Comment by Pxtl
3 hours ago
> Forum websites mostly deliver non-interactive content
I'd say that "Endless Scroll" is a good example of something that is... well maybe not interactive but still breaks the "just an HTML document" page metaphor that plays nice with such things.
Now, personally I find the UI compromises it takes to make endless scrolling happen are abhorrent (like not being able to ctrl-F or export the page content). But other people obviously like them.
Is that the kind of thing you'd be giving up as you move to a platform like HTMX?
Infinite scroll with htmx: https://htmx.org/examples/infinite-scroll/
It’s funny how hilariously simple that is and the parent commenter making it sound like you need a full JS framework for that instead.
I mean I'm not a front-end guy I was genuinely curious how well HTMX handles this kind of case.
I first learned about endless scroll in a Ruby on Rails meetup, where the presenter was showing how to craft snippets of HTML with ERB and using a bit of JS to insert them below the existing entries. It's definitely possible.
Maintaining a code path with a snippet for each possible viewing experience, back when REST was all the rage, was a bit obnoxious though.
Nope, HTMX could power endless scroll features if you want them
Yes but then you're doing HTMX not HTML and at that point why not use something that's more flexible. I'm saying this as a person who still maintains a small application done with Intercooler.js and is perfectly happy with it.
If you want basic interactivity, HTMX is fine.
If you want something more (like sortable) I'd reach for lit instead of adding the Sortable.js dependency, something the HTMX docs suggest ( https://htmx.org/examples/sortable/ )
And yes there are also some scenarios that you want to control the whole routing and rendering stuff, then go for Solid, React, Angular, Vue, whatever.
There is no golden rule to all of this but finding out what makes sense is a fun exercise.
I don't necessarily disagree that there comes a point at which you are working more against HTMX than with it. I think rather than measuring that contention point between HTMX and SPA/MPA in terms of interactivity I'd measure it in the amount of client side state and logic needed. If you need a bunch of client side state and logic, for example a digital audio workstation, then a SPA would definitely be the appropriate pattern.
But interactivity in largely content-driven sites doesn't necessarily preclude HTMX. You can do a bunch of fancy interactive stuff with HTMX and some minimal JS. Drag and drop sort is a tiny drop-in JS snippet. Skeleton loaders and spinners are supported out of the box in HTMX as is infinite scroll as others pointed out.
I'm not saying Next.js, Solid Start, Remix, Nuxt or some other hybrid server and client rendered model doesn't work for forum software. Or that even client only rendering can be a valid approach if you accept the trade-offs (no curl-ability). People should use whatever they feel productive building with.
But if your backend is already a non-JavaScript server rendered framework like Django then HTMX makes a ton of sense to add some interactivity.
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Well I also do not really know the legitimate use case for infinite scroll (other than trying to push gambling/slot-machine tricks onto your userbase).
I get lazy-loading for pages that contain a ton of media of which the user will likely only see a fraction. But some people seem to think infinite scroll is a good idea with text based content as well..
I'm specifically cranky about MS Azure Devops and how much lazy-loading and lazy-unloading of text it does. It's basically impossible to ctrl-F.