Formwerk

Web components for improved HTML form elements.

<!-- Turn this... -->

<div class="formwerk--outer">
  <label for="example--input" class="form-label">Example</label>
  <div class="formwerk--input">
    <input id="example--input" type="text" aria-describedby="example--helptext" name="example" class="form-control" />
  </div>
</div>
<small id="example--helptext" class="form-text"> This is an example text field </small>

<!-- ...into this -->

<formwerk-input label="Example" name="example" helptext="This is an example text field"></formwerk-input>

Refer to the Formwerk examples page on live examples as well as their code examples.

These web components exist:

1. <formwerk-input /> enhances <input />
2. <formwerk-select /> enhances <select />
3. <formwerk-checkboxes /> enhances <input type="checkbox" /> & <input type="radio" />
4. <formwerk-textarea /> enhances <textarea />

All components have in common that any attributes attached will be attached to the <input>, <select> or <textarea> field inside of it. There are some additional attributes which will not be attached to the form field elements, but instead will make your live easier by attaching extra DOM structures around the form field element.

Installation

Either download the formwerk.js and formwerk.css to a sensible location in your web project, or do a NPM installation:

npm install @fboes/formwerk --save

Instead of a local installation you may also load the library from https://unpkg.com/. Beware: This makes https://unpkg.com/ a dependency of your project and may pose data protection issues.

<script type="module" src="https://unpkg.com/@fboes/formwerk@latest/dist/formwerk.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/@fboes/formwerk@latest/dist/formwerk.css" />

Everything required for the front-end functionality of this web component is contained in formwerk.jsand formwerk.css.

Usage

Load the JavaScript file formwerk.js into your HTML document to enable the Formwerk web components.

<script type="module" src="formwerk.js"></script>

Optional: Load additional formwerk.css style sheet for some basic styling of the Formwerk web components.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="formwerk.css" />

Write the Formwerk web components tags into your HTML.

<formwerk-input label="Example" name="example" helptext="This is an example text field"></formwerk-input>

Refer to the Formwerk examples page on live examples as well as their code examples.

Be aware that changing the attributes of the web components after mounting these to the DOM does most often not apply any further changes. Instead change the properties of the web components.

Attributes

These additional attributes exists on the Formwerk web components:

Name	Type	Property	<formwerk-input />	<formwerk-select />	<formwerk-checkboxes />	<formwerk-textarea />
label	string		✅	✅	✅	✅
helptext	string		✅	✅	✅	✅
output	boolean		✅	✅
unit	string		✅	✅
required	boolean	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
disabled	boolean	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
options	string[]|object[]	✅	✅	✅	✅
values	string[]	✅	✅	✅	✅
toggletype	object		✅
autogrow	boolean					✅

label

Will spawn an extra <label> before the form element, the attribute value will be the label text.

helptext

Will spawn an extra help paragraph text after the form element, the attribute value will be the paragraph text.

output

Will spawn an extra <output> after the form element, if set to true. This output show the current value, and may be helpful for inputs which do not show the current value like <input type="range" />.

unit

Will spawn an extra extra unit name (e.g. "°C") text after the form element, the attribute value will be the unit text.

required

Will toggle the input element's attribute required and add/remove the class is-required.

disabled

Will toggle the input element's attribute disabled and add/remove the class is-disabled.

options

Instead of creating multiple options for a <datalist>, <option>, <input type="checkbox"> or <input type="radio">, the options property allows for a fast creation of option lists.

This is available as attribute and element property.

A single list of options looks like this:

["One", "Two", "Three"]

If you are in need of having values and labels of a options behave differently, you can use a structured array.

[
  { "value": "1", "label": "One" },
  { "value": "2", "label": "Two" },
  { "value": "3", "label": "Three" }
]

values

For <select multiple /> as well as <input type="checkbox" /> it is possible to have multiple selected values for a given input element. For these elements there is a helpful values property to set and read multiple value.

This is available as attribute and element property.

["One", "Two", "Three"]

toggletype

This allows <input> field to change their type. The attribute requires the following JSON:

{
  "type": "text",
  "labelOff": "⇄",
  "labelOn": "⇆",
  "title": "Show / hide password"
}

autogrow

Text areas will grow according to their input text size.

Classes

.formwerk.is-required {
  /* This web component has a required input element */
}
.formwerk.is-disabled {
  /* This web component has a disabled input element */
}
.formwerk.is-invalid {
  /* This web component has an invalid input element value */
}

Status

Legal stuff

Author: Frank Boës 2024

Copyright & license: See LICENSE.txt