Comparing Stimulus to similar 'lightweight' frameworks

lbee · May 13, 2022, 2:18pm

Hi.

I am working with our core team at Wagtail (open source CMS built on Django) to assess some options for a lightweight framework.

I would love to get any feedback on this document if possible.

github.com

lb-/bakerydemo/blob/ui-experiments/lightweight-frontend-framework-investigation-2022.md

# Lightweight JavaScript Framework

The Wagtail core team are investigating other frontend frameworks as part of the work to resolve the [UI Technical Debt](https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/discussions/7689), and with the upcoming [Page Editor enhancements](https://github.com/wagtail/wagtail/discussions/7739).

## Goals

The purpose of this document is to investigate what existing lightweight frontend frameworks could be used in Wagtail.

We want to to see what may suitable for the middle ground of interactivity where React may not be an ideal option. We want to make it easy for those building Wagtail and building with Wagtail to think in HTML first (leveraging Django) but make a great experience for those editing width Wagtail.

A look at where our goals for this library align with our Wagtail vision pillars.

- First thirty minutes of Wagtail
  - It should be easier to find out how to implement a custom thing
- Editors, get your best work done
  - Interactive content - interaction (reactivity) should be easy to build and reason about.
  - Less bugs - the library should make it hard to break other 'parts' (e.g. when React errors, the whole component tree errors).
  - Accessibility - it should be easy to use existing accessibility approaches or add them to components.
- Sophistication without compromising simplicity
  - HTML first - Where possible, Django land first and JavaScript land second, it should be easy to to basic things (use, modify initial data, change some behaviour/classes) in templates alone. Ideally we want to avoid ALL JS code when it is just 'init something' type code and not rely on hard-coded classes for visible functionality.

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Specifically

what other libraries have I not listed
any more examples of larger open source framework-y usage anyone knows of
pitfalls I should be aware of if we do try to adopt stimulus
more reasons to use Stimulus that I have not been clear about

Thanks for any tips or ideas you can give.

For context - here is the wider discussion UI architecture technical debt · Discussion #7689 · wagtail/wagtail · GitHub

alexander-schranz · May 20, 2022, 12:49pm

We have a very slim library which we use since years for our website projects. It is focused that the components you build are dependency do not require to extend from anything like in stimulus controller does. So the components just work without the library. And the library just there to connect DOM element to the component. It is focused on using in Symfony Twig templates. When using another templating language you maybe want to create something similar like the Twig Extension we created.

I have some planes to move in 3.0 to make it more DX friendly for none twig users by adopting stimulus data-controller attribute. Also we want to focus and moving exist provided components to accessability first components this means that most components forces you then to work with aria attributes and not like stimulus you have to define your targets yourself.

lbee · June 8, 2022, 8:28am

Thanks for this - it’s a great reference for how to do html templates with Stimulus.

Topic		Replies	Views
Wagtail (Django CMS) - RFC to adopt Stimulus	2	775	October 20, 2023
I suggest a detailed cookbook for StimulusJs, upvote if you agree	0	1123	January 12, 2019
Stimulus JS Roadmap - What to expect	1	2222	March 30, 2018
Is the framework still actively maintained?	2	1243	May 2, 2020
Type-ahead search Rails + StimulusJS	3	3995	February 18, 2019

Comparing Stimulus to similar 'lightweight' frameworks

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