panoskal / Formr

The fastest, easiest way to build and validate forms in PHP

Formr

Formr is a PHP micro-framework which installs easily and helps you build, layout and validate forms quickly, painlessly, and without all the complicated, messy overhead.

Find docs and screencasts here: http://formr.github.io

If you find Formr useful, please consider starring the project and/or making a donation. Thank you!

Features

• Create complex forms with server-side processing and validation in only minutes
• Bootstrap ready; automatically wrap all of your form elements and messages in Bootstrap classes
• Instantly make one field required, all fields required, or all but one field required
• Built-in POST validation rules, including validating email, comparisons, slugging and hashing
• Automatically build and format label tags, saving lots of time
• Create and validate radio groups and checkbox arrays in seconds
• Automatically wrap field elements in p, div, ul, ol, dl, Bootstrap's .form-control or roll your own
• Extensible: roll your own form & validation sets and dropdown menus and share 'em with others
• Extensible: easily create your own field element wrappers
• Send plain text and HTML emails
• Upload and resize images
• Generate CSRF tokens and set the expiration time
• Object-oriented; supports multiple forms per page
• Little helpers to assist in building, layout, testing and debugging
• And a ton of other cool stuff!

Installation

Composer

Run the following command to install Formr with Composer

composer require formr/formr

Then include the autoload.php file and create a new form object.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
$form = new Formr();

Download

Download the .zip file and place the Formr folder in your project, then include the Formr class and create a new form object.

require_once 'Formr/class.formr.php';
$form = new Formr();

Bootstrap Ready

Bootstrap form classes are ready to go! Just tell Formr you want to use Bootstrap when creating a new form and Formr will take care of the rest.

require_once 'Formr/class.formr.php';
$form = new Formr('bootstrap');

Basic Example

Simply enter your form labels as a comma delimited string and Formr will build the form, complete with opening and closing tags, a submit button, and email validation - plus all values retained upon POST. Easy!

$form = new Formr('bootstrap');
echo $form->create_form('Name, Email, Comments|textarea');

Produces the following HTML

<form action="/index.php" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">

    <div id="_name" class="form-group">
        <label class="control-label" for="name">
            Name
        </label>
        <input type="text" name="name" id="name" class="form-control">
    </div>

    <div id="_email" class="form-group">
        <label class="control-label" for="email">
            Email
        </label>
        <input type="email" name="email" id="email" class="form-control">
    </div>

    <div id="_comments" class="form-group">
        <label class="control-label" for="comments">
            Comments
        </label>
        <textarea name="comments" id="comments" class="form-control"></textarea>
    </div>

    <div id="_button" class="form-group">
        <label class="sr-only" for="button"></label>
        <button type="submit" name="button" id="button" class="btn btn-primary">Submit</button>
    </div>

</form>

Basic Example with More Control

Using the create() method tells Formr you want control over adding the form tags and submit button yourself. Otherwise it's the same as the Basic Example above.

$form = new Formr('bootstrap');
echo $form->form_open();
echo $form->create('First name, Last name, Email address, Age|number, Comments|textarea');
echo $form->input_submit();
echo $form->form_close();

Produces the following HTML

<form action="/index.php" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
    <div id="_first_name" class="form-group">
        <label class="control-label" for="first_name">
            First name
        </label>
        <input type="text" name="first_name" id="first_name" class="form-control">
    </div>
    <div id="_last_name" class="form-group">
        <label class="control-label" for="last_name">
            Last name
        </label>
        <input type="text" name="last_name" id="last_name" class="form-control">
    </div>
    <div id="_email_address" class="form-group">
        <label class="control-label" for="email_address">
            Email address
        </label>
        <input type="email" name="email_address" id="email_address" class="form-control">
    </div>
    <div id="_age" class="form-group">
        <label class="control-label" for="age">
            Age
        </label>
        <input type="number" name="age" id="age" class="form-control">
    </div>
    <div id="_comments" class="form-group">
        <label class="control-label" for="comments">
            Comments
        </label>
        <textarea name="comments" id="comments" class="form-control"></textarea>
    </div>
    <div id="_submit" class="form-group">
        <label class="sr-only" for="submit"></label>
        <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" class="btn" id="submit">
    </div>
</form>

Pre-Built Forms

Formr has several common forms already baked in, and it's really easy to create and save your own.

