that answers questions about your forms and submissions and can create new forms for you.
• New: AI Conversation (now built-in, optional, off by default) — turn any form into a friendly conversational form: an AI chat that collects answers naturally, with optional appointment booking via Auto Form CRM.
• New: AIDA credits — a single shared credit balance that powers both AI features, always visible in the plugin. New accounts start with free trial credits; afterward, top up with one-time credit packs purchased on autoformcrm.com in a new tab (no payment ever happens inside the plugin). See the AIDA entry in the “External Services” section of this readme for exactly what data is sent, when, and to whom.
• Note: The core drag-and-drop form builder and all non-AI features remain completely free and never require an account. The AI features are opt-in and connect to AIDA only after you enable one.

1.3.1

• New: Per-component Required checkboxes on the Address field for Address Line 2, State/Province/Region, ZIP/Postal Code, Country, and Company/Organization — each appears under its component in Advanced Settings and can be toggled independently.
• Improved: Marking the Address field itself Required now automatically requires the two always-rendered core components (Address Line 1 and City), so a required address can no longer be submitted empty.
• Improved: Address country component — when the country is shown and Required, no default country is silently preselected (visitors must choose explicitly), and Hide Country never bypasses a shown, required country.
• Improved: Address renderer skips the Required flag for any component that is hidden, so a “required” toggle on a disabled component never blocks submission.
• Fixed: Conditional logic now works in every copy of a form on the page, including page-builder popups (Brizy, Elementor, WP Bakery, etc.) that clone or lazy-inject form markup — the manager tracks every DOM instance and listens at the document capture phase so overlays that stop event propagation cannot silence it.
• Fixed: Multi-step forms now correctly hide inactive steps even when a site serves a stale cached stylesheet — steps are hidden inline in addition to via CSS.
• Fixed: Required Name field with “Separate fields (First name, Last name)” enabled now validates the subfield values correctly and no longer reports the field as missing when it was filled in.
• Fixed: Required Address field now validates the submitted address components correctly and no longer reports the field as missing when it was filled in.
• Fixed: Required radio groups are enforced even when a page builder strips the native required attribute from the inputs (via a container-level flag), so radio validation keeps working inside popups.
• Fixed: Address subfield validation preserves the camelCase keys addressLine1 / addressLine2 so per-component labels and Required rules resolve correctly on submit.
• Improved: conditional-logic.js and multistep.js are now versioned by file modification time, so browser and CDN caches automatically pick up future frontend script fixes without requiring a full plugin version bump.

1.3

• New: Redesigned plugin dashboard — personalized hero header, four KPI cards (forms, submissions, unread, and this week with a week-over-week trend), a 14-day submission activity chart, recent entries, top-performing-forms ranking, built-in module status, quick actions, and a guided onboarding card when no forms exist yet.
• New: Multi-step forms — enable in Form Settings and split any form with Page Break fields, with step titles, custom Next/Previous button labels, and multiple progress bar styles.
• New: Step branching — skip a step or jump ahead based on earlier answers (forward-only, loop-safe), so every visitor only sees the steps that apply to them.
• New: Partial entry capture — optionally save in-progress answers, review them under Partial Entries, and auto-delete abandoned entries after a configurable retention period (1–365 days).
• New: Slack Notifications — post a message to a Slack channel the moment a form is submitted, using Slack Incoming Webhooks. Enable notifications per form, send different forms to different channels, choose per form whether the submitted answers are included, and verify your setup with a one-click test message. Only hooks.slack.com webhook URLs are accepted, no Slack credentials are stored, and passwords and file contents are never sent.
• Improved: Survey field answers in notification emails — ratings and scales show as score/max with end labels, and matrix answers list each question clearly (no NPS segment labels in confirmation emails).
• Fixed: Duplicating a form now regenerates field IDs and remaps conditional logic, branching, settings, and email merge tags, so copies never collide with the original on the same page.
• Fixed: Checkbox/radio, email, and searchable dropdown handlers work correctly when the same form is rendered more than once (e.g. page + popup).
• Fixed: Conditionally hidden fields stay hidden even when a site serves a stale cached stylesheet.
• Fixed: Required checkbox groups are validated correctly on the frontend.

