Add Survey Creator / Form Builder to a Knockout or jQuery Application
This step-by-step tutorial will help you get started with the Survey Creator component in a Knockout or jQuery application. To add Survey Creator to your application, follow the steps below:
- Link Resources
- Configure Survey Creator
- Render Survey Creator
- Save and Load Survey Model Definitions
Survey Creator is powered by Knockout and does not have an individual implementation for jQuery. However, you can integrate the version for Knockout into your jQuery application by following the same instructions.
You can find the full code for this tutorial in the following GitHub repository: Get Started with Survey Creator / Form Builder - Knockout.
Link Resources
Survey Creator for Knockout consists of two parts: survey-creator-core (platform-independent code) and survey-creator-knockout (view models). Each part includes style sheets and scripts. Insert links to these resources within the <head> tag on your HTML page as shown below.
Survey Creator also requires SurveyJS resources. Link them after the Knockout library, but before the Survey Creator resources. Note that although SurveyJS supports different UI themes, Survey Creator can use only the Default V2 theme:
<head>
<!-- ... -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://unpkg.com/knockout/build/output/knockout-latest.js"></script>
<!-- SurveyJS resources -->
<link href="https://unpkg.com/survey-core/defaultV2.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-core/survey.core.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-knockout-ui/survey-knockout-ui.min.js"></script>
<!-- Survey Creator resources -->
<link href="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-knockout/survey-creator-knockout.min.js"></script>
<!-- ... -->
</head>
Configure Survey Creator
To configure the Survey Creator component, specify its properties in a configuration object. In this tutorial, the object enables the following properties:
showLogicTab
Displays the Logic tab in the tab panel.isAutoSave
Automatically saves the survey definition JSON on every change.
const creatorOptions = {
showLogicTab: true,
isAutoSave: true
};
Pass the configuration object to the SurveyCreator constructor as shown in the code below to instantiate Survey Creator. Assign the produced instance to a constant that will be used later to render the component:
const creator = new SurveyCreator.SurveyCreator(creatorOptions);
View full code
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Survey Creator for Knockout</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://unpkg.com/knockout/build/output/knockout-latest.js"></script>
<link href="https://unpkg.com/survey-core/defaultV2.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-core/survey.core.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-knockout-ui/survey-knockout-ui.min.js"></script>
<link href="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-knockout/survey-creator-knockout.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="index.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
const creatorOptions = {
showLogicTab: true,
isAutoSave: true
};
const creator = new SurveyCreator.SurveyCreator(creatorOptions);
Render Survey Creator
Switch to the component template. Add a page element that will serve as the Survey Creator container:
<body>
<div id="surveyCreator" style="height: 100vh;"></div>
</body>
To render Survey Creator in the page element, call the render(containerId) method on the Survey Creator instance you created in the previous step:
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
creator.render("surveyCreator");
});
View full code
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Survey Creator for Knockout</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://unpkg.com/knockout/build/output/knockout-latest.js"></script>
<link href="https://unpkg.com/survey-core/defaultV2.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-core/survey.core.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-knockout-ui/survey-knockout-ui.min.js"></script>
<link href="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-knockout/survey-creator-knockout.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="index.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="surveyCreator" style="height: 100vh;"></div>
</body>
</html>
const creatorOptions = {
showLogicTab: true,
isAutoSave: true
};
const creator = new SurveyCreator.SurveyCreator(creatorOptions);
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
creator.render("surveyCreator");
});
Save and Load Survey Model Definitions
Survey Creator produces survey model definitions as JSON objects. You can persist these objects on your server: save updates and restore previously saved definitions. To save a JSON object, implement the saveSurveyFunc function. It accepts two arguments:
saveNo
An incremental number of the current change. Since web services are asynchronous, you cannot guarantee that the service receives the changes in the same order as the client sends them. For example, change #11 may arrive to the server faster than change #10. In your web service code, update the storage only if you receive changes with a highersaveNo.callback
A callback function. Call it and passsaveNoas the first argument. Set the second argument totrueorfalsebased on whether the server applied or rejected the change.
The following code shows how to use the saveSurveyFunc function to save a survey model definition in a localStorage or in your web service:
creator.saveSurveyFunc = (saveNo, callback) => {
// If you use localStorage:
window.localStorage.setItem("survey-json", creator.text);
callback(saveNo, true);
// If you use a web service:
saveSurveyJson(
"https://your-web-service.com/",
creator.JSON,
saveNo,
callback
);
};
// If you use a web service:
function saveSurveyJson(url, json, saveNo, callback) {
const request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.open('POST', url);
request.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json;charset=UTF-8');
request.addEventListener('load', () => {
callback(saveNo, true);
});
request.addEventListener('error', () => {
callback(saveNo, false);
});
request.send(JSON.stringify(json));
}
To load a survey model definition JSON into Survey Creator, assign the definition to Survey Creator's JSON or text property. Use text if the JSON object is converted to a string; otherwise, use JSON. The following code takes a survey model definition from the localStorage. If the definition is not found (for example, when Survey Creator is launched for the first time), a default JSON is used:
const defaultJson = {
pages: [{
name: "Name",
elements: [{
name: "FirstName",
title: "Enter your first name:",
type: "text"
}, {
name: "LastName",
title: "Enter your last name:",
type: "text"
}]
}]
};
creator.text = window.localStorage.getItem("survey-json") || JSON.stringify(defaultJson);
View full code
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Survey Creator for Knockout</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://unpkg.com/knockout/build/output/knockout-latest.js"></script>
<link href="https://unpkg.com/survey-core/defaultV2.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-core/survey.core.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-knockout-ui/survey-knockout-ui.min.js"></script>
<link href="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/survey-creator-knockout/survey-creator-knockout.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="index.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="surveyCreator" style="height: 100vh;"></div>
</body>
</html>
const creatorOptions = {
showLogicTab: true,
isAutoSave: true
};
const defaultJson = {
pages: [{
name: "Name",
elements: [{
name: "FirstName",
title: "Enter your first name:",
type: "text"
}, {
name: "LastName",
title: "Enter your last name:",
type: "text"
}]
}]
};
const creator = new SurveyCreator.SurveyCreator(creatorOptions);
creator.text = window.localStorage.getItem("survey-json") || JSON.stringify(defaultJson);
creator.saveSurveyFunc = (saveNo, callback) => {
window.localStorage.setItem("survey-json", creator.text);
callback(saveNo, true);
// saveSurveyJson(
// "https://your-web-service.com/",
// creator.JSON,
// saveNo,
// callback
// );
};
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
creator.render("surveyCreator");
});
// function saveSurveyJson(url, json, saveNo, callback) {
// const request = new XMLHttpRequest();
// request.open('POST', url);
// request.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json;charset=UTF-8');
// request.addEventListener('load', () => {
// callback(saveNo, true);
// });
// request.addEventListener('error', () => {
// callback(saveNo, false);
// });
// request.send(JSON.stringify(json));
// }