Add Survey Creator / Form Builder to an Angular Application
This step-by-step tutorial will help you get started with the Survey Creator component in an Angular application. To add the component to your application, follow the steps below:
- Install the
survey-creator-angular
npm Package - Configure Styles
- Configure Survey Creator
- Render Survey Creator
- Save and Load Survey Model Schemas
If you are looking for a quick-start application that enables all Survey Creator features, refer to the following GitHub repository: Angular CLI + SurveyJS Quick Start Boilerplate.
Install the survey-creator-angular
npm Package
Survey Creator for Angular consists of two npm packages: survey-creator-core
(platform-independent code) and survey-creator-angular
(rendering code). Run the following command to install survey-creator-angular
. The survey-creator-core
package will be installed automatically as a dependency.
npm install survey-creator-angular --save
SurveyJS for Angular requires Angular v12.0.0 or newer and depends on the
@angular/cdk
package. If your project does not include it yet, run the following command:npm install @angular/cdk@^12.0.0 --save
Earlier Angular versions are supported by the
survey-creator
package. It depends on Knockout and is now obsolete. However, you can use it in your Angular v8–v11 projects. Refer to the following examples on GitHub for more information:
Configure Styles
Open the angular.json
file and reference Survey Creator and SurveyJS Form Library style sheets:
{
"$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
// ...
"projects": {
"project-name": {
"projectType": "application",
// ...
"architect": {
"build": {
// ...
"options": {
// ...
"styles": [
"src/styles.css",
"node_modules/survey-core/defaultV2.min.css",
"node_modules/survey-creator-core/survey-creator-core.min.css"
],
// ...
}
}
}
}
}
}
Note that although standalone surveys support multiple predefined themes, surveys within Survey Creator apply only one theme ("Default V2"). However, you can use the survey configuration (JSON object) produced by Survey Creator to build a standalone survey and apply any theme to it. You can also customize Survey Creator theme colors as shown in the following example:
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 JSON schema on every change.
const creatorOptions = {
showLogicTab: true,
isAutoSave: true
};
Pass the configuration object to the SurveyCreatorModel
constructor as shown in the code below to instantiate Survey Creator. Assign the produced instance to a component property that will be used later to render Survey Creator:
import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core';
import { SurveyCreatorModel } from "survey-creator-core";
@Component({
selector: 'survey-creator-component',
templateUrl: './survey-creator.component.html',
styleUrls: ['./survey-creator.component.css']
})
export class SurveyCreatorComponent implements OnInit {
surveyCreatorModel: SurveyCreatorModel;
ngOnInit() {
const creator = new SurveyCreatorModel(creatorOptions);
this.surveyCreatorModel = creator;
}
}
View Full Code
import { Component, OnInit } from "@angular/core";
import { SurveyCreatorModel } from "survey-creator-core";
const creatorOptions = {
showLogicTab: true,
isAutoSave: true
};
@Component({
selector: 'survey-creator-component',
templateUrl: './survey-creator.component.html',
styleUrls: ['./survey-creator.component.css']
})
export class SurveyCreatorComponent implements OnInit {
surveyCreatorModel: SurveyCreatorModel;
ngOnInit() {
const creator = new SurveyCreator(creatorOptions);
this.surveyCreatorModel = creator;
}
}
Render Survey Creator
Before you render the survey, you need to import the module that integrates Survey Creator with Angular. Open your NgModule class (usually resides in the app.module.ts
file), import the SurveyCreatorModule
from survey-creator-angular
, and list it in the imports
array.
