Shadcn Nextjs Multistep Form Example
a simple way to create multi step forms with shadcn form components and Next.js, using no external state management library
Overview
The shadcn Form component offers a convenient way to manage forms using the React Hook Form library, making it particularly suitable for building more complex multi-step forms in a Next.js environment. This streamlined approach eliminates the need for extensive external state management, simplifying state handling while still ensuring a robust user experience. Designed for developers who want to maintain a clean and efficient code base, this solution emphasizes ease of use, partial submission management, and integrated validation features.
By utilizing the app router effectively, you can keep state management tied semantically to the URL, providing a seamless user journey across multiple form steps. This practical implementation not only improves user experience but also prevents data loss by leveraging local storage for saving partial submissions, allowing users to resume their progress without frustration.
Features
- No External State Management: Simplifies form handling by eliminating the need for extra libraries, thus reducing overhead and complexity.
- Next.js App Router Compatibility: Utilizes the app router to maintain state in the URL for a more streamlined user experience.
- Local Storage Support: Automatically saves partial form submissions to local storage, ensuring users don’t lose data during accidental refreshes.
- Validation with Zod: Integrates with Zod for defining schema-based validation, ensuring data integrity at each step of the form.
- Dynamic Server/Client Component Handling: Configures form components to access local storage correctly by dynamically importing context components, aligning with Next.js rendering strategies.
- Context API Utilization: Employs React's context API for managing form data, allowing easy access and updates across different steps of the multi-step form.
- Error State Management: Provides mechanisms to handle invalid submissions, improving user feedback and guiding them through the form completion process.
- Next.js
Next.js is a React-based web framework that enables server-side rendering, static site generation, and other powerful features for building modern web applications.
- React
React is a widely used JavaScript library for building user interfaces and single-page applications. It follows a component-based architecture and uses a virtual DOM to efficiently update and render UI components
- Tailwind
Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework that provides pre-defined classes for building responsive and customizable user interfaces.
- Shadcn UI
Beautifully designed components that you can copy and paste into your apps. Accessible. Customizable. Open Source.
- Eslint
ESLint is a linter for JavaScript that analyzes code to detect and report on potential problems and errors, as well as enforce consistent code style and best practices, helping developers to write cleaner, more maintainable code.
- Postcss
PostCSS is a popular open-source tool that enables web developers to transform CSS styles with JavaScript plugins. It allows for efficient processing of CSS styles, from applying vendor prefixes to improving browser compatibility, ultimately resulting in cleaner, faster, and more maintainable code.
- React Hook Form
React Hook Form is a performant, flexible, and extensible form library for React with easy validation. It reduces re-renders and improves performance by using uncontrolled components and native HTML validation, making form handling simple and efficient.
- Typescript
TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, providing optional static typing, classes, interfaces, and other features that help developers write more maintainable and scalable code. TypeScript's static typing system can catch errors at compile-time, making it easier to build and maintain large applications.
- Zod
Zod is a TypeScript-first schema declaration and validation library. It allows you to define schemas that can validate data at runtime while providing excellent TypeScript inference, making it perfect for API validation, form validation, and type-safe data handling.