Repeater Fields

Use a Repeater field to add a group of fields any number of times. This field allows users to click an Add button to add another group of fields. This field is incredibly useful if you would like users to add details about multiple items in a form. This feature is commonly used when adding information for multiple individuals, such as children, in a form.

Standard Field Options

A Repeater field has the following standard options:

• Field Key
• CSS Layout Classes
• Label Position
• Visibility
• Conditional logic

Field-specific options

Set up a Repeater Field

1. Add a Repeater field by clicking on Repeater in the Fields Panel (in the right sidebar).
   

2. Drag and drop the field(s) that you would like into the Repeater.
   
3. Now you can customize the layout of the repeat rows or change the repeat buttons.

Set up Repeater action

By default, every form action is triggered based on the events of the main entry, such as entry creation, saving, updating, and deletion. With the repeater action, you can trigger specific actions based on the entries in the repeater. Below is a list of supported form actions.

This guide will walk you through using the Repeater actions with the Send Email action as an example.

1. Begin by creating the required repeater fields in your form.
   
2. Navigate to your form Settings and access a form action. Then, configure it to trigger based on your selected repeater.
   
3. Add the necessary data for the email message, considering the repeater entries. In this example, the custom email will only be sent out if a value is submitted to the selected repeater.
   
4. Submit some new entries for the repeater.
   
5. Once you have submitted the entry, you can check your email inbox to see the entry results of the Send Email action. It will vary depending on which repeater you have triggered it to run.
   

Repeater field styling

To customize the default styling for Repeater fields, go to Formidable → Styles → Repeater Fields. Select the icons and icon color that you would like to use for your add/remove buttons.

Repeater button color

To customize the Add/Remove button colors, go to Formidable → Global Settings → Custom CSS page and add the following CSS. You may adjust the background-color and border-color as needed.

.frm_repeat_sec .frm_button {
    background-color: #5bcd5d !important;
    border-color: #5acc5c !important;
}

Repeater button order

To customize the order of the repeater buttons, go to Formidable → Global Settings → Custom CSS page and add the following CSS.

.frm_repeat_buttons.frm {
  direction: rtl;
}

Add columns in a repeater field

Since section headings can't be used inside a repeater, you could create a two-column layout by following the steps below:

1. If you want to create a title similar to a Section Heading field, you can add two HTML fields for each column inside a repeater.

   <h3>Section Title</h3>

2. In the CSS layout classes box, insert frm_first frm_half for the first HTML field and frm_half for the second HTML field.
3. Add the other fields that you want in the first column below the HTML field. Set the CSS layout class to frm_first frm_half.
4. Add the fields that you want in the second column below the HTML field. Set the CSS layout class to frm_half.
   

Note: This can also be done without the HTML field, if you don't want a heading title.

Get the total of the values from Repeater fields

To get a total of the values in a field in a Repeater, you can:

1. create a field outside of the Repeater to hold the total
2. in the Dynamic default value box, check the Calculations checkbox
3. in the Calculations box, put the [id] or [key] of the field inside the Repeater that you want to total

The values in the field in the Repeater will be added together automatically. If the values in the Repeater are words instead of numbers, you can check the text calculations checkbox, too. The total field will contain a comma-separated list of the values in the field in the Repeater.

Calculate the number of rows in a repeater

To calculate the number of rows in a repeater, follow the steps below:

1. Inside the repeater, add a hidden field to hold the row number.
   
   In the Default value box, set the default value to 1.
   
2. Outside the repeater, add a text or number field to hold the total number of rows. In the Default value (Calculations) box, insert the Hidden field ID.
   

The values in the hidden field in the Repeater will be added together automatically to calculate the number of rows.

Displaying Repeater Fields

In emails and Views, you'll see values from Repeater fields grouped by field, rather than by row:

Name: John Smith, Julie Roberts, Rob Darlington
Meal: Pepperoni pizza, Fettucine alfredo, Pepperoni pizza
Drink: Dr. Pepper, Water, Coca Cola

You may use the [foreach] shortcode in a View or an email to group values from a Repeater by row. Alternatively, you may create a View from a Repeater field. A View from a Repeater provides ordering and filtering options that the [foreach] shortcode, in a View from the main form, does not. A View from a Repeater could be standalone or could be nested inside of a View from the main form.

