Creating custom UI integrations

This guide will walk you through the process of creating a custom UI integration for @autoform/react. By following these steps, you’ll be able to use AutoForm with your preferred UI library or custom components.

Set up the project

You can create your integration as a custom npm package (e.g. “@autoform/custom-ui”) or as part of your existing project. For this guide, we’ll create a new npm package.

mkdir @autoform-custom-ui
cd @autoform-custom-ui
npm init -y

Install the necessary dependencies:

npm install @autoform/react @autoform/core react

Create the main export file

Create a new file called src/index.tsx that will export all the necessary components and types:

// src/index.tsx
export * from "./AutoForm";
export * from "./types";
export * from "./utils";

Define custom types

Create a new file called src/types.ts:

// src/types.ts
import { AutoFormUIComponents, AutoFormFieldComponents } from "@autoform/react";
 
export interface CustomAutoFormUIComponents extends AutoFormUIComponents {
  // Add any additional UI components specific to your integration
  // This could include theme configuration, layout components, etc.
}
 
export interface CustomAutoFormFieldComponents extends AutoFormFieldComponents {
  // Add any additional field components specific to your integration
}

Implement UI components

Create a new folder called src/components and implement the required UI components. You’ll need to create the following components:

Form
FieldWrapper
ErrorMessage
SubmitButton
ObjectWrapper
ArrayWrapper
ArrayElementWrapper

You can take a look at existing implementations like “@autoform/mui” for inspiration. Here’s an example of how to implement these components with pure HTML:

// src/components/Form.tsx
import React from "react";
 
export const Form: React.FC<{
  onSubmit: (e: React.FormEvent) => void;
  children: React.ReactNode;
}> = ({ onSubmit, children }) => {
  return <form onSubmit={onSubmit}>{children}</form>;
};

// src/components/FieldWrapper.tsx
import React from "react";
import { FieldWrapperProps } from "@autoform/react";
 
export const FieldWrapper: React.FC<FieldWrapperProps> = ({
  label,
  error,
  children,
  id,
  field,
}) => {
  return (
    <div>
      <label htmlFor={id}>{label}</label>
      {children}
      {error && <span>{error}</span>}
    </div>
  );
};

// src/components/ErrorMessage.tsx
import React from "react";
 
export const ErrorMessage: React.FC<{ error: string }> = ({ error }) => (
  <span style={{ color: "red" }}>{error}</span>
);

// src/components/SubmitButton.tsx
import React from "react";
 
export const SubmitButton: React.FC<{ children: React.ReactNode }> = ({
  children,
}) => <button type="submit">{children}</button>;

Implement field components

In the same src/components folder, implement the field components. There is no requirement on which field components you need to implement, but you should cover the basic types like string, number, and date.

Here’s an example of how to implement these components:

// src/components/StringField.tsx
import React from "react";
import { AutoFormFieldProps } from "@autoform/react";
 
export const StringField: React.FC<AutoFormFieldProps> = ({
  field,
  inputProps,
  error,
  id,
}) => <input id={id} {...inputProps} />;

// src/components/NumberField.tsx
import React from "react";
import { AutoFormFieldProps } from "@autoform/react";
 
export const NumberField: React.FC<AutoFormFieldProps> = ({
  field,
  inputProps,
  id,
}) => <input id={id} type="number" {...inputProps} />;

// src/components/DateField.tsx
import React from "react";
import { AutoFormFieldProps } from "@autoform/react";
 
export const DateField: React.FC<AutoFormFieldProps> = ({
  field,
  inputProps,
  id,
}) => <input id={id} type="date" {...inputProps} />;

Additionally, you can create custom field components for other types like checkboxes, radio buttons, etc. These can later be used by setting a custom fieldType in the schema.

Create the AutoForm component

Create a new file called src/AutoForm.tsx. This will wrap the base AutoForm component from @autoform/react and provide your custom UI components:

// src/AutoForm.tsx
import { AutoForm as BaseAutoForm } from "@autoform/react";
import {
  CustomAutoFormUIComponents,
  CustomAutoFormFieldComponents,
} from "./types";
import { Form, FieldWrapper, ErrorMessage, SubmitButton } from "./components";
import { StringField, NumberField, DateField } from "./components";
 
const uiComponents: CustomAutoFormUIComponents = {
  Form,
  FieldWrapper,
  ErrorMessage,
  SubmitButton,
};
 
const formComponents: CustomAutoFormFieldComponents = {
  // The key should match the data type (string, number, date, etc.) or a custom field type (e.g. radio)
  string: StringField,
  number: NumberField,
  date: DateField,
};
 
export function AutoForm<T extends Record<string, any>>(
  props: Omit<
    Parameters<typeof BaseAutoForm>[0],
    "uiComponents" | "formComponents"
  >
) {
  return (
    <BaseAutoForm
      {...props}
      uiComponents={uiComponents}
      formComponents={formComponents}
    />
  );
}

Add custom field types (optional)

If you want to add custom field types, you can create new components and add them to the formComponents object in src/AutoForm.tsx. For example:

// src/components/CustomField.tsx
import React from "react";
import { AutoFormFieldProps } from "@autoform/react";
 
export const CustomField: React.FC<AutoFormFieldProps> = ({
  field,
  value,
  onChange,
  error,
  id,
}) => (
  <div>
    <input
      id={id}
      type="text"
      value={value || ""}
      onChange={(e) => onChange(e.target.value)}
    />
    <button onClick={() => onChange(value + "!")}>Add !</button>
  </div>
);

Then, add it to the formComponents object in src/AutoForm.tsx:

// src/AutoForm.tsx
// ... other imports
import { CustomField } from "./components/CustomField";
 
const formComponents: CustomAutoFormFieldComponents = {
  // ... other fields
  custom: CustomField,
};

Package and publish (optional)

Update your package.json file with the appropriate information and scripts:

{
  "name": "@autoform/custom-ui",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "dist/index.js",
  "types": "dist/index.d.ts",
  "scripts": {
    "build": "tsc",
    "prepublishOnly": "npm run build"
  },
  "peerDependencies": {
    "react": "^17.0.0 || ^18.0.0",
    "@autoform/react": "^1.0.0",
    "@autoform/core": "^1.0.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "typescript": "^4.5.0"
  }
}

Build your package:

npm run build

Now you can publish your package to npm:

npm publish

Using your custom UI integration

To use your custom UI integration in a project, install it alongside @autoform/react or use the integration in your project directly

npm install @autoform/react @autoform/custom-ui

Then, in your React component:

import { AutoForm, fieldConfig } from "@autoform/custom-ui";
import { ZodProvider } from "@autoform/zod";
 
const mySchema = z.object({
  // ... your schema definition
});
const schemaProvider = new ZodProvider(mySchema);
 
function MyForm() {
  return (
    <AutoForm
      schema={schemaProvider}
      onSubmit={(data) => {
        console.log(data);
      }}
      withSubmit
    />
  );
}

By following these steps, you’ve created a custom UI integration for @autoform/react that can be used with your preferred UI components or library. You can further customize the components and add more field types as needed for your specific use case.

Customization API