Installation¶

Requirements¶

CodeIgniter 4.6 is not supported: every 4.6 release has published security advisories, and Composer refuses to install them by default.

Install with Composer¶

composer require ephraitech/ci4-forms

That is all the setup the package needs. CodeIgniter finds it automatically, including its configuration, views, helper and spark commands. You can check that the commands are available:

php spark list --simple | grep forms

forms:publish
forms:schema

Choosing a version constraint¶

Until version 1.0, a new minor version (0.5 to 0.6) may change behaviour, and each such change is listed in the changelog with upgrade notes. A constraint such as ^0.5 accepts bug-fix releases (0.5.1, 0.5.2) but not the next minor version, so upgrades only happen when you choose them:

composer require ephraitech/ci4-forms:^0.5

Add Bootstrap to your layout¶

The default theme renders Bootstrap 5 markup. If your layout does not include Bootstrap yet, add its stylesheet:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap@5.3.3/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css">

Forms need no JavaScript. Without Bootstrap they still work and stay accessible; they only lose the styling.

Turn on CSRF protection¶

Every form the package renders includes CodeIgniter's CSRF field, but CodeIgniter only checks it when its CSRF filter is on. If your app does not use it yet, enable it for all requests in app/Config/Filters.php:

public array $globals = [
    'before' => [
        'csrf',
    ],
    // ...
];

Configuration (optional)¶

The defaults suit most apps. To change a setting, create app/Config/Forms.php extending the package's configuration and override only what differs:

<?php

namespace Config;

use Ephraitech\Forms\Config\Forms as BaseForms;

class Forms extends BaseForms
{
    public bool $showErrorSummary = true;
}

php spark forms:publish --config creates this file for you, together with a copy of the views you can customise.

Your first form¶

Put the four files from the complete example on the home page into your app, then run the migration that creates the table for the messages:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Database\Migrations;

use CodeIgniter\Database\Migration;

class CreateContactMessages extends Migration
{
    public function up(): void
    {
        $this->forge->addField([
            'id'         => ['type' => 'INT', 'unsigned' => true, 'auto_increment' => true],
            'full_name'  => ['type' => 'VARCHAR', 'constraint' => 100],
            'email'      => ['type' => 'VARCHAR', 'constraint' => 150],
            'topic'      => ['type' => 'VARCHAR', 'constraint' => 20],
            'message'    => ['type' => 'TEXT'],
            'created_at' => ['type' => 'DATETIME', 'null' => true],
            'updated_at' => ['type' => 'DATETIME', 'null' => true],
        ]);
        $this->forge->addPrimaryKey('id');
        $this->forge->createTable('contact_messages');
    }

    public function down(): void
    {
        $this->forge->dropTable('contact_messages');
    }
}

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Models;

use CodeIgniter\Model;

class ContactMessageModel extends Model
{
    protected $table         = 'contact_messages';
    protected $allowedFields = ['full_name', 'email', 'topic', 'message'];
    protected $useTimestamps = true;
}

php spark migrate

Open /contact in your browser, submit the form empty to see the error messages, then send a real message and find it in the contact_messages table.

Then follow Getting started to build a booking feature with a layout, a business rule and editing.