Plaits

Plaits is a form creation, validation and rendering library for Node.js.

It supports both synchronous and asynchronous validation (via Promises), and comes with many built-in validators, many of which are provided by the excellent validator.js library. Plaits also supports file upload validation, including size and MIME-Type checking.

It is intended for use with Express, but can be used with other libraries and frameworks too.

For the full documentation, please visit http://persata.github.io/plaits/.

Plaits is inspired by the form validation features found in frameworks such as .NET MVC, and thanks goes to the great work done on the Bookshelf ORM for additional inspiration and helping with some underlying code principles.

The source is available on GitHub, and it comes with a large suite of unit tests.

Example Model

// Require Plaits
var Plaits = require('plaits');

// Register Form Declaration
var RegisterForm = Plaits.Model.extend(
  {
    // Form Name
    name: 'register_form',
    // Field List
    fields: [
      'username',
      'email_address',
      'password',
      'confirm_password',
      'avatar'
    ],
    // Validators
    validators: {
      username: [
        Plaits.Validators.required(),
        Plaits.Validators.alphanumeric()
      ],
      email_address: [
        Plaits.Validators.required(),
        Plaits.Validators.email()
      ],
      password: [
        Plaits.Validators.required(),
        Plaits.Validators.minLength(8)
      ],
      confirm_password: [
        Plaits.Validators.matchProperty('password')
      ],
      avatar: [
        Plaits.Validators.File.required(),
        Plaits.Validators.File.maxSize('120kB'),
        Plaits.Validators.File.mimeTypes(['image/*'])
      ]
    }
  }
);

// Export Form
module.exports = RegisterForm;

Use Middleware

// Require Plaits
var Plaits = require('plaits');

// Plaits Middleware
app.use(Plaits.ExpressMiddleware());

Register Page Template

extends layout

block content
    form(method='POST')
        !=Plaits.Html.Template.text(registerForm, 'username')
        !=Plaits.Html.Template.email(registerForm, 'email')
        !=Plaits.Html.Template.password(registerForm, 'password')
        !=Plaits.Html.Template.password(registerForm, 'confirm_password')
        !=Plaits.Html.Template.file(registerForm, 'avatar')
        !=Plaits.Html.Template.submit()

Register Controller

// Require Form
var RegisterForm = require('../forms/register');

// Account Register Route - GET
router.get('/account/register', function (req, res) {
    // New Form
    var registerForm = new RegisterForm();
    // Render Template, Passing Form
    res.render('account/register', {
        registerForm: registerForm
    });
});

// Account Register Route - POST
router.post('/account/register', function (req, res) {
    // New Form
    var registerForm = new RegisterForm();
    // Parse Request & Validate
    registerForm.parseRequestSync(req).validate().then(function (result) {
        // Valid?
        if (result) {
            // Do Register / Database Stuff Here
            // ...
            // Redirect
            res.redirect('/account/register/success');
        } else {
            // Invalid, Re-Render The Template
            res.render('account/register', {
                registerForm: registerForm
            });
        }
    }).catch(function (e) {
        // Something Went Horribly Wrong, Caught A Rejected Promise
        res.json(e);
    });
});