🤓 ngx-smart-forms

Smart, Signal-powered form state utilities for Angular 17+

ngx-smart-forms simplifies form management in Angular by adding powerful utilities like:

• Initial value tracking
• Dirty/changed detection via Signals
• Reset to initial state
• Unsaved changes guard (canDeactivate)
• FormDebugPanelComponent for live dev inspection 🔍 - coming soon

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✨ Features

✅ Track initial form values
✅ Detect changes reactively with WritableSignal<boolean>
✅ Reset whole form or selected controls
✅ canDeactivate() helper for unsaved changes
✅ Angular 17+ & Signals-ready
✅ Dev-only debug panel component 🧪
✅ Works with standalone and traditional modules
✅ Fully tree-shakable & Ivy-compiled ✅ Support for dynamic form controls ✅ Proper memory cleanup

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📦 Installation

npm install ngx-smart-forms

Angular v17 or newer required. Uses Signals.

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🚀 Getting Started

1. Inject the service

import { Component, OnDestroy } from '@angular/core';
import { FormBuilder, FormGroup } from '@angular/forms';
import { NgxSmartFormsService } from 'ngx-smart-forms';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-my-form',
  templateUrl: './my-form.component.html',
})
export class MyFormComponent implements OnDestroy {
  form: FormGroup;

  constructor(
    private fb: FormBuilder,
    private smartForms: NgxSmartFormsService
  ) {
    this.form = this.fb.group({
      name: [''],
      email: ['']
    });

    this.smartForms.storeInitialValues(this.form);
  }
  
  ngOnDestroy(): void {
    // Prevent memory leaks
    this.smartForms.cleanupForm(this.form);
  }
}

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2. Detect changes using Signals

readonly formChanged = this.smartForms.getFormChanged(this.form);

<p *ngIf="formChanged()">⚠️ You have unsaved changes.</p>

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3. Reset to Initial State

this.smartForms.resetToInitialValues(this.form);

Or for selected controls:

this.smartForms.resetControlsToInitialValue(this.form, ['email']);

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4. Prevent Navigation with Unsaved Changes

Use in a CanDeactivate guard:

canDeactivate(): boolean {
  return this.smartForms.canDeactivate(this.form);
}

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5. Managing Dynamic Forms

When adding new controls to your form dynamically:

// Add new control
this.form.addControl('address', this.fb.control(''));

// Update initial values for new controls
this.smartForms.updateInitialValuesForNewControls(this.form);

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🧠 Why Use This?

Angular gives you reactive forms, but not:

• Initial state tracking
• Smart "unsaved changes" detection
• Reset logic for dynamic forms
• Signal-powered change tracking
• Memory leak prevention for forms

ngx-smart-forms solves all that with one clean service.

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📚 API Reference

storeInitialValues(formGroup: FormGroup): void

Stores current form state as initial snapshot.

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getFormChanged(formGroup: FormGroup): Signal<boolean>

Returns a reactive Signal that updates whenever the form changes.

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resetToInitialValues(formGroup: FormGroup): void

Restores the full form to its original state.

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resetControlsToInitialValue(formGroup: FormGroup, controls: string[]): void

Resets selected controls only.

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canDeactivate(formGroup: FormGroup): boolean

Returns false if the form has unsaved changes.

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updateInitialValuesForNewControls(formGroup: FormGroup): void

Updates initial values for newly added controls. Call after dynamically adding controls.

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cleanupForm(formGroup: FormGroup): void

Removes all references and subscriptions for a specific form. Call in ngOnDestroy to prevent memory leaks.

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🤝 Contributing

PRs, issues, and ideas welcome! Open a discussion or fork the repo and send in a pull request 💬

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📝 License

MIT © 2025 [klubinskak]