antd-form-builder

antd-form-builder

The FormBuilder is a small helper (< 300 lines of source code) for building forms with React and ant.design easily while not preventing you from using the original antd form API.

Examples

You can see the live demo at: https://rekit.github.io/antd-form-builder

Philosophy

The key principle in my mind to create antd-form-builder is it should just help to define form fields and the layout while it doesn't reduce the flexibility of antd's original form API. So in simple patterns you can create a form very easily but if a form is much complicated you can still use the original form API. You can even use antd-form-builder together with the raw API in a mixed way.

Meta Driven

Besides the simplified API which helps to create form easily, the FormBuilder is also very useful if you have meta driven requirement. For example if your form structure needs to be configurable, the meta could be a pure JSON object which can be easily saved and managed separately.

Install

npm install --save-dev antd-form-builder

Usage

The most simple usage is like below:

import React from 'react'
import { Form, Button } from 'antd'
import FormBuilder from 'antd-form-builder'

export default Form.create()(({ form }) => {
  const meta = {
    fields: [
      { key: 'username', label: 'User Name' },
      { key: 'password', label: 'Password', widget: 'password' },
    ],
  }

  return (
    <Form>
      <FormBuilder meta={meta} form={form} />
      <Form.Item wrapperCol={{ span: 16, offset: 8 }}>
        <Button type="primary">Login</Button>
      </Form.Item>
    </Form>
  )
})

Then you get a form:

To see more examples, please go to https://rekit.github.io/antd-form-builder

API Reference

FormBuilder

Props:

Name	Type	Description
form	object	The antd form instance, unnecessary in viewMode
meta	object/array	The meta for building the form. See below docs for detailed usage
viewMode	bool	In view mode, FormBuild uses viewWidget property for a field, show value directly if viewWidget not defined. And labels are left aligned in the form. Default to false.

meta

meta property tells FormBuilder about all information of form structure. Its basic structure is like below:

const meta = {
  columns: 2, // how many columns to layout fields
  fields: [], // which fields in form
};

If meta is an array, it will be used as fields:

const realMeta = { fields: meta }

If meta is an object without fields property, it's treated as a single field meta, so it will be converted to:

const realMeta = { fields: [meta] }

Properties are list below:

Name	Type	Default	Description
columns	number	1	How many columns of the form layout.
formItemLayout	object/array	[8, 16]	The labelCol and wrapperCol passed to Form.Item. If it's an array, will be converted to { labelCol: { span: arr[0] }, wrapperCol: { span: arr[1] }}. If a filed has different layout, define it in its own meta.
disabled	bool	false	If true, all fields components will be given a disabled property.
initialValues	object	null	Set initialValues to the form, usually used in form which edit values or in viewMode. You can also set initialValue for each field.
fields	array	null	Fields definition for the form. See below info for how to define a field.
gutter	number	0	The gap between columns.

Field meta

Important Notes: There are two default values that are different from which of original antd API: preserve and validateFirst. The default value are both true in the FormBuilder but are fales in antd's original form API.. For preserve it means if you dynamically add or remove some fields, you may need to mannually set it to false so that when a field is removed it doesn't exist in the return value from form.getFieldsValue. In our case, we heavily use FormBuilder in a wizard, so we set all fields to preseve:true as default value. And for dynamical fields, we detect if some value is necessary by some condition value rahter than if it exists.

