{"id":119,"date":"2022-07-17T19:54:35","date_gmt":"2022-07-17T19:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.keenforms.com\/?p=119"},"modified":"2022-07-18T14:22:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T14:22:59","slug":"there-are-200-form-builders-but-none-of-them-can-do-what-i-as-a-programmer-can-do-so-i-built-my-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.keenforms.com\/blog\/there-are-200-form-builders-but-none-of-them-can-do-what-i-as-a-programmer-can-do-so-i-built-my-own\/","title":{"rendered":"There are 200+ form builders, but none of them can do what a programmer can do. So I built my own."},"content":{"rendered":"

So according to G2 there are 225 form builders<\/a>. I have not tried every single one, but I did try the top 20 with a free plan. None of them could do what I needed them to do, which was build a form that could produce a quote or estimate for a service or product.<\/p>\n

While many form builders have something that you can do a calculation, very few can do conditional calculations. None of them seem capable of giving you control over order of operations. None of them allow you to set the value of an input more than once, so if you needed to apply a discount or an upcharge it’s either difficult and labor intensive, or it’s impossible. None of them can do dynamic HTML.<\/p>\n

Also while there are less at least 2 form builders that I know of that can do conditional calculations, it still requires a great deal of work on the part of the admin. It would be incredibly beneficial to be able to create a drop down or select tag or checkboxes that had more than just a one dimensional list of data. If you could create multiple columns for your selectable options, and then use those options values in other columns, that would be a game changer.<\/p>\n

So I built my own. It’s called Keenforms.<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s a form builder with a built in No Code Rules Engine. The rules engine give you greater control over the order of operations and allows you to set complex conditions to determine if those rules run. It also has a feature called metadata that allows you do create additional values that can be association with your selectable options (drop downs, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc). It makes it possible for users to create the kinds of forms that I as a programmer can build, but without writing code from scratch.<\/p>\n

Here are some forms I’ve built;<\/p>\n

Car loan calculator comparison with different payments based on loan amount and length of loan, from 24 to 84 months<\/a>
\nInches\/Centimeters converter<\/a> – editing one input will change the other similar to google<\/a>
\nChipotle Burrito builder with nutritional info like calories\/fat\/carbs\/protein and sticky footer via dynamic HTML and metadata<\/a>
\nCar Make and Model dynamic filtering, i.e. show models of cars based on makes of cars selected<\/a>
\nMortgage calculator<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s an iframe view of a form that changes the embedded youtube video based on the selected value;
\n