Conversational Form

Turning web forms into conversations. Conversational Form is an open-source concept by SPACE10 to easily turn any form element on a web page into a conversational form interface. It features conversational replacement of all input elements, reusable variables from previous questions and complete customization and control over the styling.

Learn why we did it

Below you will find guides to inlcude the ConversationalForm into a page containing a form or try a quick demo

Getting started

Include ConversationalForm in your page

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cf-4053.kxcdn.com/conversational-form/0.9.4/conversational-form.min.js" crossorigin></script>

ConversationalForm will automatically look through the DOM for a form element with the attibute cf-form, and auto-instantiate.

<form id="my-form-element" cf-form ...>

That's it! Your form is now conversational 👍

Optional attributes

cf-context
If you want to have the ConversationalForm appended to a certain element (when auto-instantiating) then add attribute cf-context to an element, otherwise the ConversationalForm will be appended to the body element.

<div cf-context ...>

cf-prevent-autofocus
If you don't want to have the UserInput to auto focus.

<form id="my-form-element" cf-form cf-prevent-autofocus>

cf-no-animation
Add this to `

tag to disable animations completly.

<form id="my-form-element" cf-form cf-no-animation>

Customization

For more control over the output exclude the attribute cf-form from the form element and instantiate either with vanilla JS or jQuery:

Self-instantiate with vanilla Javascript

Only parameter formEl is mandatory for the object you pass to the constructor.

Simplest way to manually instantiate:

new cf.ConversationalForm({
	// HTMLFormElement
	formEl/*: HTMLFormElement;*/
});

Full list of initialise parameters (ES6/Typescript syntax):

new cf.ConversationalForm({
	// HTMLFormElement
	formEl,/*: HTMLFormElement;*/

	// context (HTMLElement) of where to append the ConversationalForm (see also cf-context attribute)
	context,/*?: HTMLElement;*/

	// pass in custom tags (when prevent the auto-instantiation of ConversationalForm)
	tags,/*?: Array<ITag>;*/

	// overwrite the default user Dictionary items
	dictionaryData,/*?: Object;*/

	// overwrite the default robot Dictionary items
	dictionaryRobot,/*?: Object;*/

	//base64 || image url // overwrite user image, without overwritting the user dictionary
	userImage,/*?: string;*/

	// base64 || image url // overwrite robot image, without overwritting the robot dictionary
	robotImage,/*?: string;*/

	// custom submit callback if button[type=submit] || form.submit() is not wanted..
	submitCallback,/*?: () => void | HTMLButtonElement;*/

	// can be set to false to allow for loading and packaging of Conversational Form styles within a larger project.
	loadExternalStyleSheet,/*?: boolean;*/

	// start the form in your own time, {cf-instance}.start(), exclude cf-form from form tag, see examples: manual-start.html
	preventAutoAppend,/*?: boolean;*/

	// start the form in your own time, {cf-instance}.start(), exclude cf-form from form tag, see examples: manual-start.html
	preventAutoStart,/*?: boolean;*/

	// optional horizontal scroll accerlation value, 0-1
	scrollAccerlation,/*?: number;*/

	// allow for a global validation method, asyncronous, so a value can be validated through a server, call success || error
	flowStepCallback,/*?: (dto: FlowDTO, success: () => void, error: () => void) => void;*/

	// optional event dispatcher, has to be an instance of cf.EventDispatcher, see Wiki pages (Events)
	eventDispatcher,/*?: cf.EventDispatcher;*/
});

Instantiate with jQuery

Please see ConversationalFormOptions for available options

$("form").conversationalForm({
	
});

Map your own tags

The Conversational Form automatically detects the accepted tags in the passed in form element. If this is not desired then you are able to define your own tags, and pass them into the constructor.:

var fields = [].slice.call(formEl.querySelectorAll("input, select, button"), 0);
for (var i = 0; i < fields.length; i++) {
	var element = fields[i];
	tags.push(cf.Tag.createTag(element));
}

Tags can then be set in the instantiation object, see ConversationalFormOptions

DOM Element attributes

input pattern="" attribute

pattern attribute will automatically be used if set in tag.:

<input type="text" pattern="^hello" cf-questions="Your answer needs to include 'hello'" ..

cf-questions

• to map questions directly to a tag.
• seperate by | to allow for more questions, app will shuffle.

<input type="text" cf-questions="What is your name?|Please tell me your name." ..

cf-input-placeholder

• tag specific, set the placeholder text on the UserInput field

<input type="text" cf-input-placeholder="Should include http" ..

