Global Search for Gravity Forms searches every form, entry, and note from one box. Version 1.7.2 fixes one fault, and a blunt one: deactivate Gravity Forms while Global Search was active, and the WordPress admin went down with it. It is a free update.
What’s new in 1.7.2?
Global Search is built on Gravity Forms. It borrows Gravity Forms’ own functions to check who may see entries, to fetch a form, to format a date. Earlier versions wired all of that up the moment WordPress started, on the assumption that Gravity Forms was already there. Usually it was. But deactivate Gravity Forms — to reinstall it by hand, to rule it out while chasing a conflict, or by a slip of the mouse on the Plugins screen — and the next admin page asked for a class that no longer existed. PHP stopped. The admin showed the critical-error screen, the front end went blank for anyone logged in, and the Plugins screen you needed to undo it was behind the same error.
1.7.2 waits. Nothing in Global Search that touches Gravity Forms is loaded until Gravity Forms announces that it is ready. With Gravity Forms absent, the plugin sits idle and posts one notice in the admin saying so. Reactivate Gravity Forms and search returns with the index intact; there is nothing to rebuild. The order in which plugins load no longer matters either, so a site where Global Search happens to load first behaves like any other.
Why it matters
A plugin should fail no harder than the thing it depends on. Turning off Gravity Forms should turn off search, and nothing more. Now it does.
The bottom line
Version 1.7.2 is a free update for license holders — it should already be waiting on your Updates screen. New here? Every purchase comes with a 14-day, no-questions-asked refund period. Grab Global Search →
Full changelog for 1.7.2
- Fixed: deactivating Gravity Forms no longer takes down the WordPress admin and the logged-in front end. Global Search now waits for Gravity Forms to load, and when it is absent the plugin stays dormant and shows a notice instead of a fatal error. Plugin load order no longer matters.
