candy_wrapper

candy_wrappers are lightweight wrapper components around popular UI libraries made to work with form_props. Easily use the power of Rails forms with any supported React UI library.

Caution

This project is in its early phases of development. Its interface, behavior, and name are likely to change drastically before a major version release.

Component status

Each component are meant to be copied from this repo to your own project and customized to your liking. There are no CLI tools to help. just copy and paste from github.

Legend: ✔️ library component | 🌐 native HTML input | ❌ not supported

form_props helper	Component	Vanilla	Ark UI	Chakra UI	React Spectrum	Mantine	HeroUI	MUI	React Aria
f.text_field	TextField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.email_field	EmailField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.password_field	PasswordField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.number_field	NumberField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.date_field	DateField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.datetime_local_field	DateTimeLocalField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.time_field	TimeField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.search_field	SearchField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.tel_field	TelField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.url_field	UrlField	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.color_field	ColorField	🌐	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	🌐	✔️
f.month_field	MonthField	🌐	🌐	🌐	🌐	✔️	🌐	🌐	🌐
f.range_field	RangeField	🌐	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.file_field	FileField	🌐	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	🌐	🌐	✔️
f.check_box	Checkbox	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.collection_check_boxes	CollectionCheckboxes	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.collection_radio_buttons	CollectionRadioButtons	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.select (multiple: true supported)	Select	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.text_area	TextArea	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.grouped_collection_select	Select	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.weekday_select	Select	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.time_zone_select	Select	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
f.submit	SubmitButton	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️

Installation

There's nothing to install for the JavaScript wrappers. The TypeScript wrappers import their shared types from @thoughtbot/candy_wrapper, so add it if you use them:

npm install -D @thoughtbot/candy_wrapper

Then go to the wrappers directory in this repo and copy the wrappers for the UI library of your choice into your project. Each UI library has two variants with the same components:

• wrappers/ts/<library> - TypeScript (index.tsx), typed with @thoughtbot/candy_wrapper
• wrappers/js/<library> - plain JavaScript (index.jsx), no dependency on @thoughtbot/candy_wrapper

The Chakra UI wrappers also include a components/ui directory that should be copied along with index.

Usage

Once you've copied the components to your project. Use form_props to build your form:

json.newPostForm do
  form_props(model: @post) do |f|
    f.text_field :title
    f.submit
  end
end

This would create a payload that looks something this:

{
  newPostForm: {
    form: {
      action: "/posts/123",
      acceptCharset: "UTF-8",
      method: "post"
    },
    extras: {
      method: {
        name: "_method",
        type: "hidden",
        defaultValue: "patch",
        autoComplete: "off"
      },
      csrf: {
        name: "authenticity_token",
        type: "hidden",
        defaultValue: "SomeTOken!23$",
        autoComplete: "off"
      },
      utf8: {
        name: "utf8",
        type: "hidden",
        defaultValue: "\u0026#x2713;",
        autoComplete: "off"
      }
    },
    inputs: {
      title: {name: "post[title]", id: "post_title", type: "text", defaultValue: "hello"},
      submit: {name: "commit", text: "Update Post", type: "submit"}
    }
  }
}

Take the payload and pass it to the wrapper:

import {Form, TextField, SubmitButton} from './copied_components_for_mantine'

const {form, extras, inputs} = newPostForm

<Form {...form} extras={extras}>
  <TextField {...inputs.title} label="Post title" />
  <SubmitButton {...inputs.submit} />
</Form>

Server errors

Each wrapper comes with inline support for server errors.

import {Form, TextField, SubmitButton} from './copied_components'

const validationErrors = {
  full_title: "Invalid length"
}

const {form, extras, inputs} = newPostForm

<Form {...form} extras={extras} validationErrors={validationErrors}>
  <TextField {...inputs.title} label="Post title" errorKey="full_title" />
  <SubmitButton {...inputs.submit} />
</Form>

Helpers

Besides the components in the table above, each wrapper exports the building blocks it uses internally, which are handy when writing your own components:

• Form - renders the form, its Extras, and provides validationErrors via ValidationContext.
• Extras - renders the hidden inputs from the extras payload (_method, authenticity_token, utf8).
• ValidationContext - React context holding the validationErrors passed to Form. In the React Aria wrapper this is FormValidationContext from react-aria-components, re-exported under the same name.
• useErrorMessage(errorKey) - returns the error message for errorKey from ValidationContext, or null.

The Vanilla wrappers also export:

• FieldError - renders the inline error for an errorKey.
• FieldBase - a label, input, and FieldError combined; the base of most Vanilla fields.

Vanilla

Vanilla wrappers wrap around basic React HTML tags. If you want to build wrappers of your own, you can start here and use other UI wrappers as reference.

Ark UI

To use the Ark UI wrappers, add the following library before copying:

yarn add @ark-ui/react

Chakra UI

To use the Chakra UI wrappers, add the following library before copying:

yarn add @chakra-ui/react @emotion/react react-icons

react-icons is used by the copied components/ui/password-input.

React Spectrum

To use the React Spectrum S2 wrappers, add the following libraries before copying:

yarn add @react-spectrum/s2 @internationalized/date

Mantine

To use the Mantine wrappers, add the following libraries before copying:

yarn add @mantine/core @mantine/hooks @mantine/dates dayjs

HeroUI

To use the HeroUI wrappers, add the following libraries before copying:

yarn add @heroui/react @internationalized/date

Requires Tailwind CSS v4 with @heroui/styles.

MUI

To use the MUI wrappers, add the following library before copying:

yarn add @mui/material @emotion/react @emotion/styled

React Aria

To use the React Aria wrappers, add the following libraries before copying:

yarn add react-aria-components @internationalized/date

Contributors

Thank you, contributors!