Field meta data

[wdfinch]

A useful feature would be the ability to add metadata to an input. In order the do this now, I make the input and object and then write a custom value property and onChange method to parse through and pull out the part the gets rendered.

So my text input might look like {text: 'this is what's is rendered', metaData: {}} and then I need to override the value and onChange on the <Controller/> to extract/update just the text part.

It would be cool if there was a way to do this that was easier and more native. So for example a method called setMeta(fieldName: string, meta: object).

[bluebill1049]

what do you mean by metaData? data associated with an actual input?

[wdfinch]

Yes, so an example might be this:

Let's say I get a list of items from a server and each item is displayed as a few inputs in a field array. One thing that would also be helpful, is to associate the id (id from the server) of the item with the inputs. So that way on submit, I could compare what changed.

I could use setValue to add the id in, but the issue is I can't set a value unless the input is rendered on the dom. The only ways to do this are to have a hidden input which renders the id, store the id in a separate list and keep track of which index it's associated with in the field array, or make one the input have the id and use custom value/onChange methods to set/extract it.

I guess the easiest solution would be to allow the user to set values without requiring that the value be rendered to the dom, but this might be covered by V7. A cleaner approach would be to set meta data since values should be reserved for what get's rendered.

Does that make sense @bluebill1049?

[Noitidart]

I had this idea and am using successfully - #8161

[ramseylove]

@wdfinch Did you happen to figure out a way to implement this or was anything added to v7 to make this easier for you?

[stijnvanderlaan]

This would be very useful, because adding an controller for an none existing field sets the state of the form dirty, and using useWatch doesn't update when the values changes: #8721

I try to mark a field as conflicted with the server version but this is very hard to do now.

[bombillazo]

This could be done with rhf-plus using the form metadata, you can add your own custom data and track it per field using the field as the metadata key

https://github.com/bombillazo/rhf-plus/blob/master/docs/form-metadata.md