`<SimpleForm>`

The <SimpleForm> creates a <form> to edit a record, and renders its children (usually Input components) in a simple layout, one child per row.

Usage

<SimpleForm> reads the record from the RecordContext, uses it to initialize the defaultValues of a <Form>, renders its children in a Material UI <Stack>, and renders a toolbar with a <SaveButton> that calls the save callback prepared by the edit or the create controller when pressed.

<SimpleForm> is often used as child of <Create> or <Edit>. It accepts Input and Field components as children. It relies on react-hook-form for form handling. It requires no prop by default.

import { Create, SimpleForm, TextInput, NumberInput } from 'react-admin';
import { RichTextInput } from 'ra-input-rich-text';

export const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <RichTextInput source="body" />
            <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

<SimpleForm> calls react-hook-form’s useForm hook, and places the result in a FormProvider component. This means you can take advantage of the useFormContext and useFormState hooks to access the form state.

Props

Here are all the props you can set on the <SimpleForm> component:

Prop	Required	Type	Default	Description
`children`	Required	`element`	-	The form content.
`component`	Optional	`elementType`	`CardContent`	The component used to wrap the form.
`defaultValues`	Optional	`object\| function`	-	The default values of the record.
`id`	Optional	`string`	-	The id of the underlying `<form>` tag.
`noValidate`	Optional	`boolean`	-	Set to `true` to disable the browser’s default validation.
`onSubmit`	Optional	`function`	`save`	A callback to call when the form is submitted.
`sanitize EmptyValues`	Optional	`boolean`	-	Set to `true` to remove empty values from the form state.
`sx`	Optional	`object`	-	Custom styles
`toolbar`	Optional	`element`	-	The toolbar component.
`validate`	Optional	`function`	-	A function to validate the form values.
`warnWhen UnsavedChanges`	Optional	`boolean`	-	Set to `true` to warn the user when leaving the form with unsaved changes.

Additional props are passed to the useForm hook and to the material-ui <Stack> component.

`children`

<SimpleForm> renders its children (usually Input components) row by row. It uses a Material UI <Stack>.

import { Create, SimpleForm, TextInput, RichTextInput, NumberInput } from 'react-admin';

export const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <RichTextInput source="body" />
            <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

You can also pass non-input children to build a custom form layout. See the Complex Input Layout section for an example.

`component`

<SimpleForm> renders a Material UI <CardContent> by default. You replace it by any component you want as wrapper, just pass it as the component prop.

const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm component={MyWrapper}>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <RichTextInput source="body" />
            <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

`defaultValues`

The value of the form defaultValues prop is an object, or a function returning an object, specifying default values for the created record. For instance:

const postDefaultValue = () => ({ id: uuid(), created_at: new Date(), nb_views: 0 });

export const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm defaultValues={postDefaultValue}>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <RichTextInput source="body" />
            <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

Tip: You can include properties in the form defaultValues that are not listed as input components, like the created_at property in the previous example.

Tip: React-admin also allows to define default values at the input level. See the Setting default Values section.

`id`

Normally, a submit button only works when placed inside a <form> tag. However, you can place a submit button outside of the form if the submit button form matches the form id.

Set this form id via the id prop.

export const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm toolbar={false} id="post_create_form">
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <RichTextInput source="body" />
            <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
        </SimpleForm>
        <SaveButton form="post_create_form" />
    </Create>
);

`noValidate`

The <form novalidate> attribute prevents the browser from validating the form. This is useful if you don’t want to use the browser’s default validation, or if you want to customize the error messages. To set this attribute on the underlying <form> tag, set the noValidate prop to true.

const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm noValidate>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <RichTextInput source="body" />
            <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

`onSubmit`

By default, the <SimpleForm> calls the save callback passed to it by the edit or create controller, via the SaveContext. You can override this behavior by setting a callback as the onSubmit prop manually.

export const PostCreate = () => {
    const [create] = useCreate();
    const postSave = (data) => {
        create('posts', { data });
    };
    return (
        <Create>
            <SimpleForm onSubmit={postSave}>
                <TextInput source="title" />
                <RichTextInput source="body" />
                <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
            </SimpleForm>
        </Create>
    );
};

`sanitizeEmptyValues`

In HTML, the value of empty form inputs is the empty string (''). React-admin inputs (like <TextInput>, <NumberInput>, etc.) automatically transform these empty values into null.

