use-inertia-form

Introduction

A hook for using forms with Inertia.js, meant to be used as a direct replacement of Inertia's useForm hook.

It address two issues with the original: the bug preventing the transform method from running on submit, and the lack of support for nested form data.

This was developed alongside a Rails project, so the form handling ethos follows Rails conventions, however, effort was taken to make it as agnostic as possible and it should be useable in a Laravel application as well.

Quickstart

More in depth documentation is available on the Wiki section of this repo

Here is a codesandbox with usage examples for all hooks and components

Below are basic usage examples of the exported members of this project

useInertiaForm

Drop in replacement for Inertia.js' useForm, with support for nested data

const { data, setData, getData, unsetData, errors, setError, getError } = useInertiaForm({
  user: {
    firstName: 'Finn'
    lastName: undefined
  }
})

getData('user.firstName')
setData('user.lastName', 'Human')

Form component

Create a custom form component for your project

import { Form as InertiaForm, type FormProps, type NestedObject } from 'use-inertia-form'

const Form = <TForm extends NestedObject>(
  { children, railsAttributes = true, className, ...props }: FormProps<TForm>,
) => {
  return (
    <div className="form-wrapper">
      <InertiaForm
        className={ `form ${className}` }
        railsAttributes={ railsAttributes }
        { ...props }
      >
        { children }
      </InertiaForm>
    </div>
  )
}

export default Form

useInertiaInput

Create custom inputs for your project

import { useInertiaInput } from 'use-inertia-form'

const TextInput = ({ name, model, label }) => {
  const { inputName, inputId, value, setValue, error } = useInertiaInput({ name, model })

  return (
    <label for={ inputId }>{ label }</label>
    <input
      type='text'
      id={ inputId }
      name={ inputName }
      value={ value }
      onChange={ e => setValue(e.target.value) }
    >
    { error && <div className="error">{ error }</div> }
  )
}

NestedFields

Helper component for visually specifying nested data lookup context

import { NestedFields } from 'use-inertia-form'
import { Form, TextInput } from 'my/project/components'

const user = {
  firstName: 'Finn',
  preferences: {
    princess: 'Bubblegum',
    sword: 'Scarlet'
  }
}

const EditUserForm = () => {
  return (
    <Form model="user" data={ { user } } to={ `users/${user.id}` } method="patch">
      <TextInput name="firstName" label="First Name" />

      {/* Create a nested model context of `form.data.user.preferences` */}
      <NestedFields model="preferences">

        {/* This input would sync to `form.data.user.preferences.princess` */}
        <TextInput name="princess" label="Favorite Princess" />

        {/* And this would sync to `form.data.user.preferences.sword` */}
        <TextInput name="sword" label="Favorite Sword" />

      </NestedFields>
    </Form>
  )
}

useDynamicInputs

Build a custom component for handling arrays in nested data object

import { useDynamicInputs, NestedFields } from 'use-inertia-form'

const DynamicInputs = ({ children, model, label, emptyData }) => {
  const { addInput, removeInput, paths } = useDynamicInputs({ model, emptyData })

  return (
    <>
      <div style={ { display: 'flex' } }>
        <label style={ { flex: 1 } }>{ label }</label>
        <button onClick={ addInput }>+</button>
      </div>

      { paths.map((path, i) => (
        <NestedFields key={ i } model={ path }>
          <div style={ { display: 'flex' } }>
            <div>{ children }</div>
            <button onClick={ onClick: () => removeInput(i) }>-</button>
          </div>
        </NestedFields>
      )) }
    </>
  )
}

Submit

Not necessary to use, any submit button in the <Form> will cause the form to submit. This component just has a few standard features already built in.

Putting it all together

You can now use those components together to build forms with nested data support

import { NestedFields, Submit } from 'use-inertia-form'
import { Form, TextInput, DynamicInputs } from 'my/project/components'

// This probably comes from the server
const user = {
  user: {
    id: 1,
    firstName: "Jake",
    email: "[e-mail]",
    home: {
      name: "The Treehouse",
      location: "Ooo",
    },
    friends: [
      { name: "Finn", email: '[e-mail]' },
      { name: "BMO", email: '[e-mail]' },
    ]
  }
}

const EditUserForm = ({ user }) => {
  return (
    <Form 
      model="user"
      data={ { user } }
      to={ `users/${user.id}` }
      method="patch"
      filter="user.id"
    >
      <TextInput name="firstName" label="First Name" />

      <TextInput name="email" label="Email" />

      <NestedFields model="home">
        <TextInput name="name" label="Home Name">
        <TextInput name="location" label="Home Location">
      </NestedFields>

      <DynamicInputs model="friends" emptyData={ {name: ''} } label="Friends">
        <TextInput name="name" label="Name" />
        <TextInput name="email" label="Email" />
      </DynamicInputs>

      <Submit>Update User</Submit>
    </Form>
  )
}