1.2.9

• New: Survey field types — a new “Survey” category in the form builder with four field types, all free: Tabular Survey (a rows × columns Likert grid with an optional multiple-answers-per-row mode that collapses neatly on mobile), Star Rating (3–10 stars, keyboard accessible), NPS (the standard 0–10 Net Promoter Score scale with color-coded answers), and Opinion Scale (numbered 0/1–10 buttons with custom labels for each end).
• New: Survey Results page — a new admin screen with visual, per-question results: answer distribution charts for ratings and scales, stacked bar charts for tabular surveys, option counts for radio/dropdown/checkbox questions, an automatic NPS score with the Promoter/Passive/Detractor breakdown, and a 30-day response trend.
• New: Survey answers are shown in a readable format in the entry details (stars, NPS segment badges, per-question matrix answers) and CSV exports now write structured answers as readable text instead of raw code.
• New: Conditional logic works with all survey fields — for example, show a “What can we improve?” question only when the NPS score is 6 or less. Rules on a tabular survey match any row’s answer, and the rule editor now shows guidance (valid ranges, tips) when a survey field is selected.
• Improved: Survey fields follow the form’s Customize colors — scale buttons, matrix answers, and focus outlines use the form’s primary color instead of a fixed blue.
• Fixed: Star rating and tabular survey accessibility labels could appear as visible text on themes without screen-reader styles; the plugin now ships its own.
• Fixed: Form Analytics charts load again — the Chart.js library it relies on is now shipped with the plugin.

1.2.8

• New: Gutenberg block — insert any form directly from the block editor. Pick the form from a dropdown and see a live, styled preview right in the editor; the block always renders the latest version of the form, so no shortcodes are needed.
• New: WordPress dashboard widget — see your forms, total and unread submissions, and this week’s activity at a glance on the main WordPress dashboard, with a 7-day submissions chart, the latest entries (unread highlighted), and one-click shortcuts to create a form or open submissions.
• New: Prefill from URL parameters — enable “Prefill from URL Parameter” on text, email, phone, number, dropdown, and radio fields to fill them automatically from links like ?business-name=Acme. Also works for forms embedded on other websites: the host page’s URL parameters are forwarded to the embedded form securely.
• New: Color Picker field — let visitors pick a color with the native color selector. The chosen color is validated, stored with the submission, and shown as a color swatch next to its hex code in the entry details.

1.2.7

• New: User Registration & Login — create WordPress accounts automatically from form submissions. Map form fields to the account email, username, password, and first/last name (a single Full Name field is split automatically), choose the role new users receive (Administrator is never selectable), and respect or override the site’s “Anyone can register” setting. Passwords are handled by WordPress core and never stored with the submission or included in any email.
• New: Independent login form — the [auto_form_builder_login] shortcode now handles signing in, lost password, and password reset entirely on your own page; visitors never see the default WordPress login screen. Error and confirmation messages appear inline and never reveal whether an account exists.
• New: Login form appearance settings — customize the username/password labels, button text, five colors (button, button text, text, links, background), and corner radius from the settings page.
• New: Custom welcome email — replace the standard WordPress new-user email with your own subject and message, using placeholders such as {username}, {email}, {first_name}, {site_name}, {login_url}, and {set_password_url}.
• Improved: Webhooks, analytics, and other submission actions now also run for forms whose confirmation is a redirect (previously they were skipped for redirect-only forms).
• Developer: New auto_form_builder_processed_submission_data filter lets integrations adjust submission data before it is stored, emailed, or passed to webhooks.

1.2.6

• New: Conditional confirmations — show a different success message or redirect to a different thank-you page based on the visitor’s answers, with multiple rules combined using AND/OR logic (first matching rule wins).
• New: Conditional email rules — skip the admin notification or send it to a different address with a different subject and message based on the visitor’s answers; the user confirmation email can be skipped or customized the same way.
• New: Plain text email format — choose between the styled HTML layout and a simple plain-text format for admin notifications and user confirmation emails, per form.
• New: Custom Message field for admin notification emails — write your own notification body with the same placeholders as the confirmation email, such as {submission_data} and {form_name}.
• New: Help text on the Forms screen explaining the difference between the shortcode Copy button (this website) and the Copy embed code button (any other website).

