Building Reusable Forms With Vue 3 Composition Api

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The concept of reusable forms is a crucial aspect of modern web development. As applications grow in complexity, the need to reuse code and reduce duplication becomes increasingly important. In this article, we will explore how to build reusable forms using Vue 3's Composition API. By the end of this article, you will have a deep understanding of how to create reusable form components that can be easily integrated into your Vue applications.

Understanding the Problem

When building forms in Vue, it's common to encounter duplicated code. For example, you might have multiple forms that require similar validation logic or UI components. This duplication can lead to maintainability issues and make it harder to update your codebase.

To address this problem, we can leverage Vue's Composition API to create reusable form components. By extracting common logic and UI elements into separate components, we can easily reuse them throughout our application.

Introducing the Composition API

The Composition API is a new way of building Vue components, introduced in Vue 3. It provides a more functional programming style, allowing you to break down your code into smaller, reusable functions.

In the context of reusable forms, the Composition API enables us to create a set of composable functions that can be easily combined to build complex form components.

Building a Reusable Form Component

Let's start by building a simple reusable form component using the Composition API.

// useForm.js
import { ref, computed } from 'vue'

export function useForm(initialData) {
  const formData = ref(initialData)
  const errors = ref({})

  const validate = () => {
    // validation logic here
  }

  const handleSubmit = () => {
    // submission logic here
  }

  return {
    formData,
    errors,
    validate,
    handleSubmit
  }
}

In this example, we define a useForm composable function that takes an initialData object as an argument. The function returns an object containing the form data, errors, and two methods: validate and handleSubmit.

Using the Reusable Form Component

Now that we have our reusable form component, let's use it to build a simple login form.

// LoginForm.vue

In this example, we create a LoginForm component that uses the useForm composable function to manage its form data and validation logic.

Extending the Reusable Form Component

One of the benefits of using the Composition API is that it allows us to easily extend our reusable form component with new functionality.

For example, let's say we want to add support for form validation using a third-party library like Vuelidate.

// useForm.js (updated)
import { ref, computed } from 'vue'
import { useVuelidate } from '@vuelidate/core'

export function useForm(initialData, validationRules) {
  const formData = ref(initialData)
  const errors = ref({})

  const v$ = useVuelidate(validationRules, formData)

  const validate = async () => {
    const result = await v$.$validate()
    if (!result) {
      errors.value = v$.$errors
    }
  }

  const handleSubmit = () => {
    // submission logic here
  }

  return {
    formData,
    errors,
    validate,
    handleSubmit
  }
}

In this updated version, we've added support for Vuelidate by using the useVuelidate composable function. We've also updated the validate method to use Vuelidate's validation logic.

Using the Extended Reusable Form Component

Now that we've extended our reusable form component with Vuelidate support, let's update our LoginForm component to use the new validation logic.

// LoginForm.vue (updated)

In this updated version, we've added Vuelidate validation rules to our LoginForm component.

Conclusion

In this article, we've explored how to build reusable forms using Vue 3's Composition API. By extracting common logic and UI elements into separate components, we can easily reuse them throughout our application.

We've also seen how to extend our reusable form component with new functionality, such as form validation using Vuelidate.

By following these principles, you can create robust and maintainable form components that simplify your development workflow and improve the overall user experience.

We encourage you to try out these techniques in your own projects and explore the possibilities of building reusable forms with Vue 3.