formidable-modules

What is Formidable?

Formidable is the new solution to manage Forms with Jahia. It will fully replace Jahia Forms. It is currently in development.

Main architecture principles

Formidable is based on Jahia standard technologies:

• Forms, steps, fieldsets and fields are regular content items
• Rendering / views use JavaScript modules, built in React / TSX
• Actions are declared in Java / OSGi, as per any other action inside Jahia
• The editor extension (custom selectors, form results admin) uses Module Federation via @jahia/vite-federation-plugin

Prerequisites

• Jahia 8.2.2+
• JavaScript modules 1.2.0+
• jContent 3.6+

Alpha version

Scope

Alpha version is targeted for June 2026. It will include the ability to:

• Create forms, with multi-step support, fieldsets, and 12 field types:
  • Text input (with optional pattern, mask, datalist)
  • Textarea (with resize, spellcheck, autocomplete options)
  • Email (with pattern, datalist, multiple recipients)
  • Select (dropdown, with multiple selection and size options)
  • Checkbox (single or group)
  • Radio (single or group)
  • Date (with min/max/step)
  • Datetime-local (with min/max/step)
  • File upload (with MIME type filtering, multiple files, image/video/PDF support)
  • Color
  • Hidden
  • Rich text (embeddable HTML content block)
• Create form references (reuse an existing form via weak reference)
• 4 built-in form actions:
  • Save to JCR (persists submissions and uploaded files under formidable-results/)
  • Send email notification (with ${fieldName} interpolation in subject and body)
  • Send email content (sends the full submission by email, with optional file attachments)
  • Forward to external endpoint (multipart/form-data POST to operator-configured targets)
• CAPTCHA support (tested with Google reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile and hCaptcha)
• Require authenticated user (reject anonymous submissions server-side)
• Form results admin panel in jContent (only for forms using the Save to JCR action):
  • Browse saved submissions per form
  • Detail panel with metadata, field values, file cards with thumbnails and preview
  • Keyboard navigation (arrow keys)
  • Multi-format export (CSV, JSON) with date range filtering
• Custom CSS injection per form
• Extension points:
  • Create your own action (implement FormAction OSGi service)
  • Overwrite the view for a field type
  • Create a new field type (CND + server view + optional client Island)

Packaging

• 2 modules:
  • formidable-elements — provides the fields, form structure and rendering views
  • formidable-engine — provides the action framework (Java/OSGi), CAPTCHA verification, editor extensions (custom selectors, form results panel)

Current known limitations

• When selecting a field, users don't know what it will look like. This pain point will be addressed globally inside Jahia in 2026.
• Forms are currently built using jContent list or structured view. There is no support for Page Builder / visual building. This issue should be resolved over the summer.