reactive-mobx-form

Simple ans scalable form management library for React+MobX application. Under the hood it uses efficient MobX observable mechanizm, that allows tracking changes in form fields and rerender only things that have changed. This gives developer a feeling of working with 2-way data binding and reduces much boilerplate code needed to handle input events in 1-way data flow environment.

One of main features is "template based" approach - so you maintain your JSX structure only. This brings you to a situation that what is in your DOM is in your form values.

The library is inspired by Angular Reactive Forms and Redux Form. It has similar syntax to Redux Form, because of concept that are natural to React world. So if you previously had experience with it, it will be easy for you to start using reactive-mobx-form. But still syntax is aimed to be clear for everyone.

Documentation

Examples can be found here.

Installation

npm install reactive-mobx-form

Usage

Step 1

Create and expose to all your application a formStore via Provider from mobx-react

import { Provider } from 'mobx-react';
import { FormStore } from 'reactive-mobx-form';

const formStore = new FormStore();

render(
  <Provider appStore={appStore} formStore={formStore}> // appStore - is any other store in your application
    <App />
  </Provider>,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

Step 2

Create a form, look no more onChange handlers on form fields. Just use Control!

import { reactiveMobxForm, Control } from 'reactive-mobx-form';

class ContactForm extends React.Component {
  render() {
    const { submit } = this.props;
    
    return (
      <form onSubmit={submit}>
        <div>
          <label htmlFor="name">Name</label>
          <Control name="name" component="input" type="text" />
        </div>
        <div>
          <label htmlFor="age">Age</label>
          <Control name="age" component="input" type="number"/>
        </div>
        <button type="submit">Submit</button>
      </form>
    );
  }
}

const ContactFormReactive = reactiveMobxForm('contacts' [, formDefinition])(ContactForm); // 2nd parameter (formDefinition) is optional. 

export default ContactFormReactive;

Detailed explanation of formDefinition object

Step 3

Use your form and enjoy, just don't forget to pass onSubmit to it

import ContactFormReactive from './ContactForm';

export default Page extends React.Component {
  handleSubmit(form) {
    console.log(form)
  }

  render() {
    <div>
      <ContactFormReactive onSubmit={this.handleSubmit.bind(this)} />
    </div>
  }
}

This is how you may turn a simple form into a Reactive Mobx Form one. But reactive-mobx-form gives you much more...

Capabilities

Its now possible:

1. Render forms and submit them
2. Validate fields, with powerful validatorjs library
3. Render multi-level fields with ControlSection Component. Great for Component reuse.
4. Render filed, that contains array of data. Both singe item array, or array of objects with ControlArray.
5. Manage multi step forms, aka Wizard.
6. Use ComputedControl component to render fields, which values are computed base of other form values
7. Localize your form/field names/error messages

Language Support

By default error messages are in English. But you can change them. reactive-mobx-form provides you with interface for this. Under the hood it uses Validatorjs Language Support

Change language

In the index.js or other entry point of your app.

import { configureValidator } from 'reactive-mobx-form';

configureValidator({
  language: 'ru'
});

You can use MobX autorun function in order to execute this code each time app language change. Be careful as changing the language happens on Validator class and effects all forms, even created before language switch.

Custom attribute names

When display error messages, you may want to modify how field name is displayed in error message. For example if field name is 'user.name' and this field is required. You'd like to see it in error message like 'The user name field is required.'. This may be done via setting custom attribute names(locally) or attribute names formatter function(globally). Same as language support, the functionality relays on Validatorjs Custom attribute names.

Change custom attribute names globally

In the index.js or other entry point of your app.

import { configureValidator } from 'reactive-mobx-form';

configureValidator({
  setAttributeFormatter: (attribute) => attribute.replace(/\./g, ' ')
});

setAttributeFormatter property should be a function, that accepts 1 parameter field name, processes and returns it. In this example if we had a field name like 'user.name' it will be 'user name' in error message.

Change custom attribute names per form instance

Here we will benefit from other optional parameter to reactiveMobxForm creation function called validator .In place where you initialize form

const ContactFormReactive = reactiveMobxForm('contacts', {
    validator: {
      attributeNames: { // this option is available per form only
        'users.name' : 'User Name'
      }
      // local setAttributeFormatter is not implemented yet
    }
  })(ContactForm)

attributeNames is an object that maps field name to attribute in error message. So if we had a field name like 'user.name' it will be 'User NAme' in error message.

Custom Error Messages

With custom error messages it is possible to completely modify error message for some rule or combination of rule and field

const ContactFormReactive = reactiveMobxForm('contacts', {
    validator: {
      errorMessages: {
        'required': 'You forgot to give a :attribute' // this format will be userd for all required fields
        'required.email': 'Without an :attribute we can\'t reach you!' // format for required email field
      }
    }
  })(ContactForm)

Note on versions

• 0.7.5 - is a stable version for usage in environments with any version of React but MobX < 4. (Map in MobX)
• 0.9.0 - is a stable version for React > 16.3, and MobX > 4(5) (mobx-react > 5.2.0). See changelog for updates. This version will be mainly developed.

Migration to 0.9.x

For most users migration will be just updating a version in package.json. Make sure you are running React > 16.3.0. Also you can check commit for migration for docs site of reactive-mobx-form

Migration to 0.12.x

Remove destroyControlStateOnUnmount parameter from form initialization. If you relied on a logic that control are brought back to form with initial values check here

Migration to 0.13.x

• Remove destroyFormStateOnUnmount parameter from form initialization.
• If you relaid on mechanism that form state is preserved between full form unmounts - please use keepState property on your Form component.
• You will have to rewrite your multi step forms via new API

Motivation

 Working with forms was always a pain in web development. This library is an attempt to solve it for MobX and React users.

Goals:

1. Zero configuration (I will not lie, you will still need some for not standard cases)
2. Easy to learn and start with
3. Preferable over own solutions (I hope it to be)

Dependency

reactive-mobx-forms depends directly on:

1. validatorjs library for validation. It is small, effective and scalable.

reactive-mobx-forms peer dependencies are:

1. react
2. mobx
3. mobx-react

Know Issues

1. When replacing <A /> with <B />, B.componentWillMount now always happens before A.componentWillUnmount. Previously, A.componentWillUnmount could fire first in some cases. - Based on this. If you replace one reactiveMobXForm with another having the same name. This will cause new form extend previous, and then form destroy. So just give your forms different names.

FAQ