Field meta is used to define each field. Each field meta is an object defined in meta.fields. It's a central place to combine parameters to FormBuilder itself, <Form.Item> and getFieldDecorators. All options are listed below:

Name	Type	Default	Description
key	string		Required. The field key. Could be nested like user.name.last. It's just the key value passed to getFieldDecorator(key, options)
label	string		Label text.
viewMode	bool	false	Whether the field is in view mode. Note if a field is in viewMode but FormBuilder is not, the label in the field is still right aligned.
tooltip	string/React Node		If set, there is a question mark icon besides label to show the tooltip.
widget	string/Component	Input	Which component used to render field for editing. The component should be able to be managed by antd form.
widgetProps	object		Props passed to widget.
viewWidget	string/Component	text	Which component used to render field in view mode.
viewWidgetProps	object		Props passed to viewWidget
formItemLayout	object/array	[8, 16]	This applies formItemLayout only to this field rather than which defined in the root meta.
render	function		If provided, this is used for rendering the whole field in both edit and view mode, should render <Form.Item>, getFieldDecorator itself. widget property will be ignored.
renderView	function		If provided, this is used for rendering field value in view mode, viewWidget will be ignored.
colSpan	number	1	How many columns the field should take up.
initialValue	any		The initialValue to be passed to the field widget. In view mode, it's the value to be display.
getInitialValue	func(field, initialValues, form)		Get the initialValue of the field. This may be used to combine multiple fields into one field
disabled	bool	false	If set to true, every widget in field will be given a disabled property regardless of if it's supported.
clear	enum		In multiple columns layout, used to clear left, right or both side fields. Like the clear property in css. Could be left: the field starts from a new row; right: no fields behind the field; both: no other fields in the same row.
forwardRef	bool		If your field widget is a funcional component which doesn't implement forwardRef, set this to true so that React doesn't prompt warning message.
noFormItem	bool	false	By default, each field is wrapped with <Form.Item>, if set to true, it just use `getField
children	ReactNode		The children of widget defined in meta.
required	bool	false	Whether the field is required.
message	string		If a field is required, you can define what message provided if no input. By default, it's ${field.label} is required.
options	array		Only used by select, radio-group. checkbox-group components, explained below.
formItemProps	object		The props passed to <Form.Item>. Below properties are short way to pass props to <Form.Item>. See more from antd's doc
colon	bool	true	Used with label, whether to display : after label text.
extra	string/ReactNode		The extra prompt message. It is similar to help. Usage example: to display error message and prompt message at the same time.
hasFeedback	bool	false	Used with validateStatus, this option specifies the validation status icon. Recommended to be used only with Input.
help	string/ReactNode		The prompt message. If not provided, the prompt message will be generated by the validation rule.
htmlFor	string		Set sub label htmlFor.
labelCol	object		The layout of label. You can set span offset to something like {span: 3, offset: 12} or sm: {span: 3, offset: 12} same as with <Col>.
validateStatus	string		The validation status. If not provided, it will be generated by validation rule. options: 'success' 'warning' 'error' 'validating'
wrapperCol	object		The layout for input controls, same as labelCol.
fieldProps	object		The options to pass to getFieldDecorator(id, options). Below properties are short way to pass options to getFieldDecorator(id, options). See more from antd's doc
getValueFromEvent	function(..args)		Specify how to get value from event or other onChange arguments
getValueProps	function(value)		Get the component props according to field value.
normalize	function(value, prevValue, allValues)		Normalize value to form component
preserve	bool	true	Keep the field even if field removed.NOTE: the default value is true for FormBuilder.
rules	object[]		Includes validation rules. Please refer to "Validation Rules" part for details.
trigger	string	'onChange'	When to collect the value of children node
validateFirst	bool	true	Whether stop validate on first rule of error for this field. NOTE: the default value is true for FormBuilder.
validateTrigger	string / string[]	'onChange'	When to validate the value of children node.
valuePropName	string		Props of children node, for example, the prop of Switch is 'checked'.

Use String Key to Define a Widget

To define the widget for a field, you can use either a string which maps to a widget or a react component directly.

const meta = { key: 'name', label: 'Name', widget: 'input'}
// or
const meta = { key: 'name', label: 'Name', widget: Input }

The reason why you can use a string for widget property is because there are some key-component mapping pre-defined in antd-form-builder/defineAntdWidget.js. Normally you can use a component for widget/viewWidget property of a field meta, but sometimes it's more convenient to use string so that you don't need to import the component while defining meta. And it's especially useful if you want to save meta in some config json.

