ViewComponent::Form

ViewComponent::Form is a customizable form builder using the same interface as ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder but with extensible ViewComponent components.

Development of this gem is sponsored by:

This gem is tested on:

• Rails 6.1+ (with or without ActionText)
• Ruby 3.0+

bundle add view_component-form

# config/initializers/vcf.rb

ViewComponent::Form.configure do |config|
  config.parent_component = 'ApplicationFormComponent'
end

ViewComponent::Form will automatically infer the component class with a Component suffix. You can customize the lookup using the lookup_chain:

# config/initializers/vcf.rb

ViewComponent::Form.configure do |config|
  without_component_suffix = lambda do |component_name, namespaces: []|
    namespaces.lazy.map do |namespace|
      "#{namespace}::#{component_name.to_s.camelize}".safe_constantize
    end.find(&:itself)
  end

  config.lookup_chain.prepend(without_component_suffix)
end

ViewComponent::Form will iterate through the lookup_chain until a value is returned. By using prepend we can fallback on the default ViewComponent::Form lookup.

Add your own form builder.

bin/rails generate vcf:builder FormBuilder
      create  app/helpers/form_builder.rb

To use the form builder:

• add a builder param to your form_for, form_with, fields_for or fields:

- <%= form_for @user do |f| %>
+ <%= form_for @user, builder: FormBuilder do |f| %>

• or; set it as a default in your controller using default_form_builder.

# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  default_form_builder FormBuilder
end

Then use ActionView form builder helpers as you would normally:

<%# app/views/users/_form.html.erb %>
<%= form_for @user, builder: ViewComponent::Form::Builder do |f| %>
  <%= f.label :first_name %>        <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::LabelComponent %>
  <%= f.text_field :first_name %>   <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::TextFieldComponent %>

  <%= f.label :last_name %>         <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::LabelComponent %>
  <%= f.text_field :last_name %>    <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::TextFieldComponent %>

  <%= f.label :email %>             <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::LabelComponent %>
  <%= f.email_field :email %>       <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::EmailFieldComponent %>

  <%= f.label :password %>          <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::LabelComponent %>
  <%= f.password_field :password, aria: { describedby: f.field_id(:password, :description) } %>
                                    <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::PasswordFieldComponent %>
  <div id="<%= f.field_id(:title, :description) %>">
    <%= f.hint :password, 'The password should be at least 8 characters long' %>
                                      <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::HintComponent %>
    <%= f.error_message :password %>  <%# renders a ViewComponent::Form::ErrorMessageComponent %>
  </div>
<% end %>

The ViewComponent::Form::Builder will use the provided namespace to find any components you've customized.

# app/helpers/form_builder.rb
class FormBuilder < ViewComponent::Form::Builder
  namespace Form
end

Let's customize the text_field helper by generating a new ViewComponent in the namespace defined within the builder.

bin/rails generate component Form::TextField --parent ViewComponent::Form::TextFieldComponent --inline

# app/components/form/text_field_component.rb
class Form::TextFieldComponent < ViewComponent::Form::TextFieldComponent
  def html_class
    class_names("custom-text-field", "has-error": method_errors?)
  end
end

In this case we're leveraging the #class_names helper to:

• always add the custom-text-field class;
• add the has-error class if there is an error on the attribute (using ViewComponent::Form::FieldComponent#method_errors?).

Add the helper method to your ViewComponent::Form::Builder

# app/helpers/form_builder.rb
class FormBuilder < ViewComponent::Form::Builder
  def year_field(method, options = {})
    render_component(:year_field, @object_name, method, objectify_options(options))
  end

  def money_field(method, currencies = [], options = {})
    render_component(:money_field, @object_name, method, currencies, objectify_options(options))
  end
end

Add your component which can optionally inherit from:

• ViewComponent::Form::FieldComponent (suggested when adding a field because of helpers)
• ViewComponent::Form::BaseComponent
• or any of the ViewComponent::Form::*Component such as ViewComponent::Form::TextFieldComponent

# app/components/form/year_field_component.rb
class Form::YearFieldComponent < ViewComponent::Form::FieldComponent # or ViewComponent::Form::BaseComponent
end

When inheriting from ViewComponent::Form::FieldComponent, you get access to the following helpers:

Returns the translated text for the label of the field (looking up for helpers.label.OBJECT.METHOD_NAME), or humanized version of the method name if not available.

