Reblocks

Reblocks is a widgets-based and server-based framework with a built-in ajax update mechanism. It allows to write dynamic web applications without the need to write JavaScript or to write lisp code that would transpile to JavaScript. It is thus super exciting. It isn’t for newcomers however.

The Reblocks’s demo we will build is a TODO app:

Reblocks’ unit of work is the widget. They look like a class definition:

(defwidget task ()
   ((title
     :initarg :title
     :accessor title)
    (done
     :initarg :done
     :initform nil
     :accessor done)))

Then all we have to do is to define the render method for this widget:

(defmethod render ((task task))
  "Render a task."
  (with-html
        (:span (if (done task)
                   (with-html
                         (:s (title task)))
                 (title task)))))

It uses the Spinneret template engine by default, but we can bind any other one of our choice.

To trigger an ajax event, we write lambdas in full Common Lisp:

...
(with-html
  (:p (:input :type "checkbox"
    :checked (done task)
    :onclick (make-js-action
              (lambda (&key &allow-other-keys)
                (toggle task))))
...

The function make-js-action creates a simple javascript function that calls the lisp one on the server, and automatically refreshes the HTML of the widgets that need it. In our example, it re-renders one task only.

Is it appealing ? Carry on its quickstart guide.