$form = new Formr();
echo $form->fastform('contact');

Produces the following HTML

<form action="/index.php" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
    <fieldset>
        <label for="fname">
            First name:
        </label>
        <input type="text" name="fname" id="fname" class="input">

        <label for="lname">
            Last name:
        </label>
        <input type="text" name="lname" id="lname" class="input">

        <label for="email">
            Email:
        </label>
        <input type="email" name="email" id="email" class="input">

        <label for="comments">
            Comments:
        </label>
        <textarea name="comments" id="comments" class="input" ></textarea>

        <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" id="submit">
    </fieldset>
</form>

Build Forms With Arrays

$data = [
    'text' => 'name, Name:',
    'email' => 'email, Email:',
    'checkbox' => 'agree, I Agree',
];

$form = new Formr('bootstrap');
echo $form->fastform($data);

Produces the following HTML

<form action="/index.php" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
    <fieldset>
        <div id="_name" class="form-group">
            <label class="control-label" for="name">
                Name:
            </label>
            <input type="text" name="name" class="form-control" id="name">
        </div>

        <div id="_email" class="form-group">
            <label class="control-label" for="email">
                Email:
            </label>
            <input type="email" name="email" class="form-control" id="email">
        </div>

        <div id="_agree" class="checkbox">
            <label for="agree">
                <input type="checkbox" name="agree" value="agree" id="agree"> I Agree
            </label>
        </div>

        <div id="_submit" class="form-group">
            <label class="sr-only" for="submit"></label>
            <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" id="submit" class="btn">
        </div>
    </fieldset>
</form>

Build Forms in HTML

You have full control over how you build your forms...

<div class="my-wrapper-class">
    <?php echo $form->input_text('name', 'Name'); ?>
</div>

<div class="my-wrapper-class">
    <?php echo $form->input_email('email', 'Email address', '[e-mail]', 'emailID', 'placeholder="[e-mail]"'); ?>
</div>

<div class="my-wrapper-class">
    <input type="text" name="address" value="<?php echo $form->value('address') ?>">
</div>

Produces the following HTML

<div class="my-wrapper-class">
    <label for="name">
        Name
    </label>
    <input type="text" name="name" id="name">
</div>

<div class="my-wrapper-class">
    <label for="emailID">
        Email address
    </label>
    <input type="email" name="email" id="emailID" value="[e-mail]" placeholder="[e-mail]">
</div>

Retrieving POST Values

It's super easy to retrieve your POST values and assign them to variables!

$name = $form->post('name');
$email = $form->post('email');

Validation

Formr can easly process and validate your forms

Like the create() method, we can pass a list of our form labels to the validate() method, which will get the POST values of our form fields and put them into an array. If your field name is email, a valid_email validation rule will be applied automatically!

Basic usage

$form->validate('Name, Email, Comments');

Let's make sure the form was submitted, then we'll validate and get the value of our email field from the array.

if($form->submitted()) {
    $data = $form->validate('Name, Email, Comments');
    $email = $data['email'];
}

Adding Rules

Let's make sure the Name field is a minimum of 3 characters and a maximum of 30 by adding our validation rules wrapped in parentheses.

$form->validate('Name(min_length[3]|max_length[30]), Email, Comments');

Fine-Tune Your Validation

Of course you can get more in-depth with your validation, and even add custom error messaging! The following is a basic example, however Formr's validation methods are quite powerful and include, among other things, comparing values between fields and hashing using bcrypt()

Let's get the value of our email field using the post() method.

$email = $form->post('email');

Now let's make sure it's a valid email address by entering the valid_email validation rule in the third parameter. If there's an error, the text entered into the second parameter will notify the user to correct the Email field.

$email = $form->post('email','Email','valid_email');

We can take that a step further and enter a full custom error message in the second parameter to make our forms even more user-friendly.

$email = $form->post('email','Email|Please enter a valid email address','valid_email');

Full Example

<?php
// include the Formr class
require_once 'Formr/class.formr.php';

// create our form object and use Bootstrap 4 as our form wrapper
$form = new Formr('bootstrap');

// make all fields required
$form->required = '*';

// check if the form has been submitted
if($form->submitted())
{
    // make sure our Message field has at least 10 characters
    $form->validate('Message(min_length[10])');

    // let's email the form
    $to = '[e-mail]';
    $from = '[e-mail]';
    $subject = 'Contact Form Submission';

    // this processes our form, cleans the input, and formats it into an HTML email
    if($form->send_email($to, $subject, 'POST', $from, 'HTML'))
    {
        // email sent; print a thank you message
        $form->success_message('Thank you for filling out our form!');
    }
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <title>Formr</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" crossorigin="anonymous">
</head>
<body>
    <div class="container">
        <?php
            // print messages, formatted using Bootstrap alerts
            echo $form->messages();

            // create the form
            echo $form->create_form('First name, Last name, Email address, Message|textarea');
        ?>
    </div>
</body>
</html>