React Aria is a great project! We used it to meet WCAG 2.1 level AA requirements in our chat widget. It's even hard to assess how many days of work we have saved thanks to this solution. We've covered a bit of our experience in multiple posts, e.g. with handling keyboard navigation: https://developers.livechat.com/updates/livechat-accessibili...).
React Aria: A headless UI component library
31–40 of 73 posts
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I get this argument for native apps, but does it really make sense in the context of a React app? If I'm combining components from different authors, what's more important to the user is consistency between components in my application, not consistency for an individual component across different unrelated sites.
In the age of SPAs and Electron, can we really distinguish between "React apps" and "native apps"? The user doesn't care about the technical details - they just want a consistent UI throughout their computing experience. Hell, back in the 2000s, even web apps used native widgets, and we shamed websites that implemented their own UIs in Flash because they were bloated and inaccessible. Now we do it in Javascript and i…
Wait... electron isn't cross-platform?
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#33can someone explain in layman terms what is headless UI?
It's not a thing, this is just a term made up on the spot by the author of this article to describe a component library that has no built-in style. "What does it even do then" you ask. It implements basic accessibility patterns so you only deal with high level UI elements and not have to worry about having the correct `role-` or `aria-` attributes. That and composite elements such as tabs or modals Why no style? Most…
I mean, at some point someone made up the term, but it's been floating around for years to describe this exact concept.
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just that it won't look the same across different browsers and platforms. They will also work differently, have slightly different options, and not every element will be available everywhere anyway. Give me the primitives any day.
The hypothetical is explicitly that if it did look and behave the same as well as having the same elements.
If browser vendors today can't even decide on uniform search boxes, that's a hypothetical too far away to entertain.
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the age of SPAs and Electron, can we really distinguish between "React apps" and "native apps"? The user doesn't care about the technical details - they just want a consistent UI throughout their computing experience. Hell, back in the 2000s, even web apps used native widgets, and we shamed websites that implemented their own UIs in Flash because they were bloated and inaccessible. Now we do it in Javascript and i…
Wait... electron isn't cross-platform?
In theory, but the developer still has to build it for each platform separately. Often they don't bother. It's not hard to find Windows-only Electron apps. This stands in contrast to webpages, which "just work" everywhere.
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#36I was under the impression Adobe was investing heavily into Web Components. I gather that didn't work out well?
Companies of that size always have many disparate efforts going on.
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the developer perspective, I can certainly relate. From the user perspective, yet another widget with subtly different behaviour is very annoying. I'd much rather you add drag and drop handling to the existing widget so that everyone benefits and UIs remain consistent.
Yeah I get this argument for native apps, but does it really make sense in the context of a React app? If I'm combining components from different authors, what's more important to the user is consistency between components in my application, not consistency for an individual component across different unrelated sites.
I'd say they're both important. Yes, you want consistency within the UX. Of course.
But the users' expectations are set by their cumulative (read: across all apps) broader experience. If a high percentage of your users have a certain expectation for Interaction X and the app is not that (tho' consistent within the application) those users will likely be disappointed.
Of course some components + UX are truly unique. Perhaps the crux of your killer app / killer feature. Unfortunately, this is not as often as most ppl think; thus too much time is wasted making unique those things which are better off frictionless and forgettable.
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#38Cool to see more competition to Headless UI [0] by the Tailwind guys [0]: https://headlessui.dev/
In what way is Headless UI 'headless'?
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#39Isn't the point of an UI to have an ... UI after all? The only ones that I can see being headless here are customers buying in to headless UIs, headless CMSs quackery.
> headless CMSs quackery
Headless CMSes are useful as well once you exit the realm of blogs and WYSIWYG website builders.
Re: React Aria: A headless UI component library
#40Cool to see more competition to Headless UI [0] by the Tailwind guys [0]: https://headlessui.dev/
In what way is Headless UI 'headless'?
It doesn't come with any styling OOTB. The idea is that you're just building a frontend (all the markup, styling etc) around some provided state management