Complete Guide to Dubsado’s New Form Builder 2022
As two self-dubbed Dubsado connoisseurs, we were over the moon when we first learned about the updates to Dubsado’s form builder. While it wasn’t terrible to use before, this upgrade that just rolled out for all accounts in July has increased our love for the platform times a thousand. Even though all of the blocks and options are basically the same, the form builder now has a whole new look that the majority of users will find more intuitive and easy to use.
We were part of the lucky group who were able to use the beta version of the new form builder for months, so we’ve already gotten used to the upgrade and have been sticking to it exclusively. Because of that, we knew we had to put out this unofficial guide to Dubsado’s new form builder!
Plus, if you’re looking for templates that take full advantage of the form builder - Check these out!
New Form Builder Design
The first change you’ll notice is the overall design. Whereas the previous form builder was just a tad elementary, it’s all grown up now with this sleek new design. Even just dragging and rearranging blocks has become much more fluid than it was in the old form builder.
The sidebar menu on the left is now where you can find (from top to bottom) your form blocks, form settings, styling (including custom CSS), and share options if creating a public form. This means that the share button is no longer in the top right alongside the save and preview buttons.
Noticeable Form Block Changes
COLUMNS… OR CONTAINERS?
So what’s new with the form blocks? Off the bat, the biggest change is that columns are now containers. The functionality of this block has been totally enhanced. You can add containers within containers and completely customize how elements are arranged on your forms, as well as play with the additional options you now have for the overall container and elements within them.
For containers, you can adjust the container width and height, choose a background color or image, adjust opacity of the background image, and add paddings and margins all around. For individual blocks inside your containers, you can adjust the top and bottom padding, scale, and alignment.
The photo grid example below shows only the tip of the iceberg for possibilities, so we encourage you to get creative with using other blocks inside containers.
TEXT BOX
With the old form builder, whenever you clicked on your text box to edit it, a window slid in from the side.
Dubsado has completely done away with that feature (to the pleasure of many users), and now you can edit all text directly in the form without that pesky separate window.
As for the rest of the form blocks, the functionality has stayed the same as before but the design is much more succinct. With packages in particular, you’ll find it not as difficult or confusing as it used to be to create new packages or edit existing ones within the form builder.
New Form Styling Options
By default, your form will have legacy mode turned on the form settings. This is to preserve old custom CSS on your form that you may have added using the old form builder. If so, we recommend keeping this turned on. Otherwise, you can turn it off and have access to the brand new Custom CSS styling block in the Form Styling menu.
This will make it so much easier for Dubsado users who like to customize their forms to the max with CSS to do so. It’s important to note that some custom styling you add may not display in the builder window, but you can preview the form or open it in a new window after adding to a test project to make sure everything is displaying properly.
As for the rest of the form styling options and settings, not much has changed there. You can still edit the form-wide text font, size, and color, as well as add padding to the top and bottom of your form. On the settings side, you can still include a contract, invoice and payment plan, make the proposal public, add an expiration date, default workflow, etc.
Full-Width Forms
One of the largest complaints Dubsado users had in the past was the inability to create full-width forms without the use of code. Well, Dubsado listened and, by default, forms created in the new form builder will now be full-width. Note that if you wish to edit your existing forms to be full-width in the new form builder, you’ll need to turn Legacy Mode off. Here’s an article from Dubsado about adding full-width images to your forms.
This has to be our favorite update to the form builder, since now proposals that are used as a public landing page will look even more like a website. Your clients will be completely taken aback by how beautiful your forms look!
You’ll Get Used to it in No Time
Since there are very little changes in terms of features and the biggest difference is the overall design, this makes the new form builder very easy to get used to. You’ll quickly pick up on the intuitive new design, but even if you don’t like it at first, you’re still able to switch back to the old form builder until January 31, 2023.
If you would like a jumpstart on the new form builder, we have you covered with one-click templates for Dubsado’s New Form Builder. Everything from Dubsado Lead Capture Forms, Proposal, VIP Day template, and On-boarding/Off-boarding guides. You can preview all the templates here.
