Laravel 5 form builder

Form builder for Laravel 5 inspired by Symfony's form builder. With help of Laravels FormBuilder class creates forms that can be easy modified and reused. By default it supports Bootstrap 3.

Laravel 4

For Laravel 4 version check laravel4-form-builder.

Bootstrap 4 support

To use bootstrap 4 instead of bootstrap 3, install laravel-form-builder-bs4.

Upgrade to 1.6

If you upgraded to >1.6.* from 1.5.* or earlier, and having problems with form value binding, rename default_value to value.

More info in changelog.

Documentation

For detailed documentation refer to https://kristijanhusak.github.io/laravel-form-builder/.

Changelog

Changelog can be found here.

Installation

Using Composer

composer require kris/laravel-form-builder

Or manually by modifying composer.json file:

{
    "require": {
        "kris/laravel-form-builder": "1.*"
    }
}

And run composer install

Then add Service provider to config/app.php

    'providers' => [
        // ...
        Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\FormBuilderServiceProvider::class
    ]

And Facade (also in config/app.php)

    'aliases' => [
        // ...
        'FormBuilder' => Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\Facades\FormBuilder::class
    ]

Notice: This package will add laravelcollective/html package and load aliases (Form, Html) if they do not exist in the IoC container.

Quick start

Creating form classes is easy. With a simple artisan command:

php artisan make:form Forms/SongForm --fields="name:text, lyrics:textarea, publish:checkbox"

Form is created in path app/Forms/SongForm.php with content:

<?php

namespace App\Forms;

use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\Form;
use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\Field;

class SongForm extends Form
{
    public function buildForm()
    {
        $this
            ->add('name', Field::TEXT, [
                'rules' => 'required|min:5'
            ])
            ->add('lyrics', Field::TEXTAREA, [
                'rules' => 'max:5000'
            ])
            ->add('publish', Field::CHECKBOX);
    }
}

If you want to instantiate empty form without any fields, just skip passing --fields parameter:

php artisan make:form Forms/PostForm

Gives:

<?php

namespace App\Forms;

use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\Form;

class PostForm extends Form
{
    public function buildForm()
    {
        // Add fields here...
    }
}

After that instantiate the class in the controller and pass it to view:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller as BaseController;
use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\FormBuilder;

class SongsController extends BaseController {

    public function create(FormBuilder $formBuilder)
    {
        $form = $formBuilder->create(\App\Forms\SongForm::class, [
            'method' => 'POST',
            'url' => route('song.store')
        ]);

        return view('song.create', compact('form'));
    }

    public function store(FormBuilder $formBuilder)
    {
        $form = $formBuilder->create(\App\Forms\SongForm::class);

        if (!$form->isValid()) {
            return redirect()->back()->withErrors($form->getErrors())->withInput();
        }

        // Do saving and other things...
    }
}

Alternative example:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller as BaseController;
use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\FormBuilder;
use App\Forms\SongForm;

class SongsController extends BaseController {

    public function create(FormBuilder $formBuilder)
    {
        $form = $formBuilder->create(SongForm::class, [
            'method' => 'POST',
            'url' => route('song.store')
        ]);

        return view('song.create', compact('form'));
    }

    public function store(FormBuilder $formBuilder)
    {
        $form = $formBuilder->create(SongForm::class);

        if (!$form->isValid()) {
            return redirect()->back()->withErrors($form->getErrors())->withInput();
        }

        // Do saving and other things...
    }
}

If you want to store a model after a form submit considerating all fields are model properties:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\FormBuilder;
use App\SongForm;

class SongFormController extends Controller
{
    public function store(FormBuilder $formBuilder)
    {
        $form = $formBuilder->create(\App\Forms\SongForm::class);
        $form->redirectIfNotValid();
        
        SongForm::create($form->getFieldValues());

        // Do redirecting...
    }

You can only save properties you need:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\FormBuilder;
use App\SongForm;

class SongFormController extends Controller
{
    public function store(FormBuilder $formBuilder, Request $request)
    {
        $form = $formBuilder->create(\App\Forms\SongForm::class);
        $form->redirectIfNotValid();
        
        $songForm = new SongForm();
        $songForm->fill($request->only(['name', 'artist'])->save();

        // Do redirecting...
    }

Or you can update any model after form submit:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\FormBuilder;
use App\SongForm;

class SongFormController extends Controller
{
    public function update(int $id, Request $request)
    {
        $songForm = SongForm::findOrFail($id);

        $form = $this->getForm($songForm);
        $form->redirectIfNotValid();

        $songForm->update($form->getFieldValues());

        // Do redirecting...
    }

Create the routes

// app/Http/routes.php
Route::get('songs/create', [
    'uses' => 'SongsController@create',
    'as' => 'song.create'
]);

Route::post('songs', [
    'uses' => 'SongsController@store',
    'as' => 'song.store'
]);

Print the form in view with form() helper function:

<!-- resources/views/song/create.blade.php -->

@extends('app')

@section('content')
    {!! form($form) !!}
@endsection

Go to /songs/create; above code will generate this html:

<form method="POST" action="http://example.dev/songs">
    <input name="_token" type="hidden" value="FaHZmwcnaOeaJzVdyp4Ml8B6l1N1DLUDsZmsjRFL">
    <div class="form-group">
        <label for="name" class="control-label">Name</label>
        <input type="text" class="form-control" id="name">
    </div>
    <div class="form-group">
        <label for="lyrics" class="control-label">Lyrics</label>
        <textarea name="lyrics" class="form-control" id="lyrics"></textarea>
    </div>
    <div class="form-group">
        <label for="publish" class="control-label">Publish</label>
        <input type="checkbox" name="publish" id="publish">
    </div>
</form>

Or you can generate forms easier by using simple array

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Routing\Controller as BaseController;
use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\FormBuilder;
use Kris\LaravelFormBuilder\Field;
use App\Forms\SongForm;

class SongsController extends BaseController {

    public function create(FormBuilder $formBuilder)
    {
        $form = $formBuilder->createByArray([
                        [
                            'name' => 'name',
                            'type' => Field::TEXT,
                        ],
                        [
                            'name' => 'lyrics',
                            'type' => Field::TEXTAREA,
                        ],
                        [
                            'name' => 'publish',
                            'type' => Field::CHECKBOX
                        ],
                    ]
            ,[
            'method' => 'POST',
            'url' => route('song.store')
        ]);

        return view('song.create', compact('form'));
    }
}

Contributing

Project follows PSR-2 standard and it's covered with PHPUnit tests. Pull requests should include tests and pass Travis CI build.

To run tests first install dependencies with composer install.

After that tests can be run with vendor/bin/phpunit