But for your own input components based on react-hook-form, this is not the default. React-hook-form doesn’t transform empty values by default. This leads to unexpected create and update payloads like:

{
    id: 1234,
    title: 'Lorem Ipsum',
    is_published: '',
    body: '',
    // etc.
}

If you prefer to omit the keys for empty values, set the sanitizeEmptyValues prop to true. This will sanitize the form data before passing it to the dataProvider, i.e. remove empty strings from the form state, unless the record actually had a value for that field before edition.

const PostCreate = () =>  (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm sanitizeEmptyValues>
            ...
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

For the previous example, the data sent to the dataProvider will be:

{
    id: 1234,
    title: 'Lorem Ipsum',
}

Note: Setting the sanitizeEmptyValues prop to true will also have a (minor) impact on react-admin inputs (like <TextInput>, <NumberInput>, etc.): empty values (i.e. values equal to null) will be removed from the form state on submit, unless the record actually had a value for that field.

Note Even with sanitizeEmptyValues set to true, deeply nested fields won’t be set to null nor removed. If you need to sanitize those fields, use the transform prop of <Edit> or <Create> components.

If you need a more fine-grained control over the sanitization, you can use the transform prop of <Edit> or <Create> components, or the parse prop of individual inputs.

`sx`: CSS API

Pass an sx prop to customize the style of the main component and the underlying elements.

The most common usage is to limit the width of the form, to avoid long inputs on large screens:

export const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm sx={{ maxWidth: { lg: 600 } }}>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <RichTextInput source="body" />
            <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

`toolbar`

By default, <SimpleForm> renders a toolbar at the bottom of the form, containing:

a submit button on Creation pages,
a submit button and a delete button on Edition pages.

If you want to tweak the look and feel of that toolbar, add or remove buttons, pass your own toolbar component to the form using the toolbar prop.

const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm toolbar={<MyToolbar />}>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <RichTextInput source="body" />
            <NumberInput source="nb_views" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

Tip: Set the toolbar prop to false to hide the toolbar.

The most common use case is to display two submit buttons in the <Create> view:

One that creates and redirects to the <Show> view of the new resource, and
One that redirects to a blank <Create> view after creation (allowing bulk creation)

Form toolbar

For that use case, use the <SaveButton> component with a custom onSuccess prop:

import * as React from "react";
import { Create, SimpleForm, SaveButton, Toolbar, useRedirect, useNotify } from 'react-admin';

const PostCreateToolbar = () => {
    const redirect = useRedirect();
    const notify = useNotify();
    return (
        <Toolbar>
            <SaveButton
                label="post.action.save_and_show"
            />
            <SaveButton
                label="post.action.save_and_add"
                mutationOptions={{
                    onSuccess: data => {
                        notify('ra.notification.created', {
                            type: 'info',
                            messageArgs: { smart_count: 1 },
                        });
                        redirect(false);
                    }}
                }
                type="button"
                variant="text"
            />
        </Toolbar>
    );
};

export const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create redirect="show">
        <SimpleForm toolbar={<PostCreateToolbar />}>
            ...
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

Another use case is to remove the <DeleteButton> from the toolbar in an edit view. In that case, create a custom toolbar containing only the <SaveButton> as a child:

import * as React from "react";
import { Edit, SimpleForm, SaveButton, Toolbar } from 'react-admin';

const PostEditToolbar = () => (
    <Toolbar>
        <SaveButton />
    </Toolbar>
);

export const PostEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
        <SimpleForm toolbar={<PostEditToolbar />}>
            // ...
        </SimpleForm>
    </Edit>
);

In the default <Toolbar>, the <SaveButton> is disabled when the form is pristine. You can bypass this behavior and always enable it thanks to the prop alwaysEnable:

import * as React from 'react';
import { Edit, SimpleForm, SaveButton, DeleteButton, Toolbar } from 'react-admin';

const PostEditToolbar = () => (
    <Toolbar>
        <SaveButton alwaysEnable />
        <DeleteButton />
    </Toolbar>
);

export const PostEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
        <SimpleForm toolbar={<PostEditToolbar />}>
            ...
        </SimpleForm>
    </Edit>
);

`validate`

The value of the form validate prop must be a function taking the record as input, and returning an object with error messages indexed by field. For instance:

const validateUserCreation = (values) => {
    const errors = {};
    if (!values.firstName) {
        errors.firstName = 'The firstName is required';
    }
    if (!values.age) {
        // You can return translation keys
        errors.age = 'ra.validation.required';
    } else if (values.age < 18) {
        // Or an object if the translation messages need parameters
        errors.age = {
            message: 'ra.validation.minValue',
            args: { min: 18 }
        };
    }
    return errors
};

export const UserCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm validate={validateUserCreation}>
            <TextInput label="First Name" source="firstName" />
            <TextInput label="Age" source="age" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

Tip: The validate function can return a promise for asynchronous validation. See the Server-Side Validation section in the Validation documentation.

