NFSFU234FormValidation v3.0.0 is Here
After almost two years since the last major milestone, NFSFU234FormValidation is back.
The previous public milestone, v3.0.0-beta, was released on August 25, 2024. Rather than rushing a stable release, development slowed while work shifted toward building the wider ecosystem surrounding the project.
During that time, the focus expanded beyond a single library.
Projects such as WishIT, HealthHub AI, internal developer tooling, and the foundations of the NFSFU234 open-source ecosystem all became priorities. Behind the scenes, the library itself continued to evolve alongside those projects, with many of the improvements in v3 coming directly from real-world production experience.
Today, that work comes together in NFSFU234FormValidation v3.0.0.
This release also marks another important milestone.
The library is now published under its permanent scoped package:
npm install @nfsfu234/form-validation
This is part of the wider migration to the NFSFU234 organization, where every maintained open-source package now lives under a single ecosystem.
What's new in v3?
Version 3 is the largest release in the project's history.
📁 File & image validation
The library can now validate file inputs with support for:
- minimum and maximum file counts
- accepted MIME types
- file extensions
- maximum upload sizes
- minimum image dimensions
- maximum image dimensions
Unlike the browser's native accept attribute, validation now happens consistently before submission.
🌍 Site-wide configuration
Applications with multiple forms can now configure validation in one place.
NFSFU234FormValidation.configureForms([...])
NFSFU234FormValidation.autoInit()
Pages automatically initialise whichever registered forms are present, making multi-page applications significantly easier to maintain.
⚙️ Declarative validation rules
Validation rules can now be defined directly in configuration instead of relying entirely on HTML attributes.
Rules such as:
- required
- type
- pattern
- minLength
- maxLength
- custom messages
can now override or extend native browser validation.
☑️ Complete form coverage
Radio buttons and checkboxes are now fully integrated into the validation pipeline.
Earlier versions validated these inconsistently during full form validation. In v3 they're treated like every other form control.
⚛️ Built for React and Next.js
Constructing an instance used to assume a form was already sitting in the DOM — awkward in React, and outright broken during server-side rendering.
v3 fixes both. Pass null explicitly to skip form resolution entirely and get a bare instance safe to construct anywhere, including on the server:
const validator = useMemo(
() => new NFSFU234FormValidation(null),
[]
);
And if you don't need an instance at all — just the AJAX helper — it's now available as a static method too:
await NFSFU234FormValidation.ajax({
url: "/api/contact",
RequestMethod: "POST",
RequestBody: formData,
});
No form, no constructor, no document.createElement() workaround. The Next.js playground in this release is built entirely on this pattern.
⚡ Async validation
Because file validation requires asynchronous processing, both:
validate()submit()
are now asynchronous APIs returning Promises.
Although this introduces a small breaking change, it opens the door for richer validation capabilities going forward.
📚 Generated API documentation
The documentation website now generates its API reference directly from the library using TypeDoc.
This keeps documentation synchronized with every release and removes the need to manually maintain function reference pages.
🧪 Better testing & CI
The project now includes:
- Jest
- jsdom
- TypeScript testing
- automated GitHub Actions
- semantic-release
- automated npm publishing
- release validation workflows
Every release is now fully verified before publication.
Also in this release
- CSS can now be imported directly from the package:
import "@nfsfu234/form-validation/css" - Inline error messages now render immediately after the field they belong to, instead of always at the end of its parent container — fixes misplaced errors on forms with multiple fields sharing a wrapper
- Full TypeScript types for the constructor and AJAX options — fewer
anys, better autocomplete
Breaking changes
A few APIs have changed.
Password hashing has been removed
The following methods have been removed:
hashPassword()verifyPassword()passwordMatch()
Client-side password hashing provided little practical security while increasing bundle size and maintenance cost.
Password hashing belongs on the server.
validate() and submit() are async
If you're upgrading from v2, remember to await these methods.
await validator.submit()
await validator.validate()
instead of checking synchronous return values.
A new home
This release also completes the move to the @nfsfu234 npm scope.
The previous unscoped package, nfsfu234-form-validation, is now marked as deprecated on npm. It will continue to resolve for existing installs, but new installs will show a deprecation notice pointing here, and it won't receive any further updates. If you're still on it, now's the time to switch:
npm uninstall nfsfu234-form-validation
npm install @nfsfu234/form-validation
This creates a consistent ecosystem alongside upcoming projects including:
- NFSFU234TourGuide
- ShotSweep
- future NFSFU234 developer tools
Looking ahead
Version 3 isn't the finish line.
It's the foundation for the next chapter of the ecosystem.
As part of NFSFU234 Open Source Day, several projects are launching together, representing years of work across libraries, documentation, tooling, and developer experience.
NFSFU234FormValidation continues to be the flagship project of that ecosystem, and future releases will continue to focus on modern web development while remaining lightweight, dependency-free, and framework friendly.
Upgrade today
Install the latest version:
npm install @nfsfu234/form-validation
Read the migration guide if you're upgrading from v2, explore the updated documentation, and let us know what you build.
Welcome to NFSFU234FormValidation v3.0.0.