1.2.5

• New: Signature field — let visitors draw an e-signature (mouse, touch or stylus) that is saved with the submission and shown in the entry details. Works on regular pages and embedded forms.
• Fixed: Fields left without a label or name no longer show their internal ID (a string of numbers) in the entry view and email notifications — a friendly field-type name is shown instead.

1.2.4

• New: Embed forms on any website — copy a ready-made embed code from the Forms screen and paste it into any site, even non-WordPress platforms and page builders. The embedded form keeps its original design, auto-resizes to fit its content, and stays isolated from the host theme’s styles.
• New: “Break out of iframe” option for redirect thank-you pages — optionally open the redirect page in the full browser window instead of inside the embedded frame (off by default, so existing behaviour is unchanged).
• Improved: Embedded forms load reliably alongside caching/optimization plugins (LiteSpeed, WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache) so auto-resize works out of the box.

1.2.3

• New: Inline validation for searchable dropdowns and pattern/format input rules — invalid fields now show an inline error message, are visually marked, block submission, and the form scrolls to and focuses the first invalid field. Errors clear automatically as the visitor corrects them.
• New: Opt-in, anonymous Usage Data — an optional, off-by-default setting (available in the onboarding screen and under Settings → General) that sends a one-time anonymous “install” event when you opt in and an “uninstall” event when the plugin is deleted, so we can measure the uninstall rate and prioritise improvements. Fully anonymous (random local site ID only), https-only, and never sends your site URL, email, IP, or any form/submission content. See the “External Services” section for the full disclosure.
• Improved: Refreshed compiled frontend bundle and build tooling for faster, more reliable form rendering.

1.2.2

• New: Email Branding — customize 3 colors (accent, heading/text, page background) for admin notification and user confirmation emails per form. Defaults match the original look, so existing forms render byte-for-byte identically.
• New: Optional hyperlink inside Single Checkbox (Yes/No) field text — embed a link to a privacy policy, terms page, or any URL directly inside the consent checkbox label, with optional “open in new tab”.
• New: Email deliverability tip displayed inside form settings whenever an email feature is enabled — explains why messages may land in Spam without an SMTP plugin and how to fix it, without naming or recommending any third-party product.
• New: Opt-in, anonymous Deactivation Feedback dialog — appears only when an admin clicks Deactivate from the plugins screen, shows the exact payload before sending, and provides a clearly visible “Skip & Deactivate” option. No site URL, email, IP, or personal data is collected.
• Improved: Duplicate-submission protection — the submit button now visually locks after the first valid click and re-enables on validation errors or browser back navigation, while the server silently absorbs identical payloads received within a 10-second window. Prevents duplicate entries from rapid double-clicks, slow networks, or browser/service-worker replays.
• Improved: WordPress.org compliance — explicit “External Services” section added to the plugin readme covering the optional opt-in feedback endpoint.

1.2.1

• Fixed: Form submissions on pages with non-Latin URLs (Georgian, Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese, Hebrew, Persian, Thai, etc.) no longer redirect to the WordPress admin login page after submit
• Fixed: Required field validation now works correctly when a file upload field is present on the form — Name, Email, and other required fields no longer falsely report as missing
• Fixed: Conditional logic now triggers on single-selection searchable dropdowns when an option is chosen
• Fixed: Multi-select dropdown chip remove icon now correctly deselects the option (previously did nothing)
• Fixed: Clicking directly on a checkbox inside a multi-select dropdown now properly toggles selection
• Fixed: Flash of unstyled content (FOUC) — fields hidden by conditional logic no longer briefly appear on page load before being hidden by JavaScript
• New: Move Up / Move Down buttons on each form field in the builder canvas — click-to-reorder alternative to drag-and-drop, with first/last fields automatically disabled
• New: Dedicated “Report a Bug” admin page with direct links to the online bug report form and email support, plus a prominent CTA banner on the Help & Documentation page

