Pretty Nice Framework

A purely functional, fully type-safe, full-stack web framework for Gren.

Your code runs on the server, but your responses can include fully-interactive, client-side components that run in the browser. Initialize those components with data server-side and you don't have to deal with loading states or data fetching errors.

You can go through this README to learn about the framework and how to get started. Then check out the docsite, examples, and API docs for more details.

You can follow @blaix@hachyderm.io or check the #prettynice channel on the Gren Discord for updates or to ask for help.

Table of Contents

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Installation and Usage

Nodejs 20 or higher is the only requirement.

Create a starter project with:

mkdir mysite
cd mysite
npx prettynice init

Then you can run the dev server with: npm run dev

See Deployment for deployment information.

Basic Example

module Main exposing (main)

import Node exposing (Environment)
import Prettynice.SimpleRouter as Router
import Prettynice.Request exposing (Request)
import Prettynice.Response as Response exposing (Response)


main : Router.Program
main =
    Router.defineProgram
        { init = init
        , router = router
        }


init : Environment -> Router.Init
init env =
    Router.startProgram
        { host = "127.0.0.1"
        , port_ = 3000
        , env = env
        }


router : Request -> Response -> Cmd msg
router request response =
    case request.path of
    
        [] ->
            Response.sendText "Hello!" response
            -- You can also sendHtml, sendJson, and sendBytes
            -- see examples/[version]/content-types
            
        [ "hello", name ] ->
            Response.sendText ("Hello, " ++ name) response

        _ ->
            response
                |> Response.setStatus 404
                |> Response.sendText "Oops!"

See examples/v1/routing/server/src/Main.gren.

Server-side HTML

html-gren is used to render HTML on the server.

For example:

Response.sendHtml
    { title = "Home"
    , head = []
    , body =
        [ h1 [] [ text "Welcome!" ]
        , p [] [ text "It's a website!" ]
        ]
    }

See examples/v1/content-types/server/src/Main.gren.

Client-side Components

You can create client-side components for islands of interactivity.

Under the hood, components wrap Browser.element. They follow the Elm Architecture (Model/View/Update). If you aren't familiar, you can read this guide, which applies to gren as well.

-- client/src/Components/Counter.gren

module Components.Counter exposing (component, Model, Msg, Props)

import Prettynice

component : Prettynice.Component Props Model Msg
component =
        { init = init
        , update = update
        , view = view
        , subscriptions = subscriptions
        }

-- Model holds component state
type alias Model =
    { count : Int }

-- Props define the arguments passed in to your component
type alias Props =
    { start : Int }

-- A corresponding init will be generated server-side
-- that takes Props and renders the js for this component.
init : Props -> { model : Model, command : Cmd Msg }
init props =
    { model = { model | count = props.start }
    , command = Cmd.none
    }

type Msg
    = Increment
    | Decrement

update : Msg -> Model -> { model : Model, command : Cmd Msg }
update msg model =
    case msg of
        Increment ->
            { model = { model | count = model.count + 1
            , command = Cmd.none
            }
        Decrement ->
            { model = { model | count = model.count - 1
            , command = Cmd.none
            }

view : Model -> Html Msg
view model =
    p []
        [ button
            [ onClick Decrement ]
            [ text "-" ]
        , text <| String.fromInt model.count
        , button
            [ onClick Increment ]
            [ text "+" ]
        ]

subscriptions : Model -> Sub Msg
subscriptions _ =
    Sub.none

See examples/v1/client-side-components/client/src/Components/Counter.gren.

Dropping a component in client/src/Components/ makes it available to embed in your server-side HTML:

-- in server/src/Main.gren:

import Gen.Components.Counter as Counter

myResponse =
    Response.sendHtml
        { title = "Component Example"
        , head = []
        , body =
            -- Counter.init takes Props as defined in the Counter component,
            -- and returns HTML/JS to render the component,
            -- including automatic encoding of the props.
            
            [ p [] [ text "Counter starting at zero:" ]
            , Counter.init { start = 0 }
            
            , p [] [ text "Counter starting at not zero:" ]
            , Counter.init { start = 123 }
            ]
    }

See examples/v1/client-side-components/server/src/Main.gren.

Because you can initialize your client-side components with data from the server, you don't need loading states or encoders, and the data will be type-checked at compile time.

Note: This is still a work-in-progress, and only works with certain types. See examples/v1/client-side-components/README.md for details.

Forms

Normal <form> elements with action="post" will have the data available at request.formData:

It is a FormData value which is a mapping of field names to arrays of values.

You can use get to get a Maybe String of the first value associated with a field name, or getAll to get an Array String of all values associated with the field name. For example:

viewForm =
    H.form 
        [ A.method "post", A.action "/submission" ]
        [ H.div []
            [ H.label [] 
                [ H.text "Name: " 
                , H.input [ A.type_ "text", A.name "name" ] []
                ]
            ]
        , H.div []
            [ H.text "Hobbies: "
            , H.label []
                [ H.text "Clocks"
                , checkbox "hobbies" "clocks"
                ]
            , H.label []
                [ H.text "Empathy"
                , checkbox "hobbies" "empathy"
                ]
            , H.label []
                [ H.text "Bugs"
                , checkbox "hobbies" "bugs"
                ]
            ]
        , H.div []
            [ H.input [ A.type_ "submit", A.value "Submit" ] []
            ]
        ]

viewResult request =
    let
        name =
            FormData.get "name" request.formData
                |> Maybe.withDefault "Mr. E"

        hobbies =
            FormData.getAll "hobbies" request.formData
                |> String.join ", "
    in
    H.text <|
        name ++ " likes: " ++ hobbies

See examples/v1/forms for a full working example.

Static assets

Any files in public/ will be copied to dist/client and available at the root url path.