Tip: React-admin also allows to define validation rules at the input level. See the Validation chapter for details.

`warnWhenUnsavedChanges`

React-admin keeps track of the form state, so it can detect when the user leaves an Edit or Create page with unsaved changes. To avoid data loss, you can use this ability to ask the user to confirm before leaving a page with unsaved changes.

Warn About Unsaved Changes

Warning about unsaved changes is an opt-in feature: you must set the warnWhenUnsavedChanges prop in the form component to enable it:

export const TagEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
        <SimpleForm warnWhenUnsavedChanges>
            <TextInput source="id" />
            <TextInput source="name" />
            ...
        </SimpleForm>
    </Edit>
);

Note: Due to limitations in react-router, this feature only works if you use the default router provided by react-admin, or if you use a Data Router.

Using Fields As Children

The basic usage of <SimpleForm> is to pass Input components as children. For non-editable fields, you can pass disabled inputs, or even Field components. But since <Field> components have no label by default, you’ll have to wrap your inputs in a <Labeled> component in that case:

import { Edit, SimpleForm, TextInput, Labeled, TextField } from 'react-admin';

const PostEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
        <SimpleForm>
            <TextInput source="id" />
            <Labeled label="Title">
                <TextField source="title" />
            </Labeled>
            <TextInput source="body" />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Edit>
);

Complex Input Layout

<SimpleForm> can be used to render more than one input per row, and arrange inputs in a more user-friendly way.

complex form layout

By default, <SimpleForm> renders one child per row. But a given child can be a layout element (e.g. <Grid>, <Stack>, <Box>) and contain several input elements. This lets you build form layouts of any complexity:

const UserCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <SimpleForm sx={{ maxWidth: { lg: '500' } }}>
            <Typography variant="h6" gutterBottom>
                Identity
            </Typography>
            <Box display={{ xs: 'block', sm: 'flex', width: '100%' }}>
                <Box flex={1} mr={{ xs: 0, sm: '0.5em' }}>
                    <TextInput source="first_name" isRequired />
                </Box>
                <Box flex={1} ml={{ xs: 0, sm: '0.5em' }}>
                    <TextInput source="last_name" isRequired />
                </Box>
            </Box>
            <TextInput type="email" source="email" isRequired />
            <DateInput source="birthday" />
            <Separator />
            
            <Typography variant="h6" gutterBottom>
                Address
            </Typography>
            <TextInput source="address" multiline helperText={false} />
            <Box display={{ xs: 'block', sm: 'flex' }}>
                <Box flex={2} mr={{ xs: 0, sm: '0.5em' }}>
                    <TextInput source="city" helperText={false} />
                </Box>
                <Box flex={1} mr={{ xs: 0, sm: '0.5em' }}>
                    <TextInput source="stateAbbr" helperText={false} />
                </Box>
                <Box flex={2}>
                    <TextInput source="zipcode" helperText={false} />
                </Box>
            </Box>
            <Separator />
            
            <Typography variant="h6" gutterBottom>
                Password
            </Typography>
            <Box display={{ xs: 'block', sm: 'flex' }}>
                <Box flex={1} mr={{ xs: 0, sm: '0.5em' }}>
                    <PasswordInput source="password" />
                </Box>
                <Box flex={1} ml={{ xs: 0, sm: '0.5em' }}>
                    <PasswordInput source="confirm_password" />
                </Box>
            </Box>
        </SimpleForm>
    </Create>
);

const Separator = () => <Box pt="1em" />;

Before building your own custom layout, take a look at the existing form layout components provided by react-admin:

SimpleForm for a single-column layout
TabbedForm for a tabbed layout
AccordionForm for long forms with collapsible sections
LongForm for long forms with a navigation sidebar
WizardForm for multi-step forms
EditDialog for sub-forms in a modal dialog
and Form, a headless component to use as a base for your custom layouts

Subscribing To Form Changes

<SimpleForm> relies on react-hook-form’s useForm to manage the form state and validation. You can subscribe to form changes using the useFormContext and useFormState hooks.

