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Wrap Dependencies

I highly recommend that you wrap almost all of your important dependencies in your own abstractions (not only angular-formly). This makes it very easy to upgrade if there's an ever a breaking change with your dependency. angular-formly is no exception to this. I recommend that you create your own directive that uses the formly-form directive and use that throughout your app.

Everything starts with the formly-form. General use of it will look something like this:

<formly-form model="vm.myModel" fields="vm.myFields" form="vm.myForm">
  <button type="submit" ng-disabled="vm.myForm.$invalid">Submit</button>
</formly-form>

Attributes

Field Config

When constructing fields use the options below to customize each field object. You must set at least a type, template, or templateUrl. These attributes are mutually exclusive.

You can only specify these properties. Additional properties will result in an error. If you need custom properties, use templateOptions or data.

type (string)

type is the type of field to be rendered. Either type, template, or templateUrl must be set.

template (string)

template can be set instead of type or templateUrl to use a custom html template form field. Should be used with
one-liners mostly (like a directive). Useful for adding functionality to fields.

Note: This can be used to add HTML instead of a form field.

Examples:

template: '<p>Some text here</p>'

template: '<hr />'

templateUrl (string)

templateUrl can be set instead of type or template to use a custom html template form field. Set a path relative
to the root of the application. ie directives/custom-field.html

key (string)

By default form models are keyed by location in the form array, you can override this by specifying a key.

hide (boolean)

Whether to hide the field (uses ng-if)

model (object)

By default, the model passed to the formly-field directive is the same as the model passed to the formly-form.
However, if the field has a model specified, then the specified model is used for that field (and that field only).
Also, a deep watch is added to the formly-field directive's scope to run the expressionProperties when the specified
model changes.

expressionProperties (object)

expressionProperties is an object where the key is a property to be set on the main field config (can be an angular expression) and the value is an expression used to assign that property. The expression can be a function or string expression and will be evaluated using formlyEval from formlyUtils see below for more information. The returned value is wrapped in $q.when so you can return a promise from your function :-)

NG-NL Talk Excerpt

For example:

vm.fields = [
  {
    key: 'myThing',
    type: 'someType',
    expressionProperties: {
      'templateOptions.label': '$viewValue', // this would make the label change to what the user has typed

       // this would set that property on data to be whether or not model.myThing.length > 5
      'data.someproperty.somethingdeeper.whateveryouwant': 'model.myThing.length > 5'
    }
  }
];

data (*)

data is reserved for the developer. You have our guarantee to be able to use this and not worry about future versions
of formly overriding your usage and preventing you from upgrading :-)

templateOptions (*)

templateOptions is reserved for the templates. Any template-specific options go in here. Look at your specific
template implementation to know the options required for this.

wrapper (string|array of strings)

wrapper makes reference to setWrapper in the formlyConfigProvider. It is expected to be the name of the wrapper
specified there. The formly field will be wrapped by the first wrapper, then the second, then the third, etc.

ngModelAttrs (object)

ngModelAttrs is used in an angular-formly created templateManipulator to automatically add attributes to the ng-model
element of field templates. You will likely not use this often. This object is a little complex, but extremely powerful.
It's best to explain this api via an example. See the bottom for the example of this api.

controller (controller name|controller function)

controller is a great way to add custom behavior to a specific field. You can also set the controller to a type as
well. It is injectable with the $scope of the field, and anything else you have in your injector.

link (link function)

link allows you to specify a link function. It is invoked after your template has finished compiling. You are passed
the normal arguments for a normal link function.

optionsTypes (string|array of strings)

optionsTypes allows you to specify extra types to get options from. Duplicate options are overridden in later
priority (index 1 will override index 0 properties). Also, these are applied after the type's defaultOptions
and hence will override any duplicates of those properties as well.

modelOptions (object)

modelOptions allows you to take advantage of ng-model-options directive. Formly's built-in templateManipulator (see
below) will add this attribute to your ng-model element automatically if this property exists. Note, if you use the
getter/setter option, formly's templateManipulator will change the value of ng-model to options.value which is a
getterSetter that formly adds to field options. For more information on ng-model-options, see
these
egghead
lessons.

watcher (object|array of watches)

watcher is an object which has at least two properties called expression and listener. The watch.expression is
added to the formly-form directive's scope. If it's a function, it will be wrapped and called with the field as the
first argument, followed by the normal arguments for a watcher, followed the watcher's stop function. If it's not
defined, it will default to the value of the field. The listener will also be wrapped and called with the field as the
first argument, followed by the normal arguments for a watch listener. You can also specify a type ($watchCollection
or $watchGroup) via the type property (defaults to $watch) and whether you want it to be a deep watch via the
deep property (defaults to false).

How the api differs from a normal $watch:

// normal watcher
$scope.$watch(function expression(theScope) {}, function listener(newValue, oldValue, theScope) {});

// field watcher
$scope.$watch(function expression(field, theScope, stop) {}, function listener(field, newValue, oldValue, theScope, stop) {});

validators (object)

validators is an object where the keys are the name of the validity (to be passed to $setValidity) and the values
are functions or expressions which returns true if it is valid. Templates can pass this option to the
formly-custom-validation directive which will add a parser (or validator, see note) to the ngModel controller of
the field. The validator can be a function or string expression and will be evaluated using formlyEval from
formlyUtils see below for more information.

Async validation: All function validators can return true/false/Promise. A validator passes if it returns true or
a promise that is resolved. A validator fails if it returns false or a promise that is rejected.

1.2: Formly defaults to use the $validators api, which is only available in angular 1.3. If you are using 1.2,
then the $parsers api is used which doesn't support async validation out of the box. However, formly will keep track
of the validations for you and ensure that the most recently resolved/rejected promise is what takes priority. Also,
while the validation is in flight, formly emulates the $pending api of 1.3 for your use in 1.2 as well, so you can
safely use this and upgrade to 1.3 without worrying about the upgrade path for this api. You're welcome :-)

NOTE: You can alternatively specify a validator as an object with an expression and a message. This will
unify how templates reference messages for when the validator has failed. Also, this should be used only for one-off
messages (use ng-messages-include for generic messages). message in this case should be an expression that is
evaluated in exactly the same way a validator is evaluated. The formly-custom-validation directive will then add an
object to the field options called validationMessages which is a map of functions where the key is the validation name
and the value is a to function which returns the evaluated message.

validation (object)

validation is an object with a few useful properties mostly handy when used in combination with ng-messages

validation.messages a map of functions mapped to message names. These messages come from the validators. Invoke
these and angular-formly will evaluate them using formlyUtil.formlyEval (which is how validators themselves are
evaluated.

validation.errorExistsAndShouldBeVisible a boolean indicating whether an error message should be shown. Because you
generally only want to show error messages when the user has interacted with a specific field, this value is set to
true based on this rule: field invalid && (field touched || validation.show)

validation.show is a boolean you as the developer can set to specify to force errorExistsAndShouldBeVisible
to be set to true when there are $errors. This is useful when you're trying to call the user's attention to some
fields for some reason.

Added Properties

Formly will add a few properties to your field config for convenience in templates

formControl

This is the NgModelController for the field. It provides you with awesome stuff like $errors :-)

value

This is a getter/setter function for the value that your field is representing. Useful when using getterSetter: true in the modelOptions (in fact, if you don't disable the templateManipulator that comes built-in with formly, it will automagically change your field's ng-model attribute to use value.

runExpressions

It is not likely that you'll ever want to invoke this function. It simply runs the expressionProperties expressions. It is used internally and you shouldn't have to use it, but you can if you want to.