See examples/v1/static-assets for a full working example.

Customizing <head>

If you want to add style sheets or other tags to head, sendHtml accepts an array of Html elements that will be added to the <head> tag alongside the built-in Prettynice head tags:

Response.sendHtml
    { title = title
    , body = body
    , head =
        [ Html.link 
            [ Attributes.rel "stylesheet"
            , Attributes.href "/css/my-styles.css"
            ]
        ]
    }

See examples/v1/static-assets for a full working example.

Javascript Interop in the Browser

You can drop a js file with the same base name as a component in client/src/Components and it will be automatically imported. If you export an init function it will be called with the initialized component, allowing you to connect ports.

If you aren't familiar with ports, you can read this section of the elm guide, which also applies to gren.

// client/src/Components/Alert.js

export function init(component) {
    component.ports.sendAlert.subscribe(function(message) {
        alert(message);
    });
}

-- client/src/Components/Alert.gren

port sendAlert : String -> Cmd msg

update msg model =
    case msg of
        ClickedAlert ->
            { model = model
            , command = sendAlert "Danger! High voltage!"
            }

See examples/v1/client-side-ports for a full working example.

More Control

The examples above use Prettynice.SimpleRouter to define a router, and let the framework handle wiring it up to a full program. If you need more control over the app, you can define a full program instead of a router:

main =
    Prettynice.defineProgram
        { init = init
        , update = update
        , subscriptions = subscriptions
        , onRequest = GotRequest
        }

This gives you more control over the msg/update cycle, so you can do side-effecty things, like read files for example:

update msg model =
    case msg of
        GotRequest request response ->
            { model = model
            , command =
                open model.fsPermission "./test.txt"
                    |> Task.andThen read
                    |> Task.andThen decode
                    |> Task.attempt (GotReadResult response)
            }

        GotReadResult response (Ok fileContents) ->
            { model = model
            , command =
                response
                    |> Response.sendText
                        ("File contents: " ++ fileContents)
            }

        GotReadResult response (Err e) ->
            { model = model
            , command =
                response
                    |> Response.setStatus 500
                    |> Response.sendText
                        ("Failed to read file: " ++ Debug.toString e)

See:

Javascript Interop in Node

You can drop a ports.js file in server/src and export an init function to connect ports between node and your gren program, giving you a type-safe interface to the entire node ecosystem.

If you aren't familiar with ports, you can read this section of the elm guide, which also applies to gren.

See:

Note: due to the async and decoupled nature of ports, if you are triggering a port on a request, and your response depends on the result of that port, you'll need to map requests to responses on your model so you can respond in a separate update cycle when you get the result through a separate port, making extra-sure to handle errors in your js so you dno't leave dangling requests. The examples above show how to do that. Future versions of prettynice and/or gren will have a way to call js and act on the results in a Task-like, composable way, but until then you'll have to live with this extra complexity.

Databases

Gren does not (yet) have a way to natively connect to a database. So you need to use ports or some form of db-over-http.

See:

Deployment

Prettynice should work on any host that supports nodejs.

The basic steps for deployment are:

  1. Build with optimizations: npx prettynice build --optimize
  2. Deploy the dist folder. dist/server holds your node server. dist/client holds your static assets.
  3. Run with: node dist/server/index.js

If you cloned one of the examples, there are scripts for the build and run steps:

  • npm run build
  • npm start

Goals

Short term goals

  • All content and everything you need for interactivity should be included in the initial page load. No loading spinners, no littering your client-side model with Maybes and loading state variants.
  • Passing data between server and client should be fully type safe and verified at compile time. No hand-written encoders that require runtime error handling.
  • Explicit separation of client and server code. No compile-time magic to decide what should be where. No accidentally shipping secrets or server-only libraries to the client. But this should not interfere with a full stack DX that feels unified and holistic.
  • Lean on the platform: Prevent preventDefault as the default. Prefer normal browser behavior and HTTP request/response cycles. E.g. normal forms that default to normal requests to the server. No littering your client-side model and msg to track every field change.
  • Progressive enhancement where it would benefit UX, without requiring escape hatches to js.
  • Boring code that's easy to change and maintain.

Long term goals

  • Batteries included:
    • Type-safe UI styling using web standards (HTML/CSS)
    • Sessions and authentication
    • Configuration and secrets
    • Data persistence
  • Move slow and fix things.

Anti-goals / Avoiding

  • SPA
  • Nested components
  • Serverless. Targeting the cloud.
  • The possibility of unhandled runtime errors
  • The need for runtime error handling

Personal goals

I'm selfishly building this to power https://pencils.dev/. Goals and anti-goals are driven by the DX and UX of this project.

Inspiration

  • Remix: Web standards. Use the platform.
  • Fresh: Static HTML with islands of interactivity.
  • Rails: Developer happiness. Batteries included.
  • Elm Land: The good parts of Rails (guides & conventions, beginner-friendliness, batteries included) applied to a type-safe, purely functional language.

Working on the Framework Locally

If you're using nix, there's a shell.nix to start a nix shell with everything you need.

Otherwise, you'll need to manually install gren, and then look at the buildInputs list in shell.nix for other things you'll need (you can ignore bashInteractive),

Important Directories

  • src/: Source files for the gren package.
  • cli/: The CLI. Gren source files are under cli/src/ and are built to cli/bin/.
  • website/: The prettynice website.
  • examples/: Several working examples of prettynice sites exercising various features.

Running examples

From the root of the repo with just:

  • Run a single example with just example [EXAMPLE NAME] (e.g. just example hello-world).
  • Iterate through all the examples with just examples. Ctrl-c to kill the current example and start the next one. Great for testing.
  • See Justfile for details.

Or cd to a directory under examples/ and run:

npm install
npm run dev