Flinkform – Forms for the Block Editor for WordPress Plugin Directory

Flinkform is a form builder that lives entirely inside the WordPress Block Editor. Forms are composed from native blocks (block.json v3), styled through theme.json design tokens, and powered by the Interactivity API — no separate admin UI, no shortcodes, no jQuery.

How it works

Block Editor native — forms are built with block.json and the Interactivity API, directly inside the editor

theme.json styling — forms inherit your theme’s typography, colours and spacing automatically

Modern stack — WordPress 6.5+, PHP 8.1+, no jQuery, frontend JS under 15 KB gzipped

Multi-step forms — split long forms into steps with a Page Break block, included in the free core

Conditional logic — show/hide fields based on user input, included in the free core

WCAG 2.1 AA — full keyboard navigation, screen-reader compatible, aria-live announcements

Privacy by design — no external services, no tracking cookies, no IP tracking — everything stays on your server

Features (free core) Form building

* 14 field types: Text, Email, Textarea, Number, Date, URL, Phone, Select, Radio, Checkbox, Toggle, Hidden, Consent, Address

* Composite Address field: street, postal code and city in a compact grid, with optional address line 2 and country

* Dedicated Consent field for privacy-policy agreement

* Notice block: a highlighted note between fields (info, success, warning, important) — pair it with conditional logic to surface guidance only when it applies

* Section Heading and Page Break blocks for structuring longer forms

* Multi-step forms with Page Break block, per-step validation and progress indicator (bar, dots or numbers)

* Conditional logic — show/hide fields, skip steps, gate the submit button, with nestable groups for “(A or B) and C”

* Two-column layout with per-field full-width override

Styling

* Automatic theme.json inheritance (colours, typography, spacing, border radius)

* Style panel: primary colour, field style (bordered/soft/underline/minimal), label position (above/beside/floating/placeholder), submit button style (fill/outline/ghost), plus colour pickers for labels and help/consent text — and the Section Heading block carries WordPress’s native text-colour option

Accessibility

* Built accessible: real label/for pairs, fieldset/legend for choice groups, errors announced via role=”alert” and linked with aria-describedby, focus moves to the first invalid field

* Multi-step navigation announces the new step via aria-live and manages focus; the progress indicator is a real progressbar with current values

* Visible focus rings even when the theme removes them, prefers-reduced-motion respected, and the spam protection needs no CAPTCHA — nothing to squint at, nothing to solve

* Works fully without JavaScript, and the form markup passes axe-core (WCAG 2.1 A/AA) with zero violations — including the error state

Notifications

* Admin notification email on every submission (configurable recipient, merge tags)

* Optional confirmation email to the submitter

* Sender name and address per form, with a Reply-To for each email — send from your own address without an SMTP plugin

* Sends through your site’s standard WordPress mail (wp_mail)

Spam protection

* Always-on honeypot + signed time-based check (zero configuration)

* Built-in proof-of-work challenge with accessible math fallback for visitors without JavaScript

* No external service, no API keys, no tracking cookies, 100% GDPR-friendly

After submission

* Success message or redirect to a custom thank-you URL (with open-redirect protection)

* Optional submission ID and form ID query parameters for conversion tracking (GA4, Meta Pixel, Plausible, etc.)

Admin

* Submissions list with search, filter by form, sort, bulk actions

* Single-submission detail view with all field labels and values

* Mark as read/unread

* Per-form data retention with automatic daily purge

Privacy Flinkform is built with privacy by default. Here is what the free core does and does not do:

What the free core stores:

* Form submissions (the field values visitors enter) in a dedicated database table ({prefix}flinkform_submissions)

What the free core does NOT do:

* It stores no IP addresses and no browser user-agent strings

* It sets no tracking, analytics or marketing cookies. Flinkform sets exactly one strictly-necessary cookie — flinkform_flash (lifetime ~60 seconds, httpOnly) — and only when a form submission fails validation, to carry the error message and the visitor’s input across the page reload. Successful submissions set no cookie at all

* It contacts no external service

Data retention:

* By default, submissions are retained until you delete them. To comply with the storage-limitation principle (GDPR Art. 5), set a per-form retention period (Form block → Data Retention) and Flinkform deletes older submissions automatically each day

* Individual submissions can be deleted from the admin submissions screen at any time

Data deletion:

* All free-core data (the submissions table) is permanently removed when the plugin is uninstalled through the WordPress admin

* Flinkform integrates with WordPress’s privacy tools (Tools > Export Personal Data / Erase Personal Data) to support data-subject access and erasure requests

Source Code The complete, uncompiled source code (including the src/ directory with the

unminified JavaScript/CSS that compiles into build/) is publicly available at:

https://github.com/dennisbuchwald/Flinkform

Build instructions (Node.js 18+ and npm required):

1. Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/dennisbuchwald/Flinkform.git

2. Install dependencies: npm install

3. Build the compiled assets into build/: npm run build

The build is powered by @wordpress/scripts (webpack). The src/ sources are

excluded from the distributed plugin zip to keep it small; this repository is

the canonical, reviewable source.