Display data grouped by row

If you would like to display the data from a Repeater field grouped by row, like this:

John Smith: Pepperoni pizza, Dr. Pepper
Julie Roberts: Fettucine alfredo, Water
Rob Darlington: Pepperoni pizza, Coca Cola

you can use the foreach shortcode like this:

[foreach 100]
[101]: [102], [103]
[/foreach]

Replace 100 with the field ID of your Repeater field. Replace 101, 102, and 103 with the field IDs that are inside of the Repeater.

Display data in a table

You can also use the foreach shortcode to display the repeater fields in a table:

Name	Meal	Drink
John Smith	Pepperoni pizza	Dr. Pepper
Julie Roberts	Fettucine alfredo	Water
Rob Darlington	Pepperoni pizza	Coca Cola

Use the code below to create a table with the foreach shortcode:

<table>
<tr>
<th>Column 1</th>
<th>Column 2</th>
<th>Column 3</th>
</tr>
[foreach 100]
<tr>
<td>[101]</td>
<td>[102]</td>
<td>[103]</td>
</tr>
[/foreach 100]
</table>

Replace 100 with the field ID of the Repeater field. Replace 101, 102, and 103 with the field IDs that are inside of the Repeater.

Display data in reverse order

To display the data from a Repeater field in reverse order, you can use the parameter order="desc". It will iterate through the repeater entries, starting from the oldest entry and ending with the most recent one.

[foreach 5651 order="desc"]
[5653]
[/foreach]

Replace 5651 with the ID of your Repeater field. Replace 5653 with the field IDs that are inside the Repeater.

Create a View from a Repeater Field

If you would like to learn how to create a View directly from your Repeater field, click here.

Change delete confirmation message

When deleting a repeater row, a confirmation message is displayed to avoid cases where form data is accidentally deleted. To change the message, go to Formidable → Global Settings → Message Defaults and look for the Repeater row delete confirmation field.

Related customizations

Review before submit

Note: Custom code is no longer needed. Please use a Summary field to review before submit.

Other field types are much simpler to display in an HTML field on the last page of your form. But repeater fields need a bit of extra code. Use [frm-repeat-post section_id=25 field_ids='26,27'] in the HTML field at the end of your form. Replace 25 with the ID of your repeater field, and 26,27 with the fields inside of it.

add_shortcode('frm-repeat-post', 'frm_repeat_post');
function frm_repeat_post( $atts ) {
	$content = '';
	$field_ids = explode( ',', $atts['field_ids'] );
	if ( ! isset( $_POST['item_meta'][ $atts['section_id'] ] ) ) {
		return $content;
	}

	foreach ( (array) $_POST['item_meta'][ $atts['section_id'] ] as $row ) {
		if ( $key === 'form' || $key === 'row_ids' ) {
			continue;
		}
		foreach ( (array) $field_ids as $field_id ) {
			if ( is_array( $row[ $field_id ] ) ) {
				$content .= ' ' . sanitize_text_field( implode( ', ', $row[ $field_id ] ) ) . '
';
			} else {
				$content .= $row[ $field_id ];
			}
		}
		$content .= '<br/>';
	}
	return $content;
}

Copy a calculated value from a repeater

If you need to copy a calculated value from one repeater to another repeater, you can start with this Javascript example.

Related developer hooks

• Create entry in form with repeaters using the frm_after_create_entry hook.
• Prevent entries from repeaters from being deleted when the parent entry is deleted with the frm_before_destroy_entry hook.
• Show ten rows in your repeater by default with the frm_repeat_start_rows hook.
• Automatically populate multiple rows in a repeater with the frm_setup_new_field_vars hook.
• Validate field in a repeater with the frm_validate_field_entry hook.
• Set a custom value in a repeater with the frm_validate_field_entry hook.
• Use the frm_before_action_settings action hook that fires before any form action settings.
• Allow triggering custom actions, and skipping the default trigger with the frm_custom_trigger_action hook.
• Allow adding or removing repeater actions support for form action type with the frm_pro_repeater_action_support hook.

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