# app/components/custom/form/group_component.rb
class Custom::Form::GroupComponent < ViewComponent::Form::FieldComponent
end

<%# app/components/custom/form/group_component.html.erb %>
<div class="custom-form-group">
  <label>
    <%= label_text %><br />
    <%= content %>
  </label>
</div>

<%# app/views/users/_form.html.erb %>
<%= form_for @user do |f| %>
  <%= f.group :first_name do %>
    <%= f.text_field :first_name %>
  <% end %>
<% end %>

# config/locales/en.yml
en:
  helpers:
    label:
      user:
        first_name: Your first name

Renders:

<form
  class="edit_user"
  id="edit_user_1"
  action="/users/1"
  accept-charset="UTF-8"
  method="post"
>
  <!-- ... -->
  <label>
    Your first name<br />
    <input
      type="text"
      value="John"
      name="user[first_name]"
      id="user_first_name"
    />
  </label>
</form>

Let's consider the following model for the examples below.

# app/models/user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :first_name, presence: true, length: { minimum: 2, maximum: 255 }
end

Returns all validators for the method name.

# app/components/custom/form/group_component.rb
class Custom::Form::GroupComponent < ViewComponent::Form::FieldComponent
  private

  def validation_hint
    if length_validator
      "between #{length_validator.options[:minimum]} and #{length_validator.options[:maximum]} chars"
    end
  end

  def length_validator
    validators.find { |v| v.is_a?(ActiveModel::Validations::LengthValidator) }
  end
end

<%# app/components/custom/form/group_component.html.erb %>
<div class="custom-form-group">
  <label>
    <%= label_text %> (<%= validation_hint %>)<br />
    <%= content %>
  </label>
</div>

<%# app/components/custom/form/group_component.html.erb %>
<div class="custom-form-group">
  <label>
    <%= label_text %><%= " (required)" if required? %><br />
    <%= content %>
  </label>
</div>

When using validation contexts, you can specify a context to the helpers above.

# app/models/user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :first_name, presence: true, length: { minimum: 2, maximum: 255 }
  validates :email, presence: true, on: :registration
end

<%# app/views/users/_form_.html.erb %>
<%= form_with model: @user,
              builder: ViewComponent::Form::Builder,
              validation_context: :registration do |f| %>
  <%= f.group :email do %>
    <%= f.email_field :email %>
  <% end %>
<% end %>

In this case, ViewComponent::Form::Builder accepts a validation_context option and passes it as a default value to the #validators, #required? and #optional? helpers.

Alternatively, you can pass the context to the helpers:

<%= "(required)" if required?(context: :registration) %>

def length_validator
  validators(context: :registration).find { |v| v.is_a?(ActiveModel::Validations::LengthValidator) }
end

1. Setup some base component from which the form components will inherit from

class ApplicationFormComponent < ViewComponent::Base
end

2. Configure the parent component class

# config/initializers/vcf.rb

ViewComponent::Form.configure do |config|
  config.parent_component = 'ApplicationFormComponent'
end

If you want to ensure that your fields display consistently across your app, you'll need to lean on Rails' own helpers. You may be used to using form tag helpers such as text_field_tag to generate tags, or even writing out plain HTML tags. These can't be integrated with a form builder, so they won't offer you the benefits of this gem.

You'll most likely want to use either:

• form_with and supply a route as the endpoint, e.g. form_with url: users_path do |f| ..., or
• fields, supplying a namespace if necessary. fields do |f| ... ought to work in the most basic case.

fields_for may also be of interest. To make consistent use of view_component-form, you'll want to be using these three helpers to build your forms wherever possible.

The following helpers are currently supported by ViewComponent::Form.

Supported: button check_box collection_check_boxes collection_radio_buttons collection_select color_field date_field date_select datetime_field datetime_local_field datetime_select email_field fields fields_for file_field field_id grouped_collection_select hidden_field month_field number_field password_field phone_field radio_button range_field search_field select submit telephone_field text_area text_field time_field time_select time_zone_select to_model to_partial_path url_field week_field weekday_select

Partially supported: label (blocks not supported) rich_text_area (untested)

Unsupported for now: field_name

Supported: error_message hint

This assumes your already have read and configured tests for view_component.

# spec/rails_helper.rb
require "view_component/test_helpers"
require "view_component/form/test_helpers"
require "capybara/rspec"

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include ViewComponent::TestHelpers, type: :component
  config.include ViewComponent::Form::TestHelpers, type: :component
  config.include Capybara::RSpecMatchers, type: :component
end

# spec/components/form/text_field_component_spec.rb
RSpec.describe Form::TextFieldComponent, type: :component do
  let(:object)  { User.new } # replace with a model of your choice
  let(:form)    { form_with(object) }
  let(:options) { {} }

  let(:component) { render_inline(described_class.new(form, object_name, :first_name, options)) }

  context "with simple args" do
    it do
      expect(component.to_html)
        .to have_tag("input", with: { name: "user[first_name]", id: "user_first_name", type: "text" })
    end
  end
end

For more complex components, we recommend the rspec-html-matchers gem.

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, run bin/release x.x.x, which will update the version.rb file, open the changelog for edition, create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/pantographe/view_component-form. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Everyone interacting in the ViewComponent::Form project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.