js-widgets

js-widgets is a UI library with a different API that you may usally see for virtual DOM base UI libraries.
It's just a R&D project to noodle around with some alternative approaches and APIs for UI development.
js-widget uses the fabulous Dyo UI library internally (https://dyo.js.org).

Important: It is not planned that js-widgets will ever be used in production.

Disclaimer: This is just an initial draft of README. A lot is missing ....

Examples

Example 1 (pure ECMAScript / no JSX)

import { component, render } from 'js-widgets'
import { div } from 'js-widgets/html'

const SayHello = component({
  name: 'SayHello',

  render({ name = 'world' }) {
    return div(`Hello, ${name}!`)
  }
})

const content =
  div(
    SayHello()
    SayHello({ name: 'Jane Doe' }))

render(content, document.getElementById('app'))

Example 2 (ECMAScript + JSX)

import { component, h, render } from 'js-widgets'
import * as Spec from 'js-spec/validators' // third-party validation library

const __DEV__ = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development'

const SayHello = component({
  name: 'SayHello',
  memoize: true,
  
  // prop validation only on DEV system
  ...__DEV__ && {
    validate: Spec.checkProps({
      optional: {
        name: Spec.string
      }
    })
  },

  render({ name = 'world' }) {
    return <div>Hello, {name}!</div>
  }
})

render(<SayHello/>, document.getElementById('app'))

Example 3 (TypeScript)

import { component, h, render, Component } from 'js-widgets'
import { useEffect, useProps, useValue } from 'js-widgets/hooks'

type CounterProps = {
  initialCount?: number,
  label?: string
}

const Counter: Component<CounterProps> = component({
  name: 'Counter',
  memoize: true,

  init(c) {
    const
      props = useProps(c, {
        initialValue: 0, // default values
        label: 'Counter' // for props
      }),

      [count, setCount] = useValue(c, props.initialCount),
      onIncrement = () => setCount(it => it + 1),
      onDecrement = () => setCount(it => it - 1)

    useEffect(c, () => {
      console.log( `Update - ${props.label}: ${count.value}`)
    }, () => [count.value])

    return () =>
      <div className="counter">
        <label>{props.label}: </label> 
        <button onClick={onDecrement}>
          -1
        </button>
        <span>
          {count.value}
        </span>
        <button onClick={onIncrement}>
          +1
        </button>
      </div>
  }
})

render(<Counter/>, document.getElementById('app'))

The author's preferred syntax

Stateless component

import { component, h, render } from 'js-widgets'

type SayHelloProps = {
  salutation?: string,
  name?: string
}

const SayHello = component<SayHelloProps>({
  name: 'SayHello',
  memoize: true,
  render: renderSayHello
})

function renderSayHello({
  salutation = 'Hallo',
  name = 'world'
}: SayHelloProps) {
  return (
    <div>
      {salutation}, {name}!
    <div>
  )
}

render(<SayHello name="Jane Doe"/>, '#app')

Stateful component

import { component, h, render, Ctrl } from 'js-widgets'
import { useProps, useValue } from 'js-widgets/hooks'

type CounterProps = {
  initialCount?: number,
  label?: string
}

const Counter = component<CounterProps>({
  name: 'Counter',
  memoize: true,
  init: initCounter
})

const counterDefaults = {
  initialCount: 0,
  label: 'Counter'
}

function initCounter(c: Ctrl<CounterProps>) {
  const
    props = useProps(c, counterDefaults),
    [count, setCount] = useValue(c, props.initialCount),
    onIncrement = () => setCount(it => it + 1),
    onDecrement = () => setCount(it => it - 1)

  return () =>
    <div className="counter">
      <label>{props.label}: </label> 
      <button onClick={onDecrement}>
        -1
      </button>
      <span>
        {count.value}
      </span>
      <button onClick={onIncrement}>
        +1
      </button>
    </div>
}

render(<Counter/>, '#app')

Motivation

What are the main difference to React's API?

• Implementing components with js-wigets is (obviously) more verbose than doing the same in React. Some advantages on the other hand are: No magic, no special Linter support needed, only decent programming techniques are use, no hook order dependency (hooks are just "normal functions - there is nothing special here), hooks are not part of the core (means, all hook functions are quasi custom hooks), no special challenges for the garbage collector, etc.

