forgo
Forgo is a 4KB library that makes it super easy to create modern web apps using JSX (like React).
Unlike React, there are very few framework specific patterns and lingo to learn. Everything you already know about DOM APIs and JavaScript will easily carry over.
- Use HTML DOM APIs for accessing elements
- There are no synthetic events
- Use closures for maintaining component state
- There's no vDOM or DOM diffing
- Renders are manually triggered
We'll be tiny. Always.
All of Forgo is in one small JS file (actually it's TypeScript). It is a goal of the project is to remain within that single file.
Installation
npm i forgo
A Forgo Component
A Forgo Component is a function that returns an object with a render() function. The render function is called for the first render, and then subsequently for each rerender.
import { rerender } from "forgo";
function SimpleTimer() {
let seconds = 0;
return {
render(props, args) {
setTimeout(() => {
seconds++;
rerender(args.element);
}, 1000);
return <div>{seconds} secs have elapsed...</div>;
},
};
}
Mounting the Component
Use the mount() function once your document has loaded.
import { mount } from "forgo";
window.addEventListener("load", () => {
mount(<SimpleTimer />, document.getElementById("root"));
});
Child Components and Passing Props
That works just as you'd have seen in React.
function Parent(props) {
return {
render(props, args) {
return (
<div>
<Greeter firstName="Jeswin" />
<Greeter firstName="Kai" />
</div>
);
},
};
}
function Greeter(props) {
return {
render(props, args) {
return <div>Hello {props.firstName}</div>;
},
};
}
Reading Form Input Elements
You can read form input element values with regular DOM APIs.
There's a small hurdle though - how do we get a reference to the actual DOM element? That's where the ref attribute comes in. An object referenced by the ref attribute in an element's markup will have its value property set to the actual DOM element.
Better explained with an example:
function Component(props) {
const myInputRef = {};
return {
render(props, args) {
function onClick() {
const inputElement = myInputRef.value;
alert(inputElement.value);
}
return (
<div>
<input type="text" ref={myInputRef} />
<button onclick={onClick}>Click me!</button>
</div>
);
},
};
}
Unmount
When a component is unmounted, Forgo will invoke the unmount() function if defined for a component. This is of course, totally optional.
function Greeter(props) {
return {
render(props, args) {
return <div>Hello {props.firstName}</div>;
},
unmount() {
console.log("Got unloaded.");
},
};
}
Additional Rerender options
The most straight forward way to do rerender is by invoking it with args.element
as the only argument - as follows.
function TodoList(props) {
let todos = [];
return {
render(props, args) {
function addTodos(text) {
todos.push(text);
rerender(args.element);
}
return <div>markup goes here...</div>;
},
};
}
But there are a couple of handy options to rerender, 'newProps' and 'forceRerender'.
newProps let you pass a new set of props while rerendering. If you'd like previous props to be used, pass undefined here.
forceRerender defaults to true, but when set to false skips child component rendering if props haven't changed.
const newProps = { name: "Kai" };
const forceRerender = false;
rerender(args.element, newProps, forceRerender);
Rendering without mounting
Forgo also exports a render method that returns the rendered DOM node that could then be manually mounted.
const { node } = render(<Component />, false);
window.addEventListener("load", () => {
document.getElementById("root")!.firstElementChild!.replaceWith(node);
});
Try it out on CodeSandbox
You can try the Todo List app with Forgo on CodeSandbox.
Or if you prefer Typescript, try Forgo TodoList in TypeScript.
Recap with a complete example
Finally, let's do a recap with a more complete example. Let's make a Todo List app in TypeScript.
There will be three components:
- TodoList (the main component)
- TodoListItem
- AddTodo
Here's the TodoList, which hosts the other two components.
type TodoListProps = {};
function TodoList(props: TodoListProps) {
let todos: string[] = [];
return {
render(props: TodoListProps, args: ForgoRenderArgs) {
function addTodos(text: string) {
todos.push(text);
rerender(args.element);
}
return (
<div>
<h1>Forgo Todos</h1>
<ul>
{todos.map((t) => (
<TodoListItem text={t} />
))}
</ul>
<AddTodo onAdd={addTodos} />
</div>
);
},
};
}
Here's the TodoListItem component, which simply displays a Todo.
type TodoListItemProps = {
text: string;
};
function TodoListItem(props: TodoListItemProps) {
return {
render() {
return <li>{props.text}</li>;
},
};
}
And here's the AddTodo component. It takes an onAdd function from the parent, which gets called whenever a new todo is added.
type AddTodoProps = {
onAdd: (text: string) => void;
};
function AddTodo(props: AddTodoProps) {
const input: { value?: HTMLInputElement } = {};
function saveTodo() {
const inputEl = input.value;
if (inputEl) {
props.onAdd(inputEl.value);
inputEl.value = "";
inputEl.focus();
}
}
function onKeyPress(e: KeyboardEvent) {
if (e.key === "Enter") {
saveTodo();
}
}
return {
render() {
return (
<div>
<input onkeypress={onKeyPress} type="text" ref={input} />
<button onclick={saveTodo}>Add me!</button>
</div>
);
},
};
}
That's all. Mount it, and we're ready to go.
window.addEventListener("load", () => {
mount(<TodoList />, document.getElementById("root"));
});
Building
Forgo uses the latest JSX createElement factory changes, so you might need to enable this with Babel. More details here: https://babeljs.io/docs/en/babel-plugin-transform-react-jsx
For your babel config:
{
"plugins": [
[
"@babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx",
{
"throwIfNamespace": false,
"runtime": "automatic",
"importSource": "forgo"
}
]
]
}
If you're using TypeScript, add the following lines to your tsconfig.json file.
{
"compilerOptions": {
"jsx": "react-jsx",
"jsxImportSource": "forgo"
}
}
Getting Help
You can reach out to me via twitter or email. If you find issues, please file a bug on Github.