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Frontend Development

Imba​

By default Formidable uses Imba for its frontend development. You can build your frontend either as a single-page application or as a web application.

Multi-page Application​

To build a multi-page application, use the create-formidable CLI with the following flags:

npm create formidable@latest example-app -- --imba --scaffolding mpa

This will create a new project with mpa related files.

See the Views documentation for more information.

Single-page Application​

To build a single-page application, you can use the create-formidable CLI with the following flag:

npm create formidable@latest example-app -- --imba

This will create a new project and install the @formidablejs/view package, then publish spa related files.

The frontend files will be published in the resources/frontend folder. To get started, open the resources/frontend/App.imba file.

See the Views documentation for more information.

Vue.js, React & Svelte​

Formidable provides an Inertia Adapter through Laravel Mix.

Laravel Mix is a package developed by Laracasts creator Jeffrey Way. It provides a fluent API for defining webpack build steps for your Laravel and Formidable applications using several common CSS, TypeScript and JavaScript pre-processors.

In other words, Mix makes it a cinch to compile and minify your application's CSS, TypeScript and JavaScript files. Through simple method chaining, you can fluently define your asset pipeline. For example:

mix.ts('resources/js/app.ts', 'public/js')
    .postCss('resources/css/app.css', 'public/css');

Installation & Setup​

To get started with an application powered by Inertia, use the following commands:

Vue​

npm create formidable@latest example-app -- --vue

React​

npm create formidable@latest example-app -- --react

Svelte​

npm create formidable@latest example-app -- --svelte

This will scaffold a Vuejs, React or Svelte application for you.

Running Mix​

Mix is a configuration layer on top of webpack, so to run your Mix tasks you only need to execute one of the NPM scripts that are included in the default Formidable package.json file. When you run the dev or production scripts, all of your application's CSS, TypeScript and JavaScript assets will be compiled and placed in your application's public directory:

// Run all Mix tasks...
npm run mix:dev

// Run all Mix tasks and minify output...
npm run mix:prod

Watching Assets For Changes​

The mix:watch script will continue running in your terminal and watch all relevant CSS, TypeScript and JavaScript files for changes. Webpack will automatically recompile your assets when it detects a change to one of these files:

npm run mix:watch
info

You don't have to run the mix:watch script, running node craftsman serve --dev will also watch your assets for changes and recompile them when needed.

Component Rendering​

Creating responses​

In your controller, provide both the name of the TypeScript or JavaScript page component, as well as any props (data) for the page.

In this example we're passing a single prop, called post to the Post/Show page component:

import { use } from '@formidablejs/framework'
import { Inertia } from '@formidablejs/inertia'
import { InertiaResponse } from '@formidablejs/inertia'
import { PostRepository } from '../../Repositories/PostRepository'
import { Controller } from './Controller'

export class PostController extends Controller
	@use(PostRepository)
	async show(post: Promise<Post>): Promise<InertiaResponse> {
		post = await post

		return Inertia.render('Post/Show', {
			post: post
		})
	}
}

We can access the post prop in our page component like so:

resources/js/Pages/Post/Show.vue
<script lang="ts" setup>
defineProps({
	post: {
		type: Post,
		required: true
	}
})
</script>

<template>
	<h1>{{ post.title }}</h1>
	<p>{{ post.body }}</p>
</template>

Root template data​

The default inertia root view is defined in the config/inertia.imba or config/inertia.ts config file:

import { App } from '../resources/views/app'

export default {

	/*
	 * --------------------------------------------------------------------------
	 * Root View
	 * --------------------------------------------------------------------------
	 *
	 * Sets the root template that's loaded on the first page visit.
	 */

	rootView: App,

	/**
	 * --------------------------------------------------------------------------
	 * Laravel Mix Command
	 * --------------------------------------------------------------------------
	 * Command that runs to execute Laravel Mix when Formidable is in development
	 * mode.
	 */

	mix: "npm run mix:watch" // "pnpm run mix:watch" || "yarn run mix:watch" || "bun run mix:watch"

}

If you'd like to provide a custom root for for a specific component, you may do so by using setRootView:

Inertia.render('Welcome').setRootView(CustomFormidableView)

You can also pass data props to a root view by using withViewData:

Inertia.render('Welcome').withViewData({
	meta: meta
})

This section is incomplete. Join our discord if you have questions.

For more information on how to use Laravel Mix and Inertia, see the Laravel Mix documentation and the Inertia documentation.

TailwindCSS​

You can use TailwindCSS with your React, Vue or Svelte application. In this guide, we will setup TailwindCSS for your application.

Installation​

Install tailwindcss and its peer dependencies via npm, and create your tailwind.config.js file:

npm install -D tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer
npx tailwindcss init

Configuration​

In your webpack.mix.js file, add tailwindcss as a PostCSS plugin:

webpack.mix.js
.postCss('resources/css/app.css', './public/css', [
	require("tailwindcss"),
])

Add the paths to all of your template files in your tailwind.config.js file:

tailwind.config.js
/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  content: [
    "./resources/**/*.js",
    "./resources/**/*.ts",
    "./resources/**/*.tsx",
    "./resources/**/*.vue",
    "./resources/**/*.svelte",
  ],
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [],
}

Add the @tailwind directives for each of Tailwind’s layers to your ./resources/css/app.css file:

resources/css/app.css
@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;

You're done! Visit https://tailwindcss.com/ for more information.