A note on Vue 3
Vue Formulate is compatible with Vue 2. The next major version of Vue Formulate for Vue 3 is called FormKit. You can learn more about it at formkit.com (opens new window).
# Introduction
Vue Formulate is the easiest way to build forms using Vue (opens new window).
Introducing Vue Formulate — truly delightful form authoring.
An overview of Vue Formulate by the author. Why it exists, what it does, and where it is going.
Although forms are required in almost every project developers encounter they are
surprisingly tedious to create. Vue Formulate is built to increase developer happiness
by anticipating pain points and exposing clean APIs — with sensible defaults — that
make implementing common features effortless. In fact, there are only 2
components that need to be learned to create nearly any type of form: FormulateInput
and FormulateForm
.
With Vue Formulate developers are empowered to:
✓ Create any input element with a single component
✓ Use native v-model
binding across all input types
✓ Re-populate an entire form from a single object
✓ Generate a form using JSON
✓ Easily add field labels
✓ Easily add help text
✓ Group fields into custom data structures
✓ Repeat grouped fields for complex UIs
✓ Perform robust form validation
✓ Create custom validation rules
✓ Modify default validation messages
✓ Create and share custom inputs
✓ Override default component templates with scoped slots
✓ And so much more
# Inputs
Every type of input in Vue Formulate is an instance of the FormulateInput
component. This component is used whether you need a text input, password,
select list, checkbox, or date picker. It doesn't get much easier
to remember than that.
# A simple example
The simplest implementation of Vue Formulate is outputting a
single FormulateInput
with no additional configuration:
<FormulateInput type="text" />
Output:
Familiar right? This is essentially equivalent to the native HTML:
<input type="text" />
# Outputting different input types
All Vue Formulate inputs share this same syntax. Swap out the value of type
to get the desired element, even if the internal HTML structure differs. For example
a <textarea>
is a completely different element than <input>
in HTML, but in
Vue Formulate you only need to remember to change the type
.
<FormulateInput type="textarea" />
Output:
TIP
With Vue Formulate you only need to use the supplied FormulateInput
element and
pass the appropriate type
to generate the input type that you need. No need to
remember a variety of component names to handle different input types.
# Validation
Input and form validation are a core feature and easy to add.
<FormulateInput type="email" name="email" validation="required|email" />
Read more about on the validation documentation page.
# Model binding
Vue Formulate uses model binding (v-model
) to read/write values in and out of
inputs. You can bind data on a <FormulateInput>
, <FormulateForm>
, or both (read
the forms documentation for information on form binding).
<template>
<div>
<FormulateInput type="text" label="What is your name?" v-model="value" />
<strong
>Hello <em>{{ value }}</em
>!</strong
>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
data() {
return {
value: "My initial value",
};
},
};
</script>
Output:
# Double binding
Because the input's value is bound to the model you can bind the model to multiple inputs, even triggering validation errors on those other elements.
<template>
<div>
<FormulateInput
type="text"
label="Favorite car brand?"
validation="not:Toyota"
validation-name="car brand"
error-behavior="live"
v-model="brand"
/>
<FormulateInput
type="radio"
v-model="brand"
error-behavior="live"
validation="in:Toyota,Honda"
:options="{ Toyota: 'I like Toyota', Honda: 'I like Honda' }"
/>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
data() {
return {
brand: "Honda",
};
},
};
</script>
Output:
# Array binding
Certain types of inputs set an array
of values on their model.
<FormulateInput
type="checkbox"
label="Which animals make good pets?"
v-model="pets"
:options="{ dog: 'Dogs', alligators: 'Alligators', cat: 'Cats' }"
/>
Output:
[]
Read more...
Model binding isn't all you can do with a FormulateInput
element! There are
lots of additional configuration options.
Read more on the inputs page →
# Form binding
In addition to binding values to individual FormulateInput
fields, you can
also collect all the values from a collection of inputs by wrapping them in
a FormulateForm
and placing a v-model
on that element.
<FormulateForm v-model="formValues">
<FormulateInput
name="name"
label="What is your name?"
validation="required"
/>
<FormulateInput
name="age"
label="How old are you?"
validation="required|number|max:120"
/>
<FormulateInput
type="submit"
label="Sign up"
/>
</FormulateForm>
{}
Read more...
That’s not all folks...the FormulateForm
element has several other really
valuable features like form submission, group validation, and file uploads.
Read more about using forms →
# What it isn’t
While Vue Formulate is a powerful tool for building, validating, and handling errors on forms — there are some things this package does not aim to do:
- This is not a UI framework or a layout tool. Want inputs next to each
other? Cool! Wrap some inputs in a
<div>
and sprinkle on someflexbox
. This package assumes you'll still be responsible for your form layout. - This package is BYOB — bring your own backend. Vue Formulate doesn't care a lick about the backend you choose (the closest it gets to caring is when using file inputs)
# Why not...?
# Vuetify
Vuetify is full UI framework while Vue Formulate is a focused tool for building forms. Some people prefer not to use large UI frameworks, don’t have them on a pre-existing project, don’t want to learn a new framework, or just prefer writing their own narrowly scoped styles. Also, we think composing forms in Vue Formulate is second-to-none.
# Buefy
Similar to Vuetify, Buefy is a full UI framework. If you’re already using Bulma or you're looking for a comprehensive UI solution it’s a solid choice. Vue Formulate is happy to live in the context of any UI framework and still offers the benefits of slick form composition, validation, and error handling to name a few. Even still there are plenty of people who don’t want or need a full UI framework that would benefit from Vue Formulate’s focused approach.
# vue-forms
The vue-forms
package is focused exclusively on form validation, while
Vue Formulate takes a more holistic and opinionated approach to forms and ships
with UI scaffolding, validation, and data modeling. We wanted to make form
composition a lot easier for developers while still increasing the overall
quality — try it out.
# VeeValidate
VeeValidate is another great option for Vue form validation, and thats it’s primary mission — validation. Vue Formulate makes building high quality forms easier by including validation as a sub-feature of the field composition itself. Building forms with Vue Formulate is super easy and blazing fast — of course if you need the extra validation power, you still have it. You can write any custom validation logic you want, even on individual fields.
# Vuelidate
Yet another great option for form validation, but focused solely on validation. Vue Formulate provides additional scaffolding allowing developers to create complex forms with minimal friction with validation and error handling included.
# vue-form-generator
Generating forms from JSON is great, and also a sub-feature of Vue Formulate. Since
Vue Formulate uses a single element to create any input type form generation from
a JSON string or JavaScript module is as simple as using a v-for
directive.
Checkout the documentation.