1.2.0

• Fixed: Date fields now display in the user-configured format (e.g. DD/MM/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY) on the submission detail page in the dashboard
• Fixed: Date fields now display in the user-configured format in admin notification emails and user confirmation emails (subject, body, and {submission_data} table)
• Fixed: Date field placeholders in custom email templates (e.g. {birthday}, {start_date}) now respect the per-field date format setting
• Fixed: HTML formatting tags (e.g. <br>, <p>) are no longer stripped from the “Custom Message” field of the User Confirmation Email when saving form settings
• Fixed: HTML formatting tags are no longer stripped from the “Success Message” field when saving form settings
• Fixed: Required single checkboxes (e.g. consent, privacy, terms) now trigger the browser’s inline “Please check this box” validation on submit, matching the behaviour of other required fields — prevents the full-form error banner and avoids losing typed data
• New: Optional “Show Date Preview” toggle for date fields — allows hiding the date preview chip below the date picker when not needed
• Fixed: Form container no longer remains visible as an empty box after successful AJAX submission
• Fixed: Email notifications now show field labels instead of numeric IDs for fields inside Row layouts
• Fixed: Multi-select dropdown validation entries no longer appear in email notifications
• Fixed: Removed orphaned CSS enqueue that caused a 404 request on every form page

1.1.9

• Fixed: Conditional logic now works correctly with multi-select dropdown fields (searchable dropdowns with “Allow Multiple Selection” enabled)
• Fixed: Required fields hidden by conditional logic no longer block form submission

1.1.8

• New: 8 industry-specific form themes — Healthcare, Real Estate, Education, Restaurant, Tech/SaaS, Legal, Nonprofit, Fitness
• Improved: All 12 existing form themes redesigned with richer gradient backgrounds, deeper shadows, and color-matched field styling
• Improved: Themes now activate button hover effects (grow, shadow) and form entrance animations (fade-in, slide-up)
• Improved: Field icon colors, input shadows, and success message colors are now tinted to each theme’s palette
• Fixed: Theme architecture — switching themes no longer carries stale properties from the previous theme
• Fixed: “Reset Theme to Default” now produces the exact same result as clicking the theme
• Fixed: Elementor compatibility — form padding, layout, and button styling fully restored when using Elementor shortcode widget
• Fixed: Submit button visual fallbacks for Hello Elementor and other minimal themes with aggressive CSS resets
• Fixed: Two-column field layout breaking inside Elementor containers

1.1.7

• New: Outbound webhooks — send form submission data to external CRMs and platforms (e.g. GoHighLevel, Zapier, Make)
• New: Webhooks settings tab under Settings with enable toggle, endpoint URL, and optional HMAC-SHA256 signing secret
• New: Form border controls (width, color) in the Customize panel
• New: Form border radius and box shadow options in the Customize panel
• New: Background color opacity control for solid backgrounds
• New: Help text color control in the Customize panel
• New: Header overlay with configurable color, opacity, and separate hover overlay settings
• New: Name field layout option — stacked or side by side
• Fixed: Header image not respecting form border radius (inner radius now calculated correctly)
• Fixed: Header image padding/margin causing gaps inside bordered forms
• Fixed: Submit button styles not applying due to insufficient CSS specificity
• Fixed: Dynamic CSS timing issues on Elementor and late-rendering themes
• Fixed: Name field inline CSS removed in favor of dedicated stylesheet
• Fixed: Submit button hover color, border, animation, and helper text not rendering in Preview tab
• Improved: Developer filters for webhook payload, request arguments, and private host allowlisting

1.1.6

• Fixed: Forms displaying without styling on Hello Elementor and other minimal themes
• Fixed: Form Customize settings (colors, fonts, header image) not applying on Elementor-based themes
• Fixed: Admin pages (Add-Ons, Settings, Dashboard) flashing unstyled on first load
• Fixed: Modern file upload CSS returning 404 error due to incorrect asset path
• Fixed: Incorrect page slugs in admin critical CSS loader causing FOUC on multiple pages
• Fixed: Misleading “Premium version” references in CAPTCHA notices

1.1.5

• Fixed: New form submissions not appearing on the Submissions page
• Fixed: “All” tab on Submissions page not loading results
• Fixed: Submission status counts not including entries with legacy null status