Reminder: react-hook-form’s formState is wrapped with a Proxy to improve render performance and skip extra computation if specific state is not subscribed. So, make sure you deconstruct or read the formState before render in order to enable the subscription.

const { isDirty } = useFormState(); // ✅
const formState = useFormState(); // ❌ should deconstruct the formState      

Configurable

You can let end users customize the fields displayed in the <SimpleForm> by using the <SimpleFormConfigurable> component instead.

import {
    Edit,
-   SimpleForm,
+   SimpleFormConfigurable,
    TextInput,
} from 'react-admin';

const PostEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
-       <SimpleForm>
+       <SimpleFormConfigurable>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <TextInput source="author" />
            <TextInput source="year" />
-       </SimpleForm>
+       </SimpleFormConfigurable>
    </Edit>
);

When users enter the configuration mode and select the <SimpleForm>, they can show / hide SimpleForm inputs.

By default, <SimpleFormConfigurable> renders all child inputs. But you can also omit some of them by passing an omit prop containing an array of input sources:

// By default, hide the author input
// users can choose to show it in configuration mode
const PostEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
        <SimpleFormConfigurable omit={['author']}>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <TextInput source="author" />
            <TextInput source="year" />
        </SimpleFormConfigurable>
    </Edit>
);

If you render more than one <SimpleFormConfigurable> in the same page, you must pass a unique preferenceKey prop to each one:

const PostEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
        <SimpleFormConfigurable preferenceKey="posts.simpleForm">
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <TextInput source="author" />
            <TextInput source="year" />
        </SimpleFormConfigurable>
    </Edit>
);

<SimpleFormConfigurable> accepts the same props as <SimpleForm>.

AutoSave

In forms where users may spend a lot of time, it’s a good idea to save the form automatically after a few seconds of inactivity. You can auto save the form content by using the <AutoSave> component.

import { AutoSave } from '@react-admin/ra-form-layout';
import { Edit, SimpleForm, TextInput, DateInput, SelectInput, Toolbar } from 'react-admin';

const AutoSaveToolbar = () => (
    <Toolbar>
        <AutoSave />
    </Toolbar>
);

const PersonEdit = () => (
    <Edit mutationMode="optimistic">
        <SimpleForm
            resetOptions={{ keepDirtyValues: true }}
            toolbar={<AutoSaveToolbar />}
        >
            <TextInput source="first_name" />
            <TextInput source="last_name" />
            <DateInput source="dob" />
            <SelectInput source="sex" choices={[
                { id: 'male', name: 'Male' },
                { id: 'female', name: 'Female' },
            ]}/>
        </SimpleForm>
    </Edit>
);

Note that you must set the <SimpleForm resetOptions> prop to { keepDirtyValues: true }. If you forget that prop, any change entered by the end user after the autosave but before its acknowledgement by the server will be lost.

If you’re using it in an <Edit> page, you must also use a pessimistic or optimistic mutationMode - <AutoSave> doesn’t work with the default mutationMode="undoable".

Check the <AutoSave> component documentation for more details.

Versioning

By default, <SimpleForm> updates the current record (via dataProvider.update()), so the previous version of the record is lost. If you want to keep the previous version, you can use the <SimpleFormWithRevision> component instead:

// in src/posts/PostCreate.js
-import { Create, SimpleForm, TextInput, RichTextInput, NumberInput } from 'react-admin';
+import { Create, TextInput, RichTextInput, NumberInput } from 'react-admin';
+import { SimpleFormWithRevision } from "@react-admin/ra-history";

export const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
-       <SimpleForm>
+       <SimpleFormWithRevision>
            <TextInput source="title" />
            <TextInput source="teaser" />
            <TextInput multiline source="body" />
-       </SimpleForm>
+       </SimpleFormWithRevision>
    </Create>
);

This won’t change the look and feel of the form. But when the user submits the form, they will see a dialog asking them for the reason of the change.

SimpleFormWithRevision

After submitting this dialog, react-admin will update the main record and create a new revision. A revision represents the state of the record at a given point in time. It is immutable. A revision also records the date, author, and reason of the change. Past revisions can be accessed via the <RevisionsButton> component.

