mpm.form

http://mparaiso.github.io/mpm.form/doc/

version: 0.0.62

author: mparaiso mparaiso@online.fr

A form library for node.js

With mpm.form , js developpers no longer need to write their forms and validate them by hand. mpm.form handles form creation , request and model binding , validation and html rendering of form widgets.

INSTALLATION

in package.json file :

"dependencies":{
	"mpm.form":"*"
}

BASIC USAGE

Given a blog application , users need to write posts. Let's create a form for blog posts

var form = require('mpm.form'),
    validation = form.validation;
var postForm = form.create("post_form"/*the form name*/)
    .add('title', 'text', {
        validators: [validation.Required(), validation.Length(3, 200)]})
    .add('excerpt', 'textarea', {attributes: {rows: 3},
        validators: validation.Required()})
    .add('content', 'textarea', {attributes: {rows: 10},
        validators: validation.Required()})
    .add("allow_comments",'checkbox',{label:'allow comments',attributes:{value:"allow_comments"}})
    .add('reset', 'reset', {attributes: {value: 'reset'}})
    .add('create', 'submit', {attributes: {value: 'create'}, validators: validation.Required()});

Render the fields as HTML , just call formBuilder.toHTML()

postForm.toHTML();

or get all form datas ,and implement a custom renderer for your template engine :

postForm.toJSON();

Add initial form data to the formBuidlder (from the a database for instance ):

var model = new ModelFromDB({content:'some content',title:"some title"});
postForm.setModel(model);

We want to bind our form to the body of a post request

with expressjs , one would write :

if(request.method==="POST"){
	postForm.bind(request.body);
}

postForm now contains request.body datas, the model has been modified too

validate the form :

postForm.validate(function(error,isValid){
	...
});

isValid will be true if the form is valid

You can also validate the form synchronously, if all validators are synchronous. Dont use it if a custom validator involves some I/O task :

var isValid = postForm.validateSync()

// Dont use that if one validator is Async,
// for instance a validator that would check if a field is unique
// in the database

Get form errors :

postForm.getErrors(); 

will yield an array of Error objects if the form is valid ,we can save the model to the db

model.save(callback)

SUPPORTED FIELDS

• text: input of type text
• email: input of type email
• date: input of type date
• time: input of type time
• password: input of type password
• hidden: input of type hidden
• repeated : 2 input fields that must have the same value (for password confirmation for instance )
• checkbox: input of type check
• radio: input of type radio
• button: input of type button
• submit: input of type submit
• reset: input of type reset
• textarea: textarea widget
• select: a dropdown list of options
• checkboxgroup: a group of checkboxes
• radiogroup: a group of radio widgets
• label: a label

SUPPORTED VALIDATORS :

see : https://github.com/Mparaiso/mpm.validation for a list of supported validators

ChangeLog

• 0.0.3 repeated field now works as expected
• 0.0.25 form can now validate sync
• 0.0.24 api changed , form.createBuilder is now form.create
• 0.0.23 api changed , see basic usage
• 0.0.22 added fields.Repeated
• 0.0.20 added fields.Email
• 0.0.19 fields.Date && fields.Time added
• 0.0.17 formBuilder.add arguments are now (name,formType,options) instead of (formType,name,options)