What is Paintor?

Paintor is a JavaScript library for building reactive client-side user interfaces or HTML code.

Key Features

• JavaScript: The code you write is the code to run
• Zero dependencies
• Reactive: Through Proxy and DOM events
• Templates in JavaScript or HTML: JavaScript HTML-like tree structure (HyperScript) or HTML syntax in template literals
• Observers: Receive events on state changes
• SSR: Generate HTML code on the server
• Internationalization (i18n)
• Type Definitions: Built-in TypeScript definitions for code completion and type safety

Quick Example

import { component, state, template, on } from 'paintor'

// Use a global state
const globalState = state({ clicks: 0 })

// Create a template
const myTemplate = template((tags) => {
  const { div, button, html } = tags

  // Or, use a local state
  const localState = state({ clicks: 0 })

  // Build JavaScript template
  div(
    button(
      {
        class: 'buttons',
        onClick: () => globalState.clicks++
      },
      'Click me'
    ),
    div(() => globalState.clicks)
  )

  // Or, build HTML template in a string
  html`
    <div>
      <button class="buttons" onClick=${() => localState.clicks++}>
        Click me
      </button>
      <div>${() => localState.clicks}</div>
    </div>
  `
})

// Create a component, using the template
const app = component(myTemplate)

// Render the component
app.paint('#app')

// Or, generate HTML string
const htmlCode = app.html()

// Observe state changes if you want
on(globalState.clicks).change((event) => {
  console.log(`Clicked ${event.value} times`)
})

Why?

Cults? No.

I don't like React. As a JavaScript developer, every time I was curious enough to see and understand what React offers, I was disgusted. I couldn't stand looking at React code for more than a few minutes. There is something in it that is not intuitive for me. I think the learning curve of React is too steep for the problems it aims to solve. To the point that everyone who manages to endure the learning process, eventually becomes a cult follower. This is how I think about Angular and other over-hyped, but complex solutions.

"Aha" and "Wow"

I much prefer Vue or Svelte, which at the time I first stared hearing about React were probably less popular than Angular. But when I looked at them, I quickly had this "aha" moment, and for me Svelte even has that "wow" factor. For me, the quick "aha" and the "wow" are very important.

To transpile? How about No?

However, I'm not a big fan of the idea to write something in a non-native format and transpile it on every small change in order to use it. This is usually a deal-breaker for me.

Vanilla

Then I was inspired by Mithril, which is fairly easy to understand and vanilla, although it doesn't really have the "wow" factor. As I often do in such cases, I decided to quickly write something like it, tailored for my needs. Well, this took some years and it's still an ongoing process.