ux

A character counter is small, but it removes uncertainty for users (especially when there’s a limit). I implement it with Stimulus so it stays reusable: attach to a wrapper, declare input + output targets, and compute remaining characters based on an

Copy buttons are everywhere (invite links, API keys, CLI commands). With Stimulus, I keep it tiny and resilient: use navigator.clipboard.writeText when available, and fall back to selecting a hidden input for older browsers. I also provide immediate f

Keyboard shortcuts improve power-user workflows, but they must survive Turbo navigation. Attach on connect/disconnect, avoid global leaks, and scope shortcuts to the page/component.

I don’t want components depending on each other just to show a toast. A tiny event bus (or context) lets any part of the app emit a toast without wiring props through five layers. The important part is keeping the API small—something like show(message

Sorting is a great candidate for Turbo Frames: clicking “Newest” shouldn’t reload your whole page shell. I wrap the list in a frame (e.g., id='results') and make sort links target that frame. The controller reads params[:sort] and applies an order sco

A “follow” button usually needs two updates: the button label/state and the follower count. Turbo Streams make this trivial because one server response can carry multiple DOM operations. I render both UI pieces as partials with stable targets (dom_id(

I like optimistic UI for tiny interactions (like “star” or “follow”) because it makes the interface feel instant. The tradeoff is handling failure cleanly. I implement this with Stimulus: flip CSS + text immediately, then submit a Turbo request in the

Drag-and-drop reorder can be fancy, but the core is: user triggers a reorder action, server persists positions, and the UI updates. For simpler UIs, I skip drag-and-drop and use up/down buttons. Each click POSTs to a move_up action, updates position,

A modal that opens without focusing an input is a tiny annoyance that adds up. In Hotwire apps, modals often swap in via Turbo Frames, which means the DOM is injected after navigation. Stimulus is ideal here: attach an autofocus controller to the moda

Instead of sprinkling custom JS for notifications, I treat flash as UI state and render it via Turbo Streams. When a create/update succeeds, the controller responds to format.turbo_stream and the template uses turbo_stream.replace to swap the flash co

For small UX touches like “3 minutes ago”, I don’t want to pull in a giant date library. A Stimulus controller can use Intl.RelativeTimeFormat plus a lightweight difference calculation. The server renders the ISO timestamp (via time_tag), and the cont

Counters (likes, votes, bookmarks) are classic UI glue. I keep the counter itself in a small partial with a stable id and update it via turbo streams on create/destroy. The controller can render a turbo_stream.replace of the counter plus (optionally)