alt Hacker NewsI like React. And I have seriously tried the HTMX/Hotwire camp.
I wanted to make a back button use browser APIs to go back if the coming from the inbox, just link to the inbox otherwise to preserve scrolling. I had to wire the actions from the html to call the function that goes back, then in my controller determine the previous page and send the JS enabled back button or the hard link. My logic was spread out over 3 files!
With React I can have js in a component determine if the previous page was inbox, and based on that value show the back button JSX or the link. ALL IN ONE FILE. One conceptually entity for me to model vs 3 that do other things and this functionally is hammered in.
Is it slower? Definitely. But it makes me happy. Miserable in a corporate React slopbase? Blame your coworkers, it would definitely be worse without it.
Replies
My advice would be to only use HTMX for data state related operations. For something like an intelligent back button, unless it depends on resource state do not use the backend to calculate it.
The recommended htmx way would be to hook up an onclick button to inline js or if you dislike that, a function called goBackOrInbox. It can then be something like:
function goBackOrInbox() { if (document.referrer) { const path = new URL(document.referrer).pathname; if (path.startsWith('/inbox')) { history.back(); return; } } window.location.href = '/inbox'; }
And if you use that pattern a lot then you can parameterise the function with whatever the route should be.
I know there will probably be some complications here and there, but this could be done with Web Components too, right?
> I wanted to make a back button use browser APIs to go back if the coming from the inbox, just link to the inbox otherwise to preserve scrolling. I had to wire the actions from the html to call the function that goes back, then in my controller determine the previous page and send the JS enabled back button or the hard link.
This is why I hate react spas. They're always trying to find some stupid way to break my browsers back button and navigation buttons.
I will always prefer htmx/server rendering with native everything (except the occasional form boosting.)