jaspr-fundamentals

Components

Jaspr uses a component-based architecture very similar to Flutter's widgets. Concepts like ui composition, architecture and state management are transferable.

• StatelessComponent: For components that don't need mutable state. You must override Component build(BuildContext context).
• StatefulComponent: For components with mutable state. Requires an associated State class. The state has lifecycle methods like initState() and dispose(). You must override Component build(BuildContext context) in the state class.
• InheritedComponent: For propagating context or state efficiently down the component tree.

Returning Components from build

Building UIs in Jaspr requires you to return a single Component from build().

• Rule 1: You MUST NOT use Iterable<Component> build(BuildContext context) sync*. This is legacy code.
• Rule 2: You MUST use dot-shorthands instead of capitalized component names for fragments, text, and empty nodes.
  • Use .fragment([...]) (Do NOT use Fragment([...]) or fragment([...])).
  • Use .text('...') (Do NOT use Text('...') or text('...')).
  • Use .empty() to return an empty space safely.

Example Usage:

import 'package:jaspr/jaspr.dart';
import 'package:jaspr/dom.dart';

class MyComponent extends StatelessComponent {
  const MyComponent({super.key});

  @override
  Component build(BuildContext context) {
    // 1. Return a single component (e.g. div)
    // 2. Use dot-shorthand (.text) instead of Text()
    return div(classes: 'my-class', [
      .text('Hello World'),
    ]);
  }
}

HTML Components

Jaspr provides typed components for standard HTML elements (e.g., div(), p(), a(), button()). To use these add the package:jaspr/dom.dart import.

All HTML components take standard named Key? key, String? id, String? classes, Styles? style, Map<String, String>? attributes and Map<String, void Function(Event)>? events parameters. Most HTML components take a positional List<Component> children parameter (except for self-closing tags like img, input, br, etc.).

• Rule 1: ALWAYS put the children list LAST, after all named parameters.
• Rule 2: You MUST prefer available typed parameters (e.g., href, src, onClick) over using the raw attributes: or events: maps.
• Rule 3: When you are unsure about which typed parameters exist for an HTML component, you MUST read the respective reference file provided alongside this skill:
  • references/html/<tag>.md contains the full signature and example usage of the component for the given tag. (e.g. references/html/div.md for div(), references/html/button.md for button(), etc.)
• Rule 4: When a respective reference file does not exist for a tag (and therefore the component itself doesn't exist), you MUST use the generic .element(tag: '...', /* other standard params, */ children: [ /* ... */ ]) constructor instead.

Example Usage:

import 'package:jaspr/jaspr.dart';
import 'package:jaspr/dom.dart';

class MyHtmlComponent extends StatelessComponent {
  const MyHtmlComponent({super.key});

  @override
  Component build(BuildContext context) {
    return div(id: 'my-container', classes: 'my-class', [ 
      p(attributes: {'aria-label': 'Example Paragraph'}, [
        .text('Hello World'),
      ]),
      // E.g. signature as found at 'references/html/a.md'
      a(href: 'https://example.com', [
        .text('Click me'),
      ]),
    ]);
  }
}

Styling Components

Jaspr has built-in support for styling components using CSS-in-Dart. See the jaspr-styling skill for more information.

Interactivity and Events

1. Accessing Browser APIs

• Rule 1: In server or static mode, you MUST use package:universal_web/web.dart to access browser APIs and package:universal_web/js_interop.dart to access js interop APIs.
• Rule 2: When using package:universal_web in server or static mode, you MUST wrap all API calls in an if (kIsWeb) check to prevent crashing the server render.
• Rule 3: In client mode, you can use dart:js_interop and package:web directly.
• Rule 4: For global events, you MUST use web.EventStreamProviders to listen to events on the window or document as they provide a typed Dart Stream of events.

// Example of safe usage in server/static mode:
import 'package:universal_web/web.dart' as web;

void logSize() {
  if (kIsWeb) {
    print('Window size: ${web.window.innerWidth}x${web.window.innerHeight}');

    // Example of global event listener
    final sub = web.EventStreamProviders.resizeEvent.forTarget(web.window).listen((event) {
      print('Window resized');
    });
  }
}

2. Handling Events

All DOM components support an events: parameter, and interactive components feature typed event callbacks (like onClick, onChange).

• Rule 1: You MUST use web.Event when typing raw events.
• Rule 2: Use the events() helper function for type-safe callback creation when needed.

import 'package:jaspr/jaspr.dart';
import 'package:jaspr/dom.dart';
import 'package:universal_web/web.dart' as web;

class MyButton extends StatelessComponent {
  @override
  Component build(BuildContext context) {
    return div(
      // Using raw events
      events: {'click': (web.Event event) {
        print('Div clicked');
      }},
      [
        // Using typed parameters
        button(
          onClick: () => print('Button clicked'),
          [.text('Click me')]
        )
      ]
    );
  }
}

3. Accessing Elements (GlobalNodeKey)

If you need direct reference to an underlying DOM element rendered by Jaspr, you can assign it a GlobalNodeKey.

import 'package:jaspr/jaspr.dart';
import 'package:jaspr/dom.dart';
import 'package:universal_web/web.dart' as web;

class MyInput extends StatefulComponent {
  @override
  State<MyInput> createState() => _MyInputState();
}

class _MyInputState extends State<MyInput> {
  final GlobalNodeKey<web.HTMLInputElement> inputKey = GlobalNodeKey();

  void focusInput() {
    inputKey.currentNode?.focus();
  }

  @override
  Component build(BuildContext context) {
    return input(key: inputKey, type: .text);
  }
}

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Further Resources

• For information on pre-rendering, async data fetching, hydration, and the @client annotation see the related skill: jaspr-pre-rendering-and-hydration.
• For information on styling components see the related skill: jaspr-styling.
• For information on how to convert HTML to Jaspr code, see the related skill: jaspr-convert-html.
• An index of all available documentation can be found at https://jaspr.site/llms.txt.