AppRun

Introduction

AppRun is a lightweight alternative to other frameworks and libraries. It has a unique architecture inspired by the Elm architecture that can help you manage states, routing, and other essential aspects of your web application.

Use a Counter as an example.

// define the initial state
const state = 0;

// view is a function to display the state
const view = state => `<div>
  <h1>${state}</h1>
  <button onclick="app.run('-1')">-1</button>
  <button onclick="app.run('+1')">+1</button>
</div>`;

// update is a collection of event handlers
const update = {
  '+1': state => state + 1,
  '-1': state => state - 1
};

// start the app
app.start(document.body, state, view, update);

At its core, AppRun harnesses the power of the event PubsSub (Publish-Subscribe) pattern to streamline your application’s state handling.

Why the Event Pubsub Pattern

The event PubSub pattern isn't new; it's a well-established design pattern used widely in software development to handle communication between components or services in a decoupled manner. Web developers are likely already familiar with the PubSub pattern through their use of DOM event handling.

AppRun takes the familiar PubSub concept and extends it into your application's logic, providing a more structured and powerful approach to state management. The result? Cleaner, more maintainable code and a smoother development experience.

AppRun Benefits

Clean architecture that needs less code
State management and routing included
No proprietary syntax to learn (no hooks, no reducers, no signals)
Use directly in the browser or with a compiler/bundler
Advanced features: JSX, Web Components, Dev Tools, SSR, etc.

Getting Started

AppRun is distributed on npm. To get it, run:

npm install apprun

You can also load AppRun directly from the unpkg.com CDN:

<html>
<body>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/apprun/dist/apprun-html.js"></script>
<script>
  const view = state => `<div>${state}</div>`;
  app.start(document.body, 'hello AppRun', view);
</script>
</body>
</html>

Or, use the ESM version:

<html>
<body>
<script type="module">
  import { app } from 'https://unpkg.com/apprun/dist/apprun-html.esm.js';
  const view = state => `<div>${state}</div>`;
  app.start(document.body, 'hello ESM', view);
</script>
</body>
</html>

Or, you can create an AppRun app by using the npm create apprun-app command.