// app.module.ts
// ...
import { SurveyCreatorModule } from 'survey-creator-angular';
@NgModule({
declarations: [ ... ],
imports: [
...,
SurveyCreatorModule
],
providers: [ ... ],
bootstrap: [ ... ]
})
export class AppModule { }
To render Survey Creator, add a <survey-creator>
element to your component template and bind the element's model
attribute to the model instance you created in the previous step:
<div id="surveyCreator">
<survey-creator [model]="surveyCreatorModel"></survey-creator>
</div>
#surveyCreator {
height: 100vh;
width: 100vw;
}
View Full Code
<!-- survey-creator.component.html -->
<div id="surveyCreator">
<survey-creator [model]="surveyCreatorModel"></survey-creator>
</div>
// survey-creator.component.ts
import { Component, OnInit } from "@angular/core";
import { SurveyCreatorModel } from "survey-creator-core";
const creatorOptions = {
showLogicTab: true,
isAutoSave: true
};
@Component({
selector: 'survey-creator-component',
templateUrl: './survey-creator.component.html',
styleUrls: ['./survey-creator.component.css']
})
export class SurveyCreatorComponent implements OnInit {
surveyCreatorModel: SurveyCreatorModel;
ngOnInit() {
const creator = new SurveyCreatorModel(creatorOptions);
this.surveyCreatorModel = creator;
}
}
/* survey-creator.component.css */
#surveyCreator {
height: 100vh;
width: 100vw;
}
// app.module.ts
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { SurveyCreatorModule } from 'survey-creator-angular';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { SurveyCreatorComponent } from './survey-creator/survey-creator.component';
@NgModule({
declarations: [
AppComponent,
SurveyCreatorComponent
],
imports: [
BrowserModule,
SurveyCreatorModule
],
providers: [],
bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }
Save and Load Survey Model Schemas
Survey Creator produces survey model schemas as JSON objects. You can persist these objects on your server: save updates and restore previously saved schemas. 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 passsaveNo
as the first argument. Set the second argument totrue
orfalse
based on whether the server applied or rejected the change.
The following code shows how to use the saveSurveyFunc
function to save a survey model schema in a localStorage
or in your web service:
// ...
@Component({
// ...
})
export class SurveyCreatorComponent implements OnInit {
ngOnInit() {
// ...
creator.saveSurveyFunc = (saveNo: number, callback: Function) => {
// 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 schema JSON into Survey Creator, assign the schema 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 schema from the localStorage
. If the schema 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"
}]
}]
};
// ...
@Component({
// ...
})
export class SurveyCreatorComponent implements OnInit {
ngOnInit() {
// ...
creator.text = window.localStorage.getItem("survey-json") || JSON.stringify(defaultJson);
// ...
}
}
To view the application, run ng serve
in a command line and open http://localhost:4200/ in your browser.
View Full Code
<!-- survey-creator.component.html -->
<div id="surveyCreator">
<survey-creator [model]="surveyCreatorModel"></survey-creator>
</div>
// survey-creator.component.ts
import { Component, OnInit } from "@angular/core";
import { SurveyCreatorModel } from "survey-creator-core";
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"
}]
}]
};
@Component({
selector: 'survey-creator-component',
templateUrl: './survey-creator.component.html',
styleUrls: ['./survey-creator.component.css']
})
export class SurveyCreatorComponent implements OnInit {
surveyCreatorModel: SurveyCreatorModel;
ngOnInit() {
const creator = new SurveyCreatorModel(creatorOptions);
creator.text = window.localStorage.getItem("survey-json") || JSON.stringify(defaultJson);
creator.saveSurveyFunc = (saveNo: number, callback: Function) => {
window.localStorage.setItem("survey-json", creator.text);
callback(saveNo, true);
// saveSurveyJson(
// "https://your-web-service.com/",
// creator.JSON,
// saveNo,
// callback
// );
};
this.surveyCreatorModel = creator;
}
}
// function saveSurveyJson(url: string | URL, json: object, saveNo: number, callback: Function) {
// 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));
// }
/* survey-creator.component.css */
#surveyCreator {
height: 100vh;
width: 100vw;
}
// app.module.ts
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { SurveyCreatorModule } from 'survey-creator-angular';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { SurveyCreatorComponent } from './survey-creator/survey-creator.component';
@NgModule({
declarations: [
AppComponent,
SurveyCreatorComponent
],
imports: [
BrowserModule,
SurveyCreatorModule
],
providers: [],
bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }