Forms are an essential part of almost every website, however, we don’t always pay much attention to their fine details. Several things can be done to improve them, such as the JQuery input mask validation plugin, JQuery, and other visual guides. Below are the form management tools in JavaScript to improve the appearance of your forms.
Here are 18 useful tools you can use to make your forms look their best:
Table of Contents
1) form base
form base is a CSS/SASS package for implementing beautiful default styles to your form elements. These styles are cross-browser compatible and fix cross-browser bugs and styles create better UX and consistent styling across browsers.
2) Foxholder
Foxholder consists of 15 different animation variables to enhance your forms. When the user interacts with an input, an animation is generated. This is a nice way to make sure users know exactly where they are on your form.
3) Dirrty
dirrty is a jQuery plugin that can detect whenever a form field has been modified. When a change is detected, it prompts the user to save the changes to the form.
4) Input mask
Make it very easy for users to input form data such as date, phone number, and currency with Inputmask. When a user interacts with a defined input, a mask is placed in a field that indicates the exact formatting required. It not only shows the required format to the users but also ensures the correctness and validity of the input data.
5) JQuery validation plugin
The jQuery Validator plugin is a fully customizable tool to help validate form data. Out of the box, it supports both URL and email validation. It even comes with an API that allows developers to add the validation they want.
6) Depends on
Context dependencies are great for things like making sure the user only sees fields that are relevant to them and can also be a means of validation. opensOn is a jQuery plugin that allows you to add dependencies to any form.
7) Choices.js
Using Choices.js, you can add some cool select box and text input features to your forms. This JavaScript-style library allows you to create your custom input templates.
8) Cascading Drop-Down Menu
Cascading Drop-Down Menu is a great solution for when you need a form that requires the user to select multiple steps. For example, to select a car, you can select the brand, then the model, then the year, etc.
9) Multipicker
Multipicker provides an attractive and intuitive way for users to select multiple items (similar to a checkbox) or a single item (similar to a radio button) in a list. It can be used with those form elements mentioned above or even HTML elements like an unordered list.
10) JQuery form plugin
Upgrade your standard HTML forms to use AJAX with the jQuery form plugin. This plugin provides you with many options to give you complete control over how form data is submitted.
11) Great Forms
The combination of a form that looks great is easy to use and helps the user enter data is one of the things that lead to better conversion rates. Adding one or more of the above tools to your workflow can help make your forms easier to crash.
12) jcf javascript forms
One of the JS form plugins is JCF forms, created by the PSD2HTML team. JCF stands for JavaScript Custom Forms and it lives up to its name. You can customize default dropdown menus, domain sliders, input fields, loading forms, and pretty much anything you need in a form.
This plugin is completely free and is based on jQuery, so installing it will not be a problem.
13) icheck extension boxes
Checkboxes and radio buttons are the most basic web forms. But the most customized ones also become very difficult and the default styles look very bland. Fortunately, installing and customizing the iCheck plugin is very easy without JS knowledge. This plugin works on jQuery and provides you with several pre-designed themes that you can easily edit.
But apart from appearance, this plugin supports keyboard inputs, 32 custom options, and almost a dozen response methods to manage user behaviors.
14) Parsley Library
If you prefer JS, you might like Parsley, a JS-based form validation library. It is completely free to download and is one of the most complete data validation plugins ever made. Parsley is unique in that it does not require complex regular expressions to function. It has a built-in validator for all types of inputs such as phone numbers, credit cards, addresses, and emails.
15) floatlabeljs plugin
This plugin creates a locator for the default fields, but moves the text directly above the field and is centered. This way, you can easily add information to the desired field and still keep the form label in the field. Keep a clear vision.
Note that this is a jQuery plugin so it requires a copy of that library. But it is very simple to install and you can follow the GitHub instructions to get it running smoothly.
16) tooltipster plugin
Complex forms work well with user guidance along the way. The nice thing about Tooltipster is that it’s a free jQuery plugin that allows you to add tooltips anywhere on the page. You can trigger these tooltips based on user behaviors like hovering, clicking, focusing, or when entering text. Define in one part. While connecting these pointers to Ajax requests or callback methods, you can also customize their style and animation.
17) flexselect plugin
If you don’t like the default HTML selection style, take a look at Flexselect. This free jQuery plugin transforms all select menus into drop-down panels attached to input fields. Drop-down panels can blend in much better with a regular layout, and they feel more comfortable to use.
Note that the settings are a bit tricky because the plugin has several dependencies, but it’s also flexible enough to customize and change the style to your liking.
18) Fort.js plugin
Some websites display progress bars at the top of the screen to indicate form completion. This work is more useful in long forms where the user may want to know how soon it will be done. Using Fort.js, you can quickly add this effect to your site with a few lines of code. This plugin is completely free and works with any number of input fields.