Simplified live generator

[mcrumm]

Simplifies the phx.gen.live generator with the following changes:

• Replaces FormComponent with FormLive to handle /new and /:id/edit routes.
• Removes the :id/show/edit route. FormLive accepts a ?return_to=index|show param to negotiate live navigation after successful form submit.
• Removes the <.modal> component and its helper functions as they are no longer used.

[SteffenDE]

Only one minor comment, lgtm!

[mcrumm]

@josevalim ready for another look!

[josevalim]

Beautiful!

[TheArrowsmith]

Why remove modal from corecomponents? Just because it's not used in the generators doesn't mean it's not useful elsewhere, e.g. to include it in one of my own liveviews/components.

[josevalim]

The rule has always been to ship with the components used by the generators, otherwise we could easily argue that core components should be a 1000LOC file with accordions, stats bars, breadcrumbs, etc. People can always add the features they need.

[josevalim]

I would also add that the complexity/size of CoreComponents and the complexity of the generated LiveView pages with LiveComponents and more, have often been cited by newcomers as a challenge for getting started, because it felt too daunting.

At the beginning, we used those generators to showcase LiveView features. The goal with these changes is to align this with the phx.gen.html generators and make them more about providing the simplest foundation for people to build on.

[TheArrowsmith]

Ah okay, that's totally fair. Thanks for the reply!

[clarkware]

Great work, Michael! This will definitely help folks new to Phoenix. Can't wait to have it in an official release! 😀

[kuatroka]

by newcomers as a challenge for getting started, because it felt too daunting.

My two cents... @josevalim: I would caution you to be very vigilant about the newcomers' complaints. I am a newcomer myself and I came here because I liked what I saw. If you heed everything the newcomers complain about, you are in danger of ruining what the newcomers are actually here for. We might be used to a certain way of doing things that is awful but nevertheless familiar to us, and your way is in reality the proper way. In short, stay strong and implement your vision.

I personally loved modals and, in general, all that was generated by default. I was following the "Programming Phoenix Liveview" book and felt exhilarated when I saw the out-of-the-box, UI and fully functional CRUD capabilities that were already available to me, with all the edit and delete buttons already in place! If I don't like something, I can just delete the part I don't need or comment it out, but if it was not there in the first place, I wouldn't even see how it works.

[josevalim]

Of course, as any suggestion we receive, from newcomers and experienced developers alike, we discuss, interpret and filter it accordingly. We aren’t doing changes because people ask them. We do them because they ask, we evaluate and then proceed accordingly.

In any case, the CRUD capabilities are all still there. Only the modals are gone.

[kuatroka]

Thanks @josevalim
@mcrumm - would it be possible to share a screenshot of the new UI of what :edit and :show will look like? Thanks

[clarkware]

Is the plan to hold this back until the 1.8 release? I was surprised it wasn't part of recent 1.7 releases.

[josevalim]

Yes, on v1.8. it would be a breaking change to change the generators this considerably in a patch release. :)

[clarkware]

Thanks. Fair enough. :-)

[TheArrowsmith]

@kuatroka you can see the new UI yourself - just update your mix.exs to get the Phoenix dep from Github main instead of from hex:

{:phoenix, github: "phoenixframework/phoenix"},

You might need to pull some other deps from GitHub too e.g. :phoenix_live_view. I forget the details but it's definitely possible to get Phoenix working locally with latest main to preview the new generators, I've done it myself.

[SteffenDE]

The easiest way to test the new generators is by cloning the repo, fetching deps and then going into the installer folder, from there:

mix phx.new my_app --dev

note the --dev. I think the steps are also written in the README.

[kuatroka]

I've tried @SteffenDE 's approach as I wanted to test in a totally new app before applying it to mine, but faces too many dependency issues when standing up the up and trying to run generators. So I have just left this topic for now. I guess I'll test it when it's all ready and polished. Thanks all