npm package: @lyra/form-builder
Description: Lyra form builder
Author: Vega
Latest version: 0.3.0

# Form Builder

## Big fat disclaimer: Work in progress

There is an example of a consumer app in the `./example` that can be started with `npm start`

## Limitations

Polymorphic arrays may only contain elements of one primitive type. Thus, this is invalid:

```json
{
  "types": [
    {
      "name": "myType",
      "type": "array",
      "of": [
        {"type": "string", "title": "Street"},
        {"type": "string", "title": "E-mail"}
      ]
    }
  ]
}
```

## Terminology

### Type

Types are the building blocks for your schema. A type defines the structure and behavior of your data model.

There is a distiction between _primitive types_ and _container types_.

A container type is a type that contains data of other types, e.g. `array` or `object`. A primitive type only represents one simple value, like the number `3` or the string `foobar`

### Field

If you define an object type, you must also define its fields. E.g. if you are defining a `person` type, it may look like this:

```json
{
  "name": "person",
  "type": "object",
  "fields": [
    {
      "name": "firstName",
      "title": "First name",
      "type": "string"
    },
    {
      "name": "lastName",
      "title": "Last name",
      "type": "string"
    }
  ]
}
```

You cannot create an object type that has no fields. We haven't yet had the need for a `hash` type that can have arbitrary key => value pairs (where keys are strings and value can be anything), but will consider supporting it in the future.

## Input widgets

All input fields must follow a simple convention based protocol.
Every input field must:

- Accept a `value` prop which is the field's value
- Accept an `onChange` function as prop which is called whenever a value changes

## Schema

When writing a schema, `type` is implicitly `object`, unless otherwise specified. You're not allowed to set type: 'object' (redundant definition).

Only built-in types can take options. Below, `email.placeholder` is an option to `string` and `versions.of` is an option to `list`.

```js
const schema = {
  name: 'someSchema',
  types: [
    {
      name: 'user',
      fields: [
        {
          name: 'email',
          type: 'string',
          title: 'E-mail address',
          placeholder: 'murgh@example.com'
        },
        {
          name: 'profilePicture',
          type: 'image'
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      name: 'image',
      fields: [
        {
          name: 'fullSizeUrl',
          type: 'string'
        },
        {
          name: 'aspectRatio',
          type: 'number'
        },
        {
          name: 'versions',
          type: 'list',
          of: [{type: 'imageVersion'}]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      name: 'imageVersion',
      fields: [
        {
          name: 'width',
          type: 'number'
        },
        {
          name: 'square',
          type: 'boolean'
        },
        {
          name: 'url',
          type: 'string'
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
```

## Considerations / todo

- Support for collaborative editing
- Powerful validation rules
- i18n
- List item edit modality
- Styling