De-couple from Bootstrap [enhancement]

[ryedin]

Man this would be really great if it wasn't dependent on bootstrap (or any particular UI framework). We should be able to have full control over that part (for example, use with https://material.angularjs.org/latest/#/)

Any plans to remove this tight coupling to bootstrap? It would make the library instantly more accessible and desirable to a larger number of projects.

[gazpachoking]

Decorators can be made for any ui framework in theory, bootstrap is just the included one. There is an (in progress) decorator for angular material here. https://github.com/Textalk/angular-schema-form-material
I'm also wanting to switch to that, haven't gotten a chance to try it out yet though, not sure how complete/usable it is at the moment.

[davidlgj]

@ryedin ASF has been designed with that in mind from the start, and as @gazpachoking said there is a Angular Material decorator in the works, but it's currently broken. The reason nothing has happened to it in a while is that we're working on a refactoring that needs to be done first, see https://medium.com/@SchemaFormIO/the-new-builder-pt-1-61fadde3c678

But the work on the new builder is going well, so soon the material decorator work can resume.

[davidlgj]

btw Angular Material is one of the harder to implement. Implementing a pure CSS framework should be pretty straightforward, basically just editing the templates. I've tinkered a bit with a Foundation decorator, but since we don't use Foundation I let it go. I'm going to write some docs on it soon.

[ryedin]

Awesome, glad to hear it!

angular-material >>> bootstrap, so can't wait! (ok... that's slightly opinionated, but oh well :))

[nicklasb]

Yes, material looks really nice. Wouldn't mind that at all.

[ryedin]

@davidlgj how is it going on the "new builder" and by extentsion, the material decorator. I see there have been some recent commits here, just curious as I am getting closer to the point of our project where I might want to pull this thing in. Of course, our app is material, so can only do this if there is a decently workable path for the material decorator. I'm happy to jump in there (potentially, if hours permit), but don't want to do that if you're about to drop a big "booyah" bomb and release the shiny new 100% working material decorator codebase on us all :)

[davidlgj]

Hi @ryedin! We'd love to get your help.

The new builder is up and running in the latest release, but not used by the the dist/bootstrap-decorator.min.js decorator. For the next release (that's not a hotfix) I will remove it.

The new bootstrap decorator that uses the builder is fully functional and has it's home here:
https://github.com/Textalk/angular-schema-form-bootstrap

So you can say it's already released but a bit sneakily.

I have no bomb to drop :) I've been concentrating on bugs and getting the bootstrap decorator up and running and so @Anthropic has been doing the latest work. (do you have a code bomb @Anthropic?)

So, the state of the material decorator is that it has a start with the most basic types, although not perfectly. It also has solutions for some of the integration points, like how to display validation messages. What needs to be done is to implement as many of the form types as possible, write tests (probably protractor) and document.

Since its the decorator that decides what types are implemented and what options they support we probably want types for a lot of stuff that's material specific. I'd consider it release worthy if we at least have the types that are used as defaults for schemas. I.e. text, number, integer. textarea, select, array, fieldset (probably should correspond to something else) and checkbox (i believe thats all...)

To implement a form type one would first look at the corresponding type in the bootstrap decorator to get a good idea on how it should be done. Most types should be straight forward to migrate (array maybe the most complicated).

If you start work on something consider doing a "work-in-progress" PR to let us know and to get early feedback.

[ryedin]

OK, cool. Thanks for the update.

I'll see what sort of time I can set aside for this. There are many things on the proverbial plate (just like everyone else).

[Anthropic]

@ryedin I've just finished wrapping my head around the inner workings of @davidlgj 's new builder while upgrading a project I have at work. I like it much more, but like anything new, took a little getting used to. I think I am on top of it now so I will be doing some more work on the Material decorator soon.

We have had to wait for Angular Material to get more stable too, when we first started on it, they kept making breaking changes since it is pre-1.0, so I slowed down a bit in frustration. But they are releasing 1.0 soon and I will do my best to get as much done on it as I can once that happens :)

[ryedin]

@Anthropic awesome news man.

Yeah, it's definitely a challenge to be working on an integration project where both sides of the integration are moving targets!

Keep us posted. Like I said, I might be able to jump in at some point here, too... at least with some busy work once you've nailed down the correct implementation patterns.

[Anthropic]

@ryedin I added some more parts to it this weekend, I also started to add some issues in the ASFMaterial repo to keep track of things I want to add, but haven't yet. Feel free to add issues or contribute over there.

[ryedin]

@Anthropic cool. I'll try to check it out this week some time... Got like a 1.4 bazillion things on my plate I'm behind on right now :)

Thanks for the update. This is pretty exciting.

[jmls]

so what's the status of this new builder ? Is it part of the standard installation now ?