// in src/posts/PostEdit.js
import { Edit, TextInput, TopToolbar } from "react-admin";
import {
  SimpleFormWithRevision,
  RevisionsButton,
} from "@react-admin/ra-history";

const PostEditActions = () => (
  <TopToolbar>
    <RevisionsButton />
  </TopToolbar>
);

export const PostEdit = () => (
  <Edit actions={<PostEditActions />}>
    <SimpleFormWithRevision>
      <TextInput source="title" />
      <TextInput source="teaser" />
      <TextInput multiline source="body" />
    </SimpleFormWithRevision>
  </Edit>
);

Check the <SimpleFormWithRevision> and <RevisionsButton> documentation for more details.

Linking Two Inputs

Edition forms often contain linked inputs, e.g. country and city (the choices of the latter depending on the value of the former).

React-admin relies on react-hook-form for form handling. You can grab the current form values using react-hook-form’s useWatch hook.

import * as React from 'react';
import { Edit, SimpleForm, SelectInput } from 'react-admin';
import { useWatch } from 'react-hook-form';

const countries = ['USA', 'UK', 'France'];
const cities = {
    USA: ['New York', 'Los Angeles', 'Chicago', 'Houston', 'Phoenix'],
    UK: ['London', 'Birmingham', 'Glasgow', 'Liverpool', 'Bristol'],
    France: ['Paris', 'Marseille', 'Lyon', 'Toulouse', 'Nice'],
};
const toChoices = items => items.map(item => ({ id: item, name: item }));

const CityInput = () => {
    const country = useWatch({ name: 'country' });
    return (
        <SelectInput
            choices={country ? toChoices(cities[country]) : []}
            source="cities"
        />
    );
};

const OrderEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
        <SimpleForm>
            <SelectInput source="country" choices={toChoices(countries)} />
            <CityInput />
        </SimpleForm>
    </Edit>
);

export default OrderEdit;

Tip: If you’d like to avoid creating an intermediate component like <CityInput>, or are using an <ArrayInput>, you can use the <FormDataConsumer> component as an alternative.

Headless Version

<SimpleForm> renders its children in a Material UI <Stack>, and renders a toolbar with a <SaveButton>. If you want to build a custom form layout, you can use the <Form> component instead.

import { Create, Form, TextInput, RichTextInput, SaveButton } from 'react-admin';
import { Grid } from '@mui/material';

export const PostCreate = () => (
    <Create>
        <Form>
            <Grid container>
                <Grid item xs={6}>
                    <TextInput source="title" />
                </Grid>
                <Grid item xs={6}>
                    <TextInput source="author" />
                </Grid>
                <Grid item xs={12}>
                    <RichTextInput source="body" />
                </Grid>
                <Grid item xs={12}>
                    <SaveButton />
                </Grid>
            </Grid>
        </Form>
    </Create>
);

React-admin forms leverage react-hook-form’s useForm hook.

Access Control

If you need to hide some inputs based on a set of permissions, use the <SimpleForm> component from the @react-admin/ra-rbac package.

-import { SimpleForm } from 'react-admin';
+import { SimpleForm } from '@react-admin/ra-rbac';

This component adds the following RBAC controls:

To see an input, the user must have the ‘write’ permission on the resource field:

{ action: "write", resource: `${resource}.${source}` }

The delete button only renders if the user has the ‘delete’ permission.

Here is an example of how to use the <SimpleForm> component with RBAC:

import { Edit, TextInput } from 'react-admin';
import { SimpleForm } from '@react-admin/ra-rbac';

const authProvider = {
    // ...
    canAccess: async ({ action, record, resource }) =>
        canAccessWithPermissions({
            permissions: [
                // 'delete' is missing
                { action: ['list', 'edit'], resource: 'products' },
                { action: 'write', resource: 'products.reference' },
                { action: 'write', resource: 'products.width' },
                { action: 'write', resource: 'products.height' },
                // 'products.description' is missing
                { action: 'write', resource: 'products.thumbnail' },
                // 'products.image' is missing
            ]
            action,
            record,
            resource,
        }),
};

const ProductEdit = () => (
    <Edit>
        <SimpleForm>
            <TextInput source="reference" />
            <TextInput source="width" />
            <TextInput source="height" />
            {/* not displayed */}
            <TextInput source="description" />
            {/* not displayed */}
            <TextInput source="image" />
            <TextInput source="thumbnail" />
            {/* no delete button */}
        </SimpleForm>
    </Edit>
);

<SimpleForm>

Usage

Props

children

component

defaultValues

id

noValidate

onSubmit

sanitizeEmptyValues

sx: CSS API

toolbar

validate

warnWhenUnsavedChanges