swup VS cssui

https://swup.js.org/ single-page-app but with minimal framework, still along for the feel of an SPA

Sure, you can use any number of JS-avoidance libraries. I'm a fan of Turbo, and there's also htmx, Unpoly, Alpine, hyperscript, swup, barba.js, and probably others.

Swup is this nice page transition library I found recently : https://swup.js.org/

2. The newly released fragment-plugin [3] that provides a declarative API for dynamically replacing containers based on rules

I can now finally build websites that tick all three boxes:

1. Visually impressive, fun, and snappy by using swup's first-class support for animations[4], cache[5], and preload capacities[6], enhanced with fragment visits as seen on the demo site.

2. Accessible by being able to serve server-rendered semantic markup that will fully work even with JavaScript disabled (try it out on the demo site!). On top of that, swup's a11y plugin[7] will automatically announce page visits to assistive technologies and will focus the new `

` element after each visit.

3. Because now all I need for my fancy frontend is a bit of progressive JavaScript, I can choose whatever tool I like on the server, keeping complexity low and maintainability high. I can use SSGs like eleventy or Astro (the demo site is built using Astro!), I can use any CMS like WordPress or ProcessWire, or a framework like Laravel. And I don't have to maintain an additional node server for SSG!

And all it took was 20 years! ;)

[0] https://github.com/swup/swup

So what are View Transitions good for? In short, they allow adding animated page transitions. Although we already have several standard options to animate stuff on web pages (CSS Transitions, CSS Animations or the Web Animations API) and countless more options in particular JavaScript frameworks and libraries (Framer Motion for React, Vue Transitions, Svelte Transitions, Swup, Barba.js or Animate.css to name just a few), the web still lacks a generic, standards-based and easy-to-use solution to animate transitions between pages or during DOM updates. At least that’s what Google engineers say and I tend to agree with them.

Is https://turbo.hotwired.dev/ my replacement? Or Swup.js?

I've used https://swup.js.org/. Simple to setup with one of the built in/contributed themes, haven't tried building a custom theme however. Also has a lot of good plugins for eg. accessibility. I used it in combination with Astro so a static site with a separate html file for each page.

Like Gatsby or Next, Astro does not have any client side navigation. So each link click triggers a full page reload. Astro recommends to use Swup as mentioned here. Turbo is also another option though the team does not recommend it. I'm currently using Swup which I'll probably switch from or completely remove it as I have added TOC to MDX and clicking on a title is not redirecting the page to that particular section.

Thus, we love anything that simplifies using it or, better yet, eliminates JS. That’s why we use tools like CSSUI on this Drupal site. And never us JS when it’s not necessary. In other words, we use HTML and CSS as you should.

But we are not fans of JavaScript, especially for UI components. For a review of its clusterfuckiry see our article on Frontend Madness. Thus, we love anything that simplifies or better yet eliminates JS. That’s why we use tools like CSSUI on this Drupal site.

CSSUI promises pure CSS interactive components without any Javascript at all. We use it on Symfony Station via asset injecting it into Drupal. It doesn’t have everything, but it has many things you need. Start with this!

The very first release v0.1.0 was published a week ago but many other updates will follow.