Gravity Forms Create Front End Login / Register / Edit account – PART 2

Welcome back to the second part of our series! In our previous tutorial, we created an easy-to-use login form for your website using Gravity Forms. It streamlines the login process, making it hassle-free for your visitors. In this next tutorial, we’ll focus on another essential aspect: the user registration form. It’s like giving your website’s visitors the key to join your community and become active members.

A Quick Recap

In our first tutorial, we built a simple yet effective login form using Gravity Forms. This form not only makes logging in a breeze but also keeps your website secure by ensuring only authorized users can access their accounts.

Now, we’re going a step further. We understand that a complete user portal includes a way for new users to join and for existing users to manage their accounts. This brings us to our current mission: crafting a user registration form that’s user-friendly and technically sound.

Part 2 – Creating a Simple Registration Form

Similarly to the previous form let’s go ahead and create a form with two simple fields:

1. Username (with the username CSS class assigned to it)
2. Email (with the email CSS class assigned)

To do so, go to:

1. Forms -> New Form.
2. Choose “Blank Form” from the popup window.
3. Add Form Title.
4. Drag & Drop Two fields from the right handside panel.
5. Assign username CSS class to the first field, assign the email CSS class to the second field.

Following the pattern, we’ll need to setup two hooks:

1. Which fires during the form validation.
2. Which fires during the form submission.

Note: click on the image, to reveal it in it’s full size.

Gform pre submission hook

This hook fires before the form has been submitted, but after the values have been validated. Let’s see the code we’ve used for that part: This hook will do the following:

1. Sanitize and store the $_POST superglobal array submitted form fields in the corresponding variables.
2. Verify whther the username and email exist.
3. If not – create a new user and notify them via email with their automatically generated password.

Gform validation hook

At this stage, we’ve successfully implemented the user registration form, enabling new users to sign up. However, it’s crucial to understand that without the proper validation rules in place, the form may be susceptible to data conflicts or inconsistencies. In essence, the form can be submitted even if the provided data contradicts existing entries within your system. To safeguard against such scenarios, we need to create and enforce validation rules.

The following code snippet is a vital piece of this puzzle, ensuring that the form is rigorously validated before any data is processed:

This code serves as a hook, and it’s crucial to understand how it functions:

• Validation on Each Form Field: The hook operates independently for each field within the form. This means that every piece of data submitted is rigorously validated on its own merit.
• Relying on CSS Class Names: To facilitate this validation, we rely on the CSS class names that were meticulously created and assigned to form fields earlier in the process. These class names act as the foundation for identifying and evaluating each field’s data integrity.

By implementing these validation rules, you ensure that any data entered into the registration form aligns with the criteria you’ve defined, preventing conflicts or errors within your system. This step is vital in maintaining data integrity and user experience.

It’s important to note that for the sake of this tutorial, we have temporarily disabled user registration on our site. Consequently, we won’t be providing a functional registration form in this instance. However, the knowledge and techniques gained through this segment can be applied to your live site when you’re ready to enable user registration.

With these validation rules in place, your user registration process will be more secure, accurate, and aligned with your site’s specific requirements. This marks the completion of the second part of our tutorial, bringing us one step closer to achieving a fully functional and reliable user registration system.

Example registration form

Note: this form is not associated with the above hooks.

Further steps

Tutorial part 1

Tutorial part 3

Where to get Gravity Forms from👇