torch VS surface

There's also Torch.

There are good libraries around authentication and authorization. There was at one point an analogue to ActiveAdmin, but it looks to be a dead project now. I generally discourage the use of those kinds of interfaces but if you must, this is more current: https://github.com/mojotech/torch

I should have been more clear that my intent was to create/use a compiler for some kind of component syntax. There are lots of them, from Surface (Elixir), Blade (PHP/Laravel), and JSX (React, Vue, Etc)

There I learned more deeply about LiveView and Surface UI.

I think Surface is the ideal candidate for this. But it doesn’t have the components you are looking for but you can build anything with it. Hopefully, in future we can have set of headless components built using Surface 🤞

This is just an idea, but what about implementing using Phoenix.View(via use MyAppWeb, :view in your module)? Then assign I think has access to @conn. Then maybe work some magic to still allow Phoenix.Component syntax - but at this point, this is something I believe is a flow that might be in development. Try investigating / asking in Surface, because that is a lot more similar to React in its approach. In fact, I think Surface is where more aggressive features are pushed out, and ironed-out features get included into Phoenix. This was the case for Phoenix.Component, and HEEX.

I totally get the "Am I doing this the right way?" feeling, especially coming from Rails where everything was so opinionated and wanting to stay idiomatic.

Phoenix, while it does have opinions, is far less opinionated in the sense that it doesn't do it darndest to force you into certain conventions (for example, if your module name doesn't match your file name, Phoenix won't complain). Its generators do try and push you toward using good DDD practices (which is my opinion is a GREAT thing), but of course the generators are completely optional.

I don't have experience writing large LiveView apps but I would say that if you are familiar with any component-based frameworks (like React), I would take a look at SurfaceUI[1]. It simplifies a few "gotchas" in LiveView (though I would say they are very minor gotchas and worth learning about at some point) and gives you a component-rendering syntax more like React. Once you get going, you'll learn that LiveView doesn't have all the headaches that come with bigger React apps (like having to memoize functions or comparing props to avoid a re-render and whatnot). The recent release candidate for Phoenix 1.6 has made strides for a cleaner component syntax, but if you're having trouble with LiveView, Surface might bring some familiarity.

[1] https://github.com/surface-ui/surface

Have you seen Surface UI? Pretty cool. Collection of LiveView components. https://surface-ui.org/

I also did not use "vanilla" LiveView, as I used the Surface library. This is a wrapper around LiveView that brings a whole new syntax to make the experience even more comfortable.