The reason the ecosystem is focusing on framework-specific component libraries is because people want out-of-the-box components that do things, not just ones that look nice. That's very difficult to deliver without an opinionated framework; specifically you'll massively sacrifice developer experience. I feel much more comfortable about using libraries like Elastic UI than I ever did using something like jQuery-ui or Bootstraps's JS extensions.
Bootstrap is not designed for complex data-dense applications, doesn't have all the components needed in complex forms and its tables aren't quite cutting it for me.
Tailwind UI has been on my radar for a while now. There are two reasons why I didn't dive into it yet:
* a very verbose approach to describing what you want: closer to describing how it should look like rather than what it is. That would mean a big rework of my application (quick check shows around 1200 places where Semantic UI constructs are used) or writing a "layer" that maps my app's semantic usage to Tailwind UI promitives.
* Tailwind is still JavaScript-heavy.
Here's an excerpt from my discussion with Talwind UI founder, which will perhaps help understand my point of view. I was describing something I would happily pay a significant subscription fee for:
"This actually isn't far from the truth, because I had actually landed on the Tailwind UI site first, without knowing about Tailwind CSS, and this is exactly what I had thought the deal was. Later I understood that Tailwind UI is a bunch of "snippets", basically examples of how to use Tailwind CSS, which I think is indeed a problematic value proposition.
However: to be honest, when I looked at the amount of low-level class information I would need to put in my source, I was not impressed. I would much rather use the Semantic-UI approach. And perhaps this is a hint for you: provide a higher-level interface, that way you won't end up with "snippets", but with maintained components, which changes the whole pricing equation.
In other words, to see what I would immediately pay for, look at Semantic UI. No need to "update snippets" there. I would pay for a CSS library that lets me build applications on a level similar to Semantic UI, with the ability to customize or theme components.
And it's not about an "installable dependency", either — in fact I fight very hard not to depend on any npm packages, and I had to build my own dockerized build system for Semantic UI because of their approach to building. What I'd like to get is basically a tarball which I could automatically unpack, drop in a config file and do a "make" to get the CSS deliverables.
I think there is a difference in thinking here: I am an application developer and looking from the outside I see the "web design community" as a bit of an echo chamber, with similar ideas being implemented over and over, and no clear path to revenue. At the same time, I can't buy the tools I need. I look at libraries like Bootstrap, Bulma, or Tailwind CSS, and I see the same thing: low-level tools for "web designers". It's too low-level! I don't want to "build bespoke designs without any annoying opinionated styles you have to fight to override" — I actually want a well-designed set of components (opinionated is good!) so that I can get on with delivering the functionality my customers actually pay for. So, forms, tables, menus, tabs, popups.
Let's look into my situation: I am not a designer and I don't have time for fiddling with details. What are my options? I can't use these low-level tools, not enough time. I can hire a designer: it is expensive, it's really difficult to find one that will understand what I need, work closely with the code I have, and be generally good. Or I can use a more high-level tool, which is how I ended up with Semantic UI. It's not that I'm crazy about the whole "semantic naming" aspect of it, it was just a well-designed and complete set of components that I could use immediately.
I don't know how big this market is, but I have this feeling that there is a big hole right now. Here's another guy like me: https://actualbudget.com/#features — I actually asked them how he got the nice-looking dense editable tables. He implemented them himself."
Comments
What's wrong with Tailwind and Bootstrap?
The reason the ecosystem is focusing on framework-specific component libraries is because people want out-of-the-box components that do things, not just ones that look nice. That's very difficult to deliver without an opinionated framework; specifically you'll massively sacrifice developer experience. I feel much more comfortable about using libraries like Elastic UI than I ever did using something like jQuery-ui or Bootstraps's JS extensions.
Bootstrap is not designed for complex data-dense applications, doesn't have all the components needed in complex forms and its tables aren't quite cutting it for me.
Tailwind UI has been on my radar for a while now. There are two reasons why I didn't dive into it yet:
* a very verbose approach to describing what you want: closer to describing how it should look like rather than what it is. That would mean a big rework of my application (quick check shows around 1200 places where Semantic UI constructs are used) or writing a "layer" that maps my app's semantic usage to Tailwind UI promitives.
* Tailwind is still JavaScript-heavy.
Here's an excerpt from my discussion with Talwind UI founder, which will perhaps help understand my point of view. I was describing something I would happily pay a significant subscription fee for:
"This actually isn't far from the truth, because I had actually landed on the Tailwind UI site first, without knowing about Tailwind CSS, and this is exactly what I had thought the deal was. Later I understood that Tailwind UI is a bunch of "snippets", basically examples of how to use Tailwind CSS, which I think is indeed a problematic value proposition.
However: to be honest, when I looked at the amount of low-level class information I would need to put in my source, I was not impressed. I would much rather use the Semantic-UI approach. And perhaps this is a hint for you: provide a higher-level interface, that way you won't end up with "snippets", but with maintained components, which changes the whole pricing equation.
In other words, to see what I would immediately pay for, look at Semantic UI. No need to "update snippets" there. I would pay for a CSS library that lets me build applications on a level similar to Semantic UI, with the ability to customize or theme components.
And it's not about an "installable dependency", either — in fact I fight very hard not to depend on any npm packages, and I had to build my own dockerized build system for Semantic UI because of their approach to building. What I'd like to get is basically a tarball which I could automatically unpack, drop in a config file and do a "make" to get the CSS deliverables.
I think there is a difference in thinking here: I am an application developer and looking from the outside I see the "web design community" as a bit of an echo chamber, with similar ideas being implemented over and over, and no clear path to revenue. At the same time, I can't buy the tools I need. I look at libraries like Bootstrap, Bulma, or Tailwind CSS, and I see the same thing: low-level tools for "web designers". It's too low-level! I don't want to "build bespoke designs without any annoying opinionated styles you have to fight to override" — I actually want a well-designed set of components (opinionated is good!) so that I can get on with delivering the functionality my customers actually pay for. So, forms, tables, menus, tabs, popups.
Let's look into my situation: I am not a designer and I don't have time for fiddling with details. What are my options? I can't use these low-level tools, not enough time. I can hire a designer: it is expensive, it's really difficult to find one that will understand what I need, work closely with the code I have, and be generally good. Or I can use a more high-level tool, which is how I ended up with Semantic UI. It's not that I'm crazy about the whole "semantic naming" aspect of it, it was just a well-designed and complete set of components that I could use immediately.
I don't know how big this market is, but I have this feeling that there is a big hole right now. Here's another guy like me: https://actualbudget.com/#features — I actually asked them how he got the nice-looking dense editable tables. He implemented them himself."