What is AliceJS?

AliceJS is a reactive JSX-based rendering library with no virtual dom

Why do we need another javascript framework????

React is great, but the API is unnecesarily complex and bloated. AliceJS lets you write code where what you see is what you get, no trickery.

What does it look like?

Here's a simple counter app

function App() {
  this.counter = 0;
  return (
    <div>
      <button on:click={() => this.counter++} >Click me!</button>
      <p>
       {use(this.counter)}
      </p>
    </div>
  );
}

window.addEventListener("load", () => {
  document.body.appendChild(<App/>);
});

Compare that to the equivalent code in react:

import { React, useState } from 'react'
 
function App() {
  const [counter, setCounter] = useState(0);
 
  const increase = () => {
    setCounter(count => count + 1);
  };
 
  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={increase}>Click me!</button>
      <p>
        Value: {counter}
      </p>
    </div>
  );
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>,
  document.getElementById("root")
);

AliceJS provides a simple and intuitive API at a low cost (~8kb, smaller than preact)

To get started with AliceJS, add this to the compileroptions of your tsconfig.json

"jsx":"react",
"jsxFactory":"h",
"jsxFragmentFactory":"YOU_CANT_USE_FRAGMENTS",
"types": ["@mercuryworkshop/alicejs"],

and run npm install @mercuryworkshop/alicejs

If you prefer using modules and are using a bundler, simply import "@mercuryworkshop/alicejs"; into at least one file you're using.

If you don't like using modules, just add <script src="://unpkg.com/@mercuryworkshop/alicejs"></script> to your html, and you can use AliceJS as normal.

AliceJS can even be used without a build step, here's the counter example in plain JS

function App() {
  this.counter = 0;
  return html`
    <div>
      <button on:click=${() => this.counter++}>Click me!</button>
      <p>
        ${use(this.counter)}
      </p>
    </div>
  `;
}

window.addEventListener("load", () => {
  document.body.appendChild(h(App));
});

See the examples/ directory for more.