Ninja Geolocation 3.6 is focused on one goal: making powerful geolocation forms faster and easier to build.
Creating a complete location, distance, directions, or nearby-locations workflow can involve several fields and connections. Version 3.6 keeps the flexibility of Ninja Forms’ individual fields while adding guided Quick Setups, visible field relationships, native form templates, and smarter defaults.
Start with a connected setup, then customize every generated field normally in the Ninja Forms builder.
Build connected workflows with Quick Setups
The new Add quick setup button appears beside Add new field in the form builder. It opens Ninja’s native drawer, where you can choose a workflow, configure its options, review the fields, and add them.
Four Quick Setups are available:
- Location & Map – an Address and connected Geocoder, with an optional current-location button and map.
- Distance & Travel Time – connected origin and destination locations with routed distance and estimated travel time, or straight-line distance.
- Directions & Route – connected origin and destination locations, configurable route details, and an optional route map.
- Nearby Locations – a visitor location, a destination source, nearest-location results, and an optional results map.
Quick Setups create ordinary editable Ninja Forms fields—not a separate managed component. You can move, rename, remove, or configure each field afterward. Publish the form through Ninja Forms to save the generated fields and connections. An Undo action is available after adding an eligible setup, and the drawer’s Done button returns you to the builder.
Feature availability depends on your installed package. Quick Setup choices remain visible; if a setup requires a field that is not included, Ninja’s native upgrade dialog explains the available upgrade.
See how fields are connected
Geolocation fields often work together: an Address supplies a Geocoder, a Map displays locations, and Directions connects an origin, destination, route map, and optional output panel. Ninja Geolocation 3.6 makes these relationships visible directly on field cards.
Connection summaries distinguish connected, optional, missing, and broken relationships. Expand a summary to see connected field labels and IDs, or follow a link to open a connected field. Reverse relationships also show which fields use a Geocoder, Map, or panel.
These indicators provide guidance; they do not prevent you from publishing a form. Connection notices also update immediately when you change the selected field.
Create and connect missing fields from their settings
When a field needs a Geocoder, Map, Directions Panel, or Nearest Locations Panel, you can create and connect the supporting field directly from the relevant setting. If a compatible field already exists, you can select it instead.
The generated field is placed near the field you are configuring when possible, its connection is selected automatically, and an Undo action is available after creation.
Display directions inside the Directions field
A separate Directions Panel is no longer required just to display route information. Show details inside the Directions field, send them to a separate connected panel, or disable the details display.
The distance-and-duration summary and turn-by-turn directions are independent options, so you can display either or both. Route-map settings are grouped separately from the route-detail output settings.
New Directions fields calculate automatically when their connected locations change. Manual button calculation remains available, and existing forms keep their saved trigger settings. New fields also default Avoid Ferries, Avoid Highways, and Avoid Tolls to off; saved preferences remain unchanged.
More flexible Nearby Locations output
Nearest Locations results can appear inside the field or in a separate Nearest Locations Panel. The Quick Setup can use manually entered destinations or a supported database location source, and can add a connected results map.
Existing Directions and Nearby fields with saved panel connections retain their legacy panel output when the new display settings have not yet been saved.
Add estimated pricing with native Ninja Forms calculations
The Distance & Travel Time and Directions & Route Quick Setups can optionally generate a starter estimated-price calculation. Enter a base price, a per-mile or per-kilometer rate, and, for routed travel, an optional per-minute rate.
Ninja Geolocation creates connected Number fields for the required travel values and uses them in Ninja Forms’ native calculation system. The inputs use meters and seconds internally, with explicit conversion for the rates you enter. This keeps pricing inputs separate from formatted distance and duration text.
The generated fields and calculation remain editable. For your own calculations, connect a Number field to a Distance or Directions numeric value and use that Number field in the native calculation picker. Numeric travel merge tags are also available for action and notification content; they are not direct operands in Ninja’s calculation equations.
Fixed locations for stores, offices, and warehouses
Distance and Directions Quick Setups support visitor-entered or fixed locations at either endpoint. Use a fixed address when routes should always begin or end at a store, office, warehouse, clinic, or other known destination.
Starter map positions make a new route form useful before the visitor selects their locations, without automatically calculating a route from those starter positions.
Start from a native Ninja Forms template
Ninja Geolocation 3.6 adds three templates to Ninja’s native new-form template chooser:
- Location & Map
- Distance & Travel Time
- Directions & Route
Choose a template to start with a regular editable form whose geolocation fields and relationships are already configured. Templates are offered when their required fields are included in the installed package. They do not configure your API credentials or notification recipients.
Requirements and upgrading
Ninja Geolocation 3.6 requires Ninja Forms 3.13.2 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer. We recommend backing up your site and testing updates on staging when your forms contain custom code or complex integrations.
Existing saved trigger settings, panel connections, and older Dynamic travel selections remain supported. You do not need to rebuild those forms to use the new editor tools.
Enable Google Routes API for routed distance, travel time, directions, and route-based nearby calculations. Straight-line distance and proximity searches do not require Routes API. Address autocomplete uses Places API (New); enable the services used by your forms for the appropriate API keys.
Get started with Ninja Geolocation 3.6
Once the update is available through your account, open a form to review its connections, choose Add quick setup to build a workflow, or start from a native Geolocation template.
We would love to hear how the new builder experience works for your forms. If you find an edge case or have an idea for another useful Quick Setup, please let us know.