How to Build a File Upload Form with Express and DropzoneJS

Let’s face it, nobody likes forms. Developers don’t like building them, designers don’t particularly enjoy styling them, and users certainly don’t like filling them in.

Of all the components that can make up a form, the file control could just be the most frustrating of the lot. It’s a real pain to style, it’s clunky and awkward to use, and uploading a file will slow down the submission process of any form.

That’s why a plugin to enhance them is always worth a look, and DropzoneJS is just one such option. It will make your file upload controls look better, make them more user-friendly, and by using AJAX to upload the file in the background, it will at the very least make the process seem quicker. It also makes it easier to validate files before they even reach your server, providing near-instantaneous feedback to the user.

We’re going to take a look at DropzoneJS in some detail. We’ll show how to implement it. and look at some of the ways in which it can be tweaked and customized. We’ll also implement a simple server-side upload mechanism using Node.js.