FormSpine

FormSpine is a lightweight (~4kb, ~1.2kb gzipped) JavaScript form library with validation, error handling and fetch (Polyfilled with developit/unfetch)

It's promise-based, which makes running scripts on error/success very easy.

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
• Usage
• API
• Examples
• Phalange (700 bytes alternative)
• Inspiration

Getting Started

Install Instructions

Adding FormSpine to your project requires NPM. Optinally you could use Yarn.

Run the following command in your project root:

npm install formspine --save

Or with Yarn:

yarn add formspine

Using In Your Project

Using Rollup or WebPack (or another module bundler), you can do like this:

// ES6
import FormSpine from "formspine";

// CommonJS
var FormSpine = require("formspine");

Remember to polyfill Fetch

require("unfetch/polyfill");

It's also on unpkg:

<script src="//unpkg.com/formspine/dist/formspine.umd.js"></script>

<script>
var FormSpine = formspine; // to fix name in UMD package, for consistency.

new FormSpine('/', {});
</script>

Please notice that the fetch polyfill is NOT included in the UMD version.

Usage

Vue.js example

let fields = {
    todo_text: {
        required: true,
        max_length: 50
    }
};

new Vue({
    el: "#app",
    data: {
        form: new FormSpine('/create-todo', fields)
    },
    
    methods: {
        submit: function() {
            this.form.post().then(() => alert('Done!'));
        }
    }
});

API

The FormSpine Class

The FormSpine class is the backbone of FormSpine and the class you'll be using.

Methods

| Method | Description | Parameters | | ------ | ----------- | ---------- | | post | Sends a POST request to the url specified in the Form object | | | delete | Sends a DELETE/DESTROY request to the url specified in the Form object | | | put | Sends a PUT request to the url specified in the Form object | | | submit | Sends a request with the type specified, to the url specified in the Form object | type: Any request type possible in the fetch api. Example: form.submit('GET') |

Parameters

| Name | Type | Description | Required | Default | | ---- |----- | ----------- |--------- | ------- | | url | string | The url that requests should be send to. | true | '' | | fields | object | The fields in the form. | true | {} | | options | object | An object with additional options | false | {} |

FormSpine options parameters

| Name | Type | Description | Required | Default | | ---- |----- | ----------- |--------- | ------- | | messages | object | Custom error validation messages. | false | {} | | resetOnSuccess | boolean | Determines if form fields should be cleared on success. | false | false | | headers | object | Adds custom headers to each request | false | {} |

url

The url parameter is the first of three parameters, and it defines which url to send requests to upon submitting. It can be an absolute or relative url, such as: /submit or https://your-site.com/send.

fields

The fields that you have in the form should be defined here as an object of objects, keyed by field name. This is also where you define validation rules (if any)

Example:

let fields = {
    username: {
        required: true
    },
    
    password: {
        required: true,
        min_length: 6,
        must_match: "password_confirmation"
    },
    
    password_confirmation: {
        required: true
    }
};

// Init form
let formObject = new FormSpine('/submit', fields);

Possible field attributes are:

| Name | Type | Description | Default | | ---- | ---- | ----------- | ------- | | value | string | The initial value of the field | '' | | name | string | The field name used in error messages (:field) | object key name | | required | boolean | Validation rule: determines if field is required | false | | min_length | integer | Validation rule: sets a minimum length for the field | | | max_length | integer | Validation rule: sets a maximum length for the field | | | no_digits | boolean | Validation rule: may not contain digits | false | | only_digits | boolean | Validation rule: may only contain digits | false | | checked | boolean | Validation rule: has to be checked / be true (for checkbox/radio inputs) | false | | must_match | string | Validation rule: has to match another field (good for password confirmations) | `` | | regex | string/regex | Validation rule: must match regex | |

messages

This parameter is useful if you want to translate or change the validation messages. You have to pass in an object of strings with error messages.

Example (Using defaults):

let customMessages = {
    checked:      "The :field must be checked.",
    regex:        "The :field field is invalid.",
    required:     "The :field field is required.",
    no_digits:    "The :field field may not contain digits.",
    only_digits:  "The :field field may only contain digits.",
    must_match:   "The :field field match the :must_match field.",
    min_length:   "The :field field must be at least :min_length characters.",
    max_length:   "The :field field must not be longer than :max_length characters."
};

// Init form
let formObject = new FormSpine('/submit', {}, { messages: customMessages });

Examples

Vue Demo

Preact Demo

Angular Demo

Phalange

Don't care about client-side validation, and does every byte count? How about using Phalange?

It's a ~0.7kb version of FormSpine, without the Validation library. It still handles errors, but will not validate fields.

Get Phalange here

Inspiration

I found myself creating similar classes for every new project I started, so I felt it was time to combine everything into a single class that I could use for almost all my projects. Of cause, in the nature of sharing, I decided to open source it.

FormSpine is inspired heavily on laracasts/vue-forms

If you're into learning, you should really go signup at Laracasts

Build scripts (and more) are heavily based on developit/unfetch.