The predefined components are list below:

key	Component	meta convention
input	Input
password	Input.Password
textarea	Input.TextArea
number	InputNumber
select	Select	Typically you need to provide children property for Option array to the field meta metioned above. To make it easy to use, you can provide an options array to the field meta, internally it will be convented to children property. Explained below.
date-picker	DatePicker
radio	Radio
checkbox	CheckBox
checkbox-group	CheckBox.Group	Use options for children, same as select.
switch	Switch
radio-group	Radio.Group	Use options for children, same as select. Also you can set buttonGroup to true for tab button style instead of radio style.
button	Button

options

options is a special field meta just mentioned. It's only used for select, checkbox-group or radio-group. You can define children by options in 3 formats:

1. [opt1, opt2, opt3, ...], here value and label are same as opt1, opt2, opt3....

2. [[value1, label1], [value2, label2], ...]

3. [{value: 'v1', label: 'label1'}, {value: 'v2', label: 'label2'}, ...]

Extend FormBuilder: Define Keys for Your Components

Besides built-in pre-defined components, you can define your own by FormBuilder.defineWidget static method like below:

const MyComp = ({ value, onChange}) => {...}
FormBuilder.defineWidget('my-comp', MyComp)

Then you can use it:

const meta = { key: 'comp', label: 'Comp', widget: 'my-comp' }

This mechanism not only makes it easy to define meta easily in your project, but also useful if you want your meta could be pure JSON object.

FormBuilder.defineWidget(key, component, metaConvertor)

Define the key for a widget so that you can use string key in the meta like 'date-picker', 'select'. You can also provide a meta convertor to to provide easier way to give props to the widget.

key

string key to used for the widget

component :

The react component to used in form field

metaConvertor

function, convert field meta to a new meta.

For example: to make it easier to define a Select widget for the field, FormBuilder uses below code internally:

const mapOptions = options => {
  if (!_.isArray(options)) {
    throw new Error('Options should be array in FormBuilder meta.')
  }
  return options.map(opt => {
    let value
    let label
    if (_.isArray(opt)) {
      value = opt[0]
      label = opt[1]
    } else {
      value = opt
      label = opt
    }
    return { value, label }
  })
}

FormBuilder.defineWidget('select', Select, field => {
  if (field.options && !field.children) {
    return {
      ...field,
      children: mapOptions(field.options).map(opt => (
        <Select.Option value={opt.value} key={opt.value}>
          {opt.label}
        </Select.Option>
      )),
    }
  }
  return field
})

Then you can define options for select component with below meta:

const meta = { key: 'select', label: 'Select', options: ['opt1', 'opt2']}

Here options property from meta is converted to chilren property to Select component. You can define options in two mode:

[[value1, label1], [value2, label2]]
// or
[valueAndLabel1, valueAndLabel2]

Otherwise without metaConvertor, you have to define your meta like below:

const meta = {
  key: 'select',
  label: 'Select',
  children: ['opt1', 'opt2'].map(key => <Option key={key}>{key}</Option>),
};

So if you define you own widget, you can give a metaConvertor to provide a convenient way to define field widget.

Contribute

Local development

This project is bootstraped by create-react-library. To start development locally, follow below steps:

# 1. Clone repo
git clone https://github.com/rekit/antd-form-builder.git

# 2. Install dependencies
cd antd-form-builder
npm install

# 3. Run rollup in watch mode
npm start

# 4. Start example dev server (in anther tab)
cd example
npm start

Now, anytime you make a change to your library in src/ or to the example app's example/src, create-react-app will live-reload your local dev server so you can iterate on your component in real-time.

Build examples

cd examples
npm run build

This will build examples into root docs folder which is used as gh-pages root. So after build, commit or pr the changes to the repo.

License

MIT © supnate