1.1.4

• New: Button border controls (color, width, radius) in the Customize panel
• New: Button helper text option with above/below positioning
• New: Button hover text color control
• New: 15 additional Google Fonts (total 20 fonts available)
• Fixed: Google Fonts not loading on rendered forms and admin preview
• Fixed: Button text color not applying on rendered forms
• Fixed: Form duplication now works without premium requirement
• Improved: Unified save — Settings tab now saves with the main Save Form button
• Improved: Submit Button Text moved to Customize tab for better UX
• Improved: Submissions page defaults to Unread tab
• Improved: Removed redundant Mark as Processed action (Mark as Read covers it)

1.1.3

• New: Custom dropdown time picker replacing native browser time input
• New: Time field now fully respects Time Intervals, Earliest/Latest Time, and 12h/24h Format settings
• Removed: Show Seconds option (unnecessary for most forms)
• Improved: Cleaned up dead CSS and JavaScript code for time fields
• Improved: WordPress coding standards compliance for all time field code

1.1.2

• Fixed: Background type switching not resetting properly between Solid/Gradient/Image
• Fixed: Uploaded background images not displaying in preview and frontend
• Fixed: Background patterns (dots, grid, diagonal, waves) not rendering on frontend
• Fixed: Background opacity not applying on rendered frontend forms
• Fixed: Gradient text inputs not persisting all gradient properties
• Fixed: CSS generation producing invalid output when background opacity is used
• Fixed: Frontend sanitizer stripping multi-value background-size and SVG data URLs
• Fixed: Missing style properties in save whitelist preventing frontend rendering
• New: Background Size, Position, and Repeat controls for uploaded background images
• New: Active highlight indicator on selected background pattern
• Improved: Preview device icons (desktop/tablet/mobile) more visually distinct
• Improved: Desktop preview panel wider for clearer differentiation from tablet

1.1.1

• New: Customize Form option — Visual form styling panel with theme selection, header image, background (solid/gradient/image/patterns), colors, typography, layout, and field customization
• New: Form Analytics — Track form views, submissions, and conversion rates with a dedicated analytics dashboard and charts
• New: reCAPTCHA Protection — Google reCAPTCHA v2 and v3 support to prevent spam and bot submissions
• New: Cloudflare Turnstile — Privacy-first CAPTCHA alternative with better user experience
• All three are built in and can be activated free from the Add-Ons page

1.1.0

• Fixed: Major CSS conflicts with WooCommerce and other plugins
• Fixed: Global CSS selectors no longer affecting entire WordPress admin
• Fixed: Scrollbar styling no longer applying site-wide
• Fixed: WordPress core class overrides (button, notice, wrap, form-table)
• Fixed: Reduced motion media query no longer breaking animations globally
• Improved: All plugin CSS now properly scoped to plugin areas only
• Improved: Better WordPress coding standards compliance
• Performance: Optimized CSS loading for admin pages

1.0.9

• Added user confirmation email feature – send thank-you emails to form submitters
• New settings: email field selector, custom subject, custom message, reply-to address
• Supports placeholders in confirmation emails ({form_name}, {site_name}, {submission_data}, etc.)

1.0.8

• Added customizable submit button text in form settings

1.0.7

• Added support infrastructure for premium extensions compatibility
• Added Pro-compatible hooks for submissions page (tags column, filters, actions)
• Added Pro-compatible page aliases for extension URL compatibility
• Entry Tags and Google Sheets extensions now work with the free version

1.0.6

• Fixed CSS conflicts with other plugins
• Improved compatibility with different server configurations

1.0.5

• Cleaner admin interface

1.0.4

• New onboarding experience for first-time users
• Form template selection (Contact, Feedback, Support, Newsletter, Event Registration)

1.0.3

• Updated WordPress compatibility to 6.9

1.0.2

• Fixed form builder loading in translated languages

1.0.1

• Added 13 language translations
• Updated requirements: WordPress 6.0+, PHP 7.4+

1.0.0

• Initial release of Auto Form Builder
• Drag-and-drop form builder
• 20+ field types
• Multi-step form support
• Submission management
• Email notifications
• CSV/JSON export
• Mobile-responsive forms