Vue.js Progressive JavaScript Framework

[KT Walrus]

Please consider using Vue.js in 5.0. This framework would integrate well into the theme templates to move more processing into the browser and is very user-friendly to work with. 

[bfarber]

We wouldn't integrate a new javascript framework without reason (it simply being easy or friendly to work with is not really a reason to add it) - what would you like to see leveraged from vue.js specifically? Why should it be integrated?

[socceronly]

I've been learning React.  Haven't looked at Vue yet.  Are they similar? 

[Rikki]

3 minutes ago, socceronly said:

I've been learning React.  Haven't looked at Vue yet.  Are they similar? 

Kind of. They have similar-ish approaches. Whereas React deals exclusively with components, Vue can do components but they're optional.

There are a lot of benefits to any of the modern JS frameworks though, be it React, Vue or Angular. I'm not sure if IPS5 will have the scope to move all of our JS to a new framework, but we're always keeping an eye on things and we'll make those decisions when the time comes.

[Tom S.]

1 hour ago, bfarber said:

what would you like to see leveraged from vue.js specifically?

Single page applications

[Rikki]

1 hour ago, Tom S. said:

Single page applications

I'm not sure a complete SPA approach will ever be a good fit for our platform. That said, I could imagine that we might have a collection of 'SPAs' for key workflows - e.g., going from a list of topics into a topic, replying etc. might be one seamless process. User profiles might be another. Potentially the whole ACP could be one (or maybe each section of the ACP).

GitHub takes this approach and it works well.

[Tom S.]

42 minutes ago, Rikki said:

I'm not sure a complete SPA approach will ever be a good fit for our platform. That said, I could imagine that we might have a collection of 'SPAs' for key workflows - e.g., going from a list of topics into a topic, replying etc. might be one seamless process. User profiles might be another. Potentially the whole ACP could be one (or maybe each section of the ACP).

Yes, exactly what I had in mind. I don't expect turning your software entirely into a SPA is feasible (although would be cool). But certain areas would benefit from a localised SPA greatly.

[KT Walrus]

I don't know much about Vue.js but when I watched a few YouTube videos to learn more, it seemed like it might fit well into the templating system and make junior coders like me more productive mixing HTML, CSS, and Javascript in the same page. And, IPS5 seems like the only opportunity to make such a big change like this. I really want IPS5 code to be pushed to the edge (either on the user's device or supporting Cloudflare Workers). I can see that there is a chance that PWA apps will eventually be as nice as native apps on mobile devices within a year or two (if Apple finally gets onboard) and you need to write most of the user's interactions with your website in JS (and cache data locally) to do it.

For the site that I'm working on, it would be good to be able to cache the latest 1000 topics (for index lists), a latest threads in the unread activity stream and the mini-profiles of the most recent 1000 members locally within the browser and use that cache for building various lists/pages just like an email client syncs messages/indexes locally when it periodically syncs with an IMAP server. This makes email apps very responsive while IPS4 is not as good a UX on mobile. Reading your mail is instantaneous, but browsing forums is not (especially when not on Wi-Fi where network latency is usually very high).