ludic/changes/defaults-views-templates.md

bump: minor type: feature Default parameters, components, views and templates. A parameter can have a default (pad: float = 8.0). A call leaves out what it does not change, and may pass its first arguments by position and the rest by name.

A view declaration is the one bridge between a program and its UI. It names the fields a template may read, the functions it may ask and the on events it may send, and it writes view_<name>() -> UiView.

A component Name { prop, state, fields, functions, on events } declaration beside Name.xml and Name.lss is a UI component. Its template and styles are compiled in (with @import inlined), each mounted instance keeps its own props and state, styles are scoped to it, and a parent's class, style and id land on its root.

ludic.ui is now a template runtime. Screens and components are XML files loaded at run time, with:

• {expression} bindings;

• <if>, <else> and <each>;

• props, <slot/> and per-instance <state>;

• on-press actions that send events, set state or emit to the component's user;

• component libraries (export="true", <import src as>);

• HTML's elements (div, p, h1-h6, ul/li, img, hr, ...), with a default stylesheet;

• HTML's attributes: id, class, style, hidden, disabled and onclick, with any other attribute kept for selectors;

• the CSS box model (padding and margin in 1-4 values, borders, px and %) and flex layout (flex-grow, justify-content, align-items/align-self, flex-wrap, min and max sizes) under CSS's property names;

• stylesheets, in a <style> or an .lss file (a Ludic StyleSheet) that others import and that can @import more;

• CSS's selectors: #id, compound classes, [attr=value], descendant and > combinators, :hover, :disabled, :first-child, :last-child, :nth-child, :not and more, weighed by specificity.

• more CSS: custom properties and var(), position with insets and z-index, em/rem/vw/vh, @media, wrapping text and ellipsis, overflow, +/~, :nth-child(an+b), :checked, :active;

• more React: keyed lists, <let>, <provide> context, <fragment>, named slots, on-mount and on-unmount;

• native elements a program draws itself (ui_native, ui_fire), and form controls;

• errors with file and line, hot reload (ui_reload), and an inspector-style dump.

The runtime is a UI framework, not only a template engine:

• it takes input itself: focus and keyboard navigation, the pointer, scroll boxes, autofocus;
• it has built-in controls (button, checkbox, radio, range, select, text, key), styled as CSS parts;
• ludic.ui/render3d.ludic is a render3d backend, with textures, atlases, nine-slices, clipping and scale;
• more CSS: rgba()/#rrggbbaa, border-radius, outline, box-shadow, background-image, border-image, group opacity, @keyframes / animation / transition;
• HTML mixed content, and boolean attributes;
• popover (a top layer that keeps the pointer and keys, with light dismissal), title tooltips, and <progress> / <meter>;
• importing ludic.ui/render3d.ludic installs the backend, and atlases take rows;
• hooks for the program's language, sounds and clock.

What a game's screens found missing, now in ludic.ui:

• <input type="number" min max step>: typed digits, Enter or leaving it commits them clamped, the arrows step it;
• <input type="key"> listens for any key (Tab and the arrows included) once Enter or a click starts it; Esc stops it, Backspace clears it, shown names the value, and ui_capturing() tells the host;
• note="..." under any control's label (.ui-note); a range's decimals, format="percent" and unit; a track laid out as a row, with the range's fill as tall as it;
• popovers anchored beside an element (anchor="id", or a bare anchor for the element before it, placement), flipped to the other side and kept on the screen;
• flex-shrink (a scroll box in a column takes the room its siblings leave), flex: grow shrink, order, and text in a row wrapping in the room its siblings leave;
• calc() over px, %, em, rem, vw, vh and var(); width: 0 and height: 0 mean 0;
• text-shadow; tooltips of several lines; ui_opacity() for a native's draw;
• border-image drawn as painted with no background colour, tinted by one, and not at all under transparent; a picture file drawn untinted (an atlas cell still takes color);
• the render3d backend loads a picture again when its file changes (ui_image_reload), draws a path with a drive letter as a path, and slices a nine-slice by its texture's own width and height;
• a component root that is itself a component takes every user's class, style and id, and the sheets that style it are weighed together by specificity;
• a component's event may be called set; a string prop given a number reads it as text; two components of one name are an error naming both files.

render3d gains tex_width / tex_height, and the XML reader keeps text runs among elements in order (mixed).

A view field set to a literal or a named function's result needs no type.

Screens are drawn through a registered renderer. Value gains a float kind.

Also:

• A program's function named like one of the runtime's is refused; it had been silently taking the runtime's own calls.
• An index is evaluated before the slice's elements are read. A xs[f()] whose f grew xs read stale memory.
• A runtime error names the file its expression is in, not the program's.

Two declarations with one name (a package's private global and a program's, say) are reported as such before type checking. They used to surface as a page of type errors about the wrong type.