{One way value-binding} with cf-questions:

For cui-questions, add {previous-answer} to insert the value from the previous user-answer, you are also able to reference the input ID.

using the {previous-answer} mapping:

<input type="text" cf-questions="What is your firstname?">
<input type="text" cf-questions="Hello {previous-answer}, what is your lastname?">

Using the ID attribute, this will loop through all submitted tags and map:

<input type="text" cf-questions="What is your first name?" id="firstname">
<input type="text" cf-questions="What is your last name?" id="lastname">
<input type="text" cf-questions="Hi {firstname} {lastname}, please tell me your email?">

previous input could be a select:option list with countries.

<input type="text" cf-questions="So you want to travel to {previous-answer}">

cf-label

• set a label to the field, [type="radio"|"checkbox"]

<input type="radio" cf-label="Subscribe to newsletter" ..

cf-validation

• Javascript validate a before submitting
• OBS. eval is used.
• Asyncronous, so a value can be validated through a server
• three parameters is passed to the method
  • dto: FlowDTO
  • success: () => void //callback
  • error: (optionalErrorMessage?: string) => void //callback

<input type="text" cf-validation="window.validateFunction" ..

cf-error

• to map error messages directly to a tag.
• seperate by | to allow for more error, app will shuffle.

<input type="text" cf-error="Text is wrong wrong|Input is not right" ..

Public API

When instantiating ConversationalForm a reference to the instance will be available in window scope.

window.ConversationalForm

Be aware that if you create mutiple Conversational Forms within one page then the reference will be overwritten with latest created. Use windo.ConversationalForm[form["cf-create-id"]]?` or just manually instantiate the form and user the returned instance.

addTags

Add tags to the form, see examples/formless.html for how this can be achived.

window.ConversationalForm.addTags(tagsData/*: Array<DataTag>*/, addAfterCurrentStep/*: boolean = true*/, atIndex/*: number = -1*/);

focus

Sets focus on Conversational Form'

window.ConversationalForm.focus();

addRobotChatResponse

add a robot reponse, this you would usually do at the end of a process.

window.ConversationalForm.addRobotChatResponse("You have reached the end of the form!");

See example of end-message here

addUserChatResponse

add a robot reponse, this you would usually do at the end of a process.

window.ConversationalForm.addUserChatResponse("Hello from user.");

See example of end-message here

remove

remove the ConversationalForm by calling:

window.ConversationalForm.remove();

getFormData

get the FormData object of mapped form element, pass in true to get a serialized object back (JSON).

window.ConversationalForm.getFormData(serialized);

remapTagsAndStartFrom:

remap registered tags and start flow from {index} possible to ignore existing tags, to allow for the flow to just "happen"

window.ConversationalForm.remapTagsAndStartFrom(index, setCurrentTagValue, ignoreExistingTags);

Overwrite styles

You can overwrite the UI with your own styles. Please see the source styles/css files for more info.

Contribute to ConversationalForm

We welcome contributions in the form of bug reports, pull requests, or thoughtful discussions in the GitHub issue tracker.

ConversationalForm is a concept by SPACE10. Brought to life by Felix Nielsen, RWATGG. Designed by Charlie Isslander.

Include Conversational Form in your project

bower

$ bower install conversational-form --save

npm

$ npm install conversational-form --save

Build the source

NPM

Install

$ cd gulp-tasks
$ npm install

Gulp

Install

Install local gulp from project root

$ npm install gulp

Typescript Typings

Install

$ cd src/scripts
$ typings install

Gulp tasks

build and development

watch task, watches .styl, .ts, .jpg, .png, .gif, compiles to /build

# compiles (same as build) and watches files
$ gulp

distribution

# compiles build files, to run locally, runs docs, examples and form scripts and styles
$ gulp dist

Version log

User previous versions. These versions are also available through bower, npm and Github tags

v0.9.1

<!-- v0.9.1 -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://conversational-form-091-0iznjsw.stackpathdns.com/conversational-form.min.js" crossorigin></script>

v0.9.0

<!-- v0.9.0 -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://conversational-form-0iznjsw.stackpathdns.com/conversational-form.min.js" crossorigin></script>

Examples and tests

When you are up and running, you can find a few form tests and examples in the /examples folder.

Browser support

Tested in latest Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.

Websites that use Conversational Form

If you have a project that uses Conversational Form, feel free to make a PR to add it to this list:

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