​

Custom Field#

You can add your own custom fields to be compatible with Formie by using the provided events.

use modules\ExampleField;

use verbb\formie\events\RegisterFieldsEvent;
use verbb\formie\services\Fields;
use yii\base\Event;

Event::on(Fields::class, Fields::EVENT_REGISTER_FIELDS, function(RegisterFieldsEvent $event) {
    $event->fields[] = ExampleField::class;
    // ...
});

Fields should extend the FormField base class. Where it's not possible to extend a class (your class already extends another one), the FormFieldTrait should be used. In both cases, fields should adhere to the FormFieldInterface interface,

For more complex fields that have sub-fields, you should implement the SubfieldInterface interface and use the SubfieldTrait trait.

In both cases, our FormField class itself extends from Craft's Field class. This means any methods, attributes or functionality used by regular Craft fields, can be used for your custom Formie fields.

​

Methods#

Refer to the Field object documentation for more.

​

Settings Schema#

Each field will have a number of settings specific to that field. The form builder and field editor uses Vue (opens new window) to create an excellent user experience when editing all aspects of the form. However, this makes it difficult to manage the settings for your field, where in typical Craft you might use Twig.

To cater for this, we provide a number of methods for you to define a schema for your field settings. Each schema consists of a collection of objects that define what fields your settings have. This schema is then rendered in Vue components, without you having to worry about handling validation, or saving values.

The following methods are available. Each method matches to a specific tab in the field edit modal. Omitting the method or returning an empty array will mean the tab will not be shown altogether.

For those interested in further reading, we use Vue Formulate (opens new window) to manage the settings for fields. The below is largely applicable to the Generating forms (opens new window) documentation.

​

Creating your Schema#

Let's look at an example schema. Here we want to return a text <input> to store the placeholder for the field.

public function defineGeneralSchema(): array
{
    return [
        [
            'label' => Craft::t('formie', 'Placeholder'),
            'help' => Craft::t('formie', 'The text that will be shown if the field doesn’t have a value.'),
            'name' => 'placeholder',
            'type' => 'text',
            'class' => 'text fullwidth',
            'autocomplete' => 'off',
        ],
    ];
}

This tells Formie all the information it needs to render the field. In addition, you can also provide any valid attributes to be added to the form component element. For example, you might want to include some classes or data-attributes:

[
    // ...
    'class' => 'some-class',
    'data-value' => 'some-value',
]

You can also include any arbitrary DOM elements, instead of form elements. Here, we wrap a text field in a <div> tag using the children attribute, and the component, and also include an <img> element. This gives you a lot of flexibility on presenting your field settings.

[
    'component' => 'div',
    'class' => 'some-div',
    'children' => [
        [
            'component' => 'img',
            'src' => 'some/image/path/image.svg',
            'style => 'width: 50px;',
        ],
        [
            'label' => Craft::t('formie', 'Placeholder'),
            'help' => Craft::t('formie', 'The text that will be shown if the field doesn’t have a value.'),
            'name' => 'placeholder',
            'type' => 'text',
            'class' => 'text fullwidth',
            'autocomplete' => 'off',
        ],
    ]
],

As shown above, you can use children to infinitely nest elements.

Available attributes are:

Under the hood, we pass these values to a <component :is> dynamic Vue component. For further reading, see Dynamic Components (opens new window)

​

Schema Helpers#

You can also shorten the above using a number of our schema-helper functions, to take the boilerplate out of this code.

public function defineGeneralSchema(): array
{
    return [
        SchemaHelper::textField([
            'label' => Craft::t('formie', 'Placeholder'),
            'help' => Craft::t('formie', 'The text that will be shown if the field doesn’t have a value.'),
            'name' => 'placeholder',
        ]),
    ];
}

There are also a number of pre-built fields such as Label or Handle, which almost every field uses, which are even shorter!

return [
    SchemaHelper::labelField(),
    SchemaHelper::handleField(),
];

Available schema helpers are:

​

Options#

Some fields like a select or radio buttons can provide an options attribute.

[
    'options' => [
        ['label' => 'Some Label', 'value' => 'some-value'],
    ]
]

​

Table#

A table field is almost visually identical to Craft's own Table field settings for a Dropdown, Radio and of course Table field. This field requires a columns value to define what columns you'd like to use in the table field. It should also define what the defaults are for a new row added, with newRowDefaults.

[
    'newRowDefaults' => [
        'label' => '',
        'value' => '',
        'isOptgroup' => false,
        'isDefault' => false,
    ],
    'columns' => [
        [
            'type' => 'optgroup',
            'label' => Craft::t('formie', 'Optgroup?'),
            'class' => 'thin checkbox-cell',
        ],
        [
            'type' => 'label',
            'label' => Craft::t('formie', 'Option Label'),
            'class' => 'singleline-cell textual',
        ],
        [
            'type' => 'value',
            'label' => Craft::t('formie', 'Value'),
            'class' => 'code singleline-cell textual',
        ],
        [
            'type' => 'default',
            'label' => Craft::t('formie', 'Default?'),
            'class' => 'thin checkbox-cell',
        ],
    ],
]

Available column types are:

​

Field Types#

Refer to the Vue Formulate (opens new window) docs on the available input types to select from.

​

Validation#

Refer to the Vue Formulate (opens new window) docs on the available validation rules.

SchemaHelper::textField([
    'label' => Craft::t('formie', 'Placeholder'),
    'help' => Craft::t('formie', 'The text that will be shown if the field doesn’t have a value.'),
    'name' => 'placeholder',
    'validation' => 'required|starts_with:Some Value'
]),

​

Templates#

There are also a number of templates fields custom fields should provide. These are namely:

• Twig template for when shown in an email.
• Twig template for the front-end.
• Twig/Vue template the preview of the form in the form builder.
• Twig template for when viewing a submission.

These are defined in functions, which are respectively:

• getFrontEndInputTemplatePath()
• getEmailTemplatePath()
• getPreviewInputHtml()
• getInputHtml()

public static function getFrontEndInputTemplatePath(): string
{
    return 'my-module/my-field';
}

public static function getEmailTemplatePath(): string
{
    return 'my-module/my-field';
}

public function getPreviewInputHtml(): string
{
    return Craft::$app->getView()->renderTemplate('my-module/my-field/preview', [
        'field' => $this
    ]);
}

public function getInputHtml($value, ElementInterface $element = null): string
{
    return Craft::$app->getView()->renderTemplate('my-module/my-field/input', [
        'name' => $this->handle,
        'value' => $value,
        'field' => $this,
        'element' => $element,
    ]);
}

You'll notice special-cases for getFrontEndInputTemplatePath() and getEmailTemplatePath() where they return a path, instead of HTML. Whilst there are getFrontEndInputHtml() and getEmailHtml() functions, they should not be overwritten in most cases. This is because Formie will determine where to look for these templates, either in its own default templates, or the folder where custom templates are defined. As such, defining getFrontEndInputTemplatePath() and getEmailTemplatePath() to the path of Twig files is all that is needed.

In simple terms - if you are creating a third-party field for Formie, for general distribution, do not alter getFrontEndInputHtml() or getEmailHtml() functions. If you are using a custom field just on your project, it may be a valid case, and is totally fine.