#32: Opt-in Client-side Declarative Reactive Templates? Yes, Please! 😊
Plus melt your brain with CSS, praise for Quiet UI, having a mid-life JS Framework crisis, and more.
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Friday, October 17
In the continuing saga of us wanting the best web components DX ever without going all-in on a “prebundled” base class (aka Lit…see below for news on that front though), here’s another exciting development!
Previously I’d written about a new library I released called Reciprocate. The TL;DR is that it lets you add signal-based reactivity (both properties & attributes) to your otherwise vanilla web components (particularly handy for “HTML Web Components” aka custom elements with templates already rendered by the server and preexisting in the DOM).
However, if you wanted to write more “traditional” frontend UI components with dynamic, declaratively-written templates defined in the custom element JS itself, you’d need to reach for something else…in other words: Where is my html function? I want my html function!
And that’s where nimble-html comes in!
Hey, so you wanna keep learning about “vanilla” web tech and how to escape the hell of JS framework churn? Make sure you don't miss another issue of That HTML Blog:
Created by Joe Pea, nimble-html is a 2.3kB minzipped library after my own heart because it does one thing and one thing only: give you an html function. 🙌
Read all about it here, with a groovy demo of course!
Add Terrific DX to Your UI Web Components with nimble-html | That HTML Blog
This pairs fantastically with the Reciprocate library as previously reported.
In other news…
Speaking of Lit, there had been growing concern that the beloved base element library is in danger of withering on the vine due to staffing changes at Google (the company where Lit was incubated).
Thankfully, we need not worry any longer! Lit has been rehomed and is now under the auspices of the OpenJS Foundation. I think this is a very positive move and should ensure the continued health of and community participation in this pillar of the web components ecosystem.
Lit is Joining the OpenJS Foundation! – Lit
Lit is officially joining the OpenJS Foundation as an Impact Project!
OK, a few more links to round out today’s issue:
- Ready to melt your brain with some serious CSS-fu? 🔗 Full-Bleed Layout with Modern CSS (Frontend Masters)
- Dave Rupert, who is President of Web Components (I don’t make the rules), thinks there’s 🔗 Lots to shout about in Quiet UI
- The Astro framework is excited about View Transitions Level 1 (aka same-document via JS, not cross-document via CSS only) going Baseline Newly Available. 🔗 Read about their built-in support here.
- Building yet another JS framework? 🔗 You might just be having a mid-life crisis! (comic) 😂
And that’s all I got folks. See you here next week! (or thereabouts…)
Cheers,
Jared
🤔🌩️ Things that make you think: 💡😃
Why make a website in 2025?
The same reason you would bake a batch of cookies: because you enjoy it — the process itself, but also the result.
And perhaps, if you like, you share the result with others.
Who is out there asking, “Should I bake a batch of cookies? How well can that act be monetized? Should I do something else instead?”
Do it for the fun of the thing itself.