Narabe

並べ (narabe): to line up, to put in order.

Lists, trees and boards that people reorder, for Phoenix LiveView, with the order kept in your database through Ecto.

<.sortable_list id="tasks" items={@streams.tasks} on_move="move" multiple>
  <:item :let={task}>{task.title}</:item>
</.sortable_list>

<.tree id="pages" items={@pages} rules={Page} on_move="move" on_rename="rename" filter />

<.board id="sprint" columns={@columns} cards={@cards} on_move="move_card" move_columns>
  <:card :let={card}>{card.title}</:card>
</.board>

def handle_event("move", params, socket) do
  result = Narabe.Ecto.move(Repo, where(Page, space_id: ^socket.assigns.space.id), Narabe.Move.parse!(params, Page))
  {:reply, Narabe.Live.reply(result), load_pages(socket)}
end

What it does

• A mouse, a finger, the keyboard. A drag starts after a few pixels with a mouse, after a short hold with a finger (a swipe still scrolls), and with Space on the focused item (the arrows move it, Space drops it, Escape puts it back). The page scrolls near its edges. Several selected items move together. Its own drag engine on pointer events: no SortableJS, no HTML drag and drop.
• Lists, trees and boards. A tree nests as deep as you like, picks the depth from where the pointer is (or Left and Right), opens a closed folder under the pointer, loads children as it opens, filters, and renames in place. On a phone it can show one level at a time. A board moves cards within and across columns, and the columns too.
• Moves by ids. A move says "after 12, in 7", not "to index 3", so a screen a moment out of date still means what the person meant. The browser moves the items at once, and puts them back if the server says no.
• The order in the database. Narabe.Ecto keeps fractional position keys: a move writes the moved rows only, in one transaction (an Ecto.Multi), whatever the size of the list. Trees use recursive CTEs to refuse a move into itself and to count depth. The same code on Postgres, MySQL and SQLite: a move in a list of 100,000 rows takes about a millisecond.
• The same rules on both sides. Depth, kinds that hold nothing, what a parent accepts: refused as people drag, and refused by the server.
• Accessible. Listbox and tree roles, levels and positions, a live region that says what was lifted, where it would go, and where it landed, in eight languages.
• Collaboration. With Issho, people see who is dragging what and where it would land, an item is moved by one person at a time, and an agent picks a card up and drags it as people watch.

The bundle is 12 KB gzipped, the style sheet 4 KB.

Install

Narabe needs Elixir 1.18 or later, Phoenix 1.7.14 or 1.8, Phoenix LiveView 1.1 or later, and Ecto 3.13 or later (ecto_sql for the database helpers).

def deps do
  [
    {:narabe, "~> 0.1"}
  ]
end

mix deps.get
mix narabe.install

The installer adds the hook to assets/js/app.js and the style sheet to assets/css/app.css, and prints what it changed (--dry-run shows it first). By hand:

import { Narabe } from "narabe"

const liveSocket = new LiveSocket("/live", Socket, {
  params: {_csrf_token: csrfToken},
  hooks: {...colocatedHooks, Narabe},
})

@import "../../deps/narabe/priv/static/narabe.css";
/* @import "../../deps/narabe/priv/static/narabe-sumi.css"; */

import { Narabe } from "narabe" resolves through the NODE_PATH of your esbuild profile, which must have deps/ (the Phoenix generators set it).

Use

A position column, and the order on the schema:

# In a migration
import Narabe.Migration

create table(:pages) do
  add :title, :string
  add :parent_id, references(:pages)
  position()
end

create index(:pages, [:parent_id, :position])

schema "pages" do
  field :title, :string
  field :position, