Formlink

Formlink is a type-safe form-handling library for Laravel + Vue.js applications. It abstracts away form submissions, file uploads, and validation error handling, offering seamless integration with Laravel and Vue.js applications, inspired by Inertia.js's simplicity.

Features

• ✨ Type Safety: Full TypeScript support with type inference
• 🚀 Zero Configuration: Works out of the box with Laravel
• 🔐 Built-in CSRF Protection: Automatic CSRF token handling
• 🔄 Progress Tracking: Real-time file upload progress
• 🎯 Smart Error Handling: Automatic Laravel validation error management
• ⚡ Event Hooks: Rich lifecycle hooks for form submission events
• 📱 Vue 3 Ready: Reactive forms with Vue 3 composition API
• 🛠️ Framework Agnostic: Can be used with any backend, not limited to Laravel

Quick Start

Installation

npm install formlink
# or
yarn add formlink
# or
pnpm add formlink

Basic Usage

import { useForm } from 'formlink';

interface ContactForm {
  name: string;
  email: string;
  message: string;
}

const form = useForm<ContactForm>({
  name: '',
  email: '',
  message: ''
});

await form.post('/api/contact');

Complete Example

<template>
  <form @submit.prevent="submit">
    <!-- Name field -->
    <div>
      <input v-model="form.name" type="text" :class="{ error: form.errors.name }" />
      <span v-if="form.errors.name">{{ form.errors.name }}</span>
    </div>

    <!-- Email field -->
    <div>
      <input v-model="form.email" type="email" :class="{ error: form.errors.email }" />
      <span v-if="form.errors.email">{{ form.errors.email }}</span>
    </div>

    <!-- File upload with progress -->
    <div>
      <input type="file" @change="handleFile" />
      <div v-if="form.progress">{{ form.progress.percentage }}% uploaded</div>
    </div>

    <!-- Submit button -->
    <button type="submit" :disabled="form.processing">
      {{ form.processing ? 'Sending...' : 'Send Message' }}
    </button>
  </form>
</template>

<script setup lang="ts">
import { useForm } from 'formlink';

interface ContactForm {
  name: string;
  email: string;
  file: File | null;
}

const form = useForm<ContactForm>({
  name: '',
  email: '',
  file: null
});

const handleFile = (e: Event) => {
  const file = (e.target as HTMLInputElement).files?.[0];
  if (file) {
    form.file = file;
  }
};

const submit = async () => {
  await form.post('/api/contact', {
    onBefore: () => {
      console.log('Request starting');
    },
    onProgress: (progress) => {
      console.log(`${progress.percentage}% uploaded`);
    },
    onSuccess: (response) => {
      console.log('Submission successful', response.data);
    },
    onError: (errors) => {
      console.log('Validation errors', errors);
    },
    onFinish: () => {
      console.log('Request finished');
    }
  });
};
</script>

Available FormOptions

The FormOptions object allows you to configure hooks and behaviors for form submissions. Here are the available options:

Option	Type	Description
resetOnSuccess	boolean	Whether to reset the form to its initial state after a successful submission.
onBefore	() => void	Hook that is called before the form submission begins.
onSuccess	(response: AxiosResponse) => void	Hook that is called when the form submission is successful.
onCanceled	() => void	Hook that is called when the form submission is canceled.
onError	(errors: Partial<Record<keyof TForm, string>>)	Hook that is called when validation errors occur (e.g., from a Laravel backend).
onFinish	() => void	Hook that is called when the form submission finishes, whether successful or not.
onProgress	(progress: Progress) => void	Hook that tracks file upload progress or long-running requests.

Example of Form Options

await form.post('/api/contact', {
  resetOnSuccess: true,
  onBefore: () => console.log('Submitting...'),
  onSuccess: (response) => console.log('Submitted', response.data),
  onError: (errors) => console.error('Validation errors:', errors),
  onFinish: () => console.log('Request finished'),
  onProgress: (progress) => console.log(`Upload ${progress.percentage}% complete`),
});

Advanced Features

Form States

Formlink provides various reactive states:

form.processing; // Is the form being submitted?
form.progress;   // Upload progress data
form.errors;     // Validation errors
form.isDirty;    // Has the form been modified?

HTTP Methods

Formlink supports multiple HTTP methods:

form.get(url);    // GET request
form.post(url);   // POST request
form.put(url);    // PUT request
form.patch(url);  // PATCH request
form.delete(url); // DELETE request

Data Transformation

You can transform form data before it is submitted:

form.transform((data) => ({
  ...data,
  name: data.name.trim().toLowerCase()
}));

Error Handling

Set or clear errors manually:

form.setError('email', 'Invalid email format');
form.clearErrors();

Reset Functionality

Reset the form data to its initial state:

// Reset all fields
form.reset();

// Reset specific fields
form.reset('email', 'name');

Custom Axios Instance

You can use a custom Axios instance for your form requests:

import axios from 'axios';

const customAxios = axios.create({
  baseURL: 'https://api.example.com',
  timeout: 5000
});

const form = useForm(data, customAxios);

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See our Contributing Guide for details.

To get started:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/your-feature).
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add feature').
4. Push to your branch (git push origin feature/your-feature).
5. Open a pull request.

Development Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Thavarshan/formlink.git

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run tests
npm test

# Build the package
npm run build

License

Formlink is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jonathan Reinink for his work on InertiaJS, which inspired this project.