The form editor

If you would rather not hand-write JSON, the editor gives you a structured view of the same config. Everything you change through the tabs is written back into the one config document when you save. The tabs and the raw JSON are two views of the same thing.

The tabs

• Fields — add, remove and reorder inputs. Set each field’s name, type, label, placeholder and validation rules.
• E-mails — the notification and confirmation channels: recipients, sender, subjects and bodies.
• Webhooks — endpoints, whether each is active, and its signing secret.
• Settings — the submit button label, the thank-you screen or redirect.
• Security — the token requirement, honeypot and rate-limit related options.
• Config — the raw JSON, for when you want to edit it directly or paste a config in.

Saving

Whichever tab you use, saving writes the whole config as one document and validates it. Two things can happen:

• An error stops the save and is shown against the exact field or setting it came from, so you know where to look. For example, a select field with no options, or an active webhook with a secret that is too short.
• A warning lets the save through but flags a risk, such as a honeypot field with a name browsers tend to autofill.

The previous version is always kept, so the raw JSON editor offers a one-step undo if a change did not do what you wanted.

Test submit

Next to the editor is a test submit panel. Use it to send a sample submission and see exactly what would happen: which rules pass or fail, what the notification email would contain, and what each webhook payload looks like. Nothing is actually sent. It is the fastest way to catch a mistake before a real visitor does.

No drag-and-drop, on purpose

OctaForms has no visual form builder. It is a backend engine aimed at people who render their own markup, and the config is deliberately the single source of truth. If you want the form on a page, that is a separate step. See Three ways to add a form.