• React's API is quite "optimized" for the use of JSX:

  While the following JSX syntax is really nice...

  <FancyHeader>Some headline</FancyHeader>

  ... its non-JSX counterpart looks quite verbose ...

  React.createElement(FancyHeader, null, 'Some headline')

  ... while it would be much nicer just to write ...

  FancyHeader('Some headline')

  Be aware that you should ALWAYS use JSX with TypeScript the non-JSX usage is only meant for those who want to UIs in pure ECMAScript. Also be aware that it's possible that future transpilers wil perform some great optimizations when transforming JSX expressions - so JSX is really a great thing.

  In React's API, the main representation of component types are render functions (for function components) or component classes. Neither will component classes be instantiated by the user directly nor will render functions be called directly. The only useful usage of component types are that they will be passed as first argument to the React.createElement function. Same for context provider and the Fragment symbol.

  In js-widgets things are different: Everything that can be used as first argument of the h function besides strings is a factory function that returns the result of a corresponding h call. Besides the second argument (props) of the h function and also for all the component factories is optional to provide a concice syntax: All component types, Fragment, context providers are factory functions with an optional second props argument:

  SomeComponent('some text')
  
  // or when using jsWidgets with JSX
  <SomeComponent>Some text</SomeComponent>

  Fragment(
    SomeComponent('some text'),
    SomeComponent({ className: 'some-class'}, 'some text'))
  
  // or when using jsWidgets with JSX
  <>
    <SomeComponent>Some text</SomeComponent>
    <SomeComponent className="some-class">some text</SomeComponent>
  </>

  Fragment({ key: someKey },
    SomeComponent(),
    SomeOtherComponent())
  
  // or when using jsWidgets with JSX
  <Fragment key={someKey}>
    <SomeComponent/>
    <SomeOtherComponent/>
  </Fragment>

  SomeContextProvider({ value: someValue },
    SomeComponent(),
    SomeOtherComponent())
  
  // or when using jsWidgets with JSX
  <SomeContextProvider value={someValue}>
    <SomeComponent/>
    <SomeOtherComponent/>
  </SomeContextProvider>

  Here's another non-JSX demo example:

  const content =
    div({ className: 'news-list' },
      h3('Latest news'),
      NewsTicker(),
      hr(),
      ul(
        newsFeed.forEach(news =>
          li(
            NewsBox({
              date: news.date,
              headline: news.headline,
            },
              news.content
            )
          )
        )
      )
    )

• Reacts provides the possibility for a sophisticated validation of the components' properties, which is great. Normally for that purpose a add-on library called "props-types". While it's great that "props-types" is not part of React itself, yet unfortunatelly all the validation function of "props-types" are only meant to be used with React, it's not meant as a general purpose validation library as the signature of the validation functions are very React-specific. This has some advantages of course (maybe shorter error messages and a bit smaller production bundle sizes) but the disadvantage that you cannot just use a general purpose validation library are really heavy. jsWidgets on the other hand allows the use of such general-purpose validation libraries - while it recommended to use the jsWidgets independent validation library "js-spec".

• In jsWidgets component types are represented by a corresponding factory function (that does create a virtual element by using the h function). That's simplifies the implemention of user interfaces in pure ECMAScript if desired - nevertheless it is recommended to use JSX as this is the de-facto standard in React-like UI development.

Current API (not complete yet)

Module "js-widgets"

• component(config)
• context(config)
• h(type, props?, ...children)
• typeOf(element)
• propsOf(element)
• Boundary(props?, ...children)
• Fragment(props?, ...children)
• render(content or null, container)

Module "js-widgets/util":

• asRef(func)
• forceUpdate(c)
• isElement(it)
• isNode(it)
• childCount(children)
• forEachChild(children, action)
• mapChildren(children, mapper)
• onlyChild(children)
• toChildArray(children)
• toRef(valueOrRef)
• withChildren(f)

Module "js-widgets/hooks":

• hook(...)
• useContext(...)
• useEffect(...)
• useInterval(...)
• useMethods(...)
• useProps(...)
• useState(...)
• useTime(...)
• useValue(...)

Module "js-widgets/html"

Factory functions for all HTML entities (to be used in non-JSX context: div('some text'))

Module "js-widgets/svg"

Factory functions for all SVG entities

Project status

Important: This project is in an early state and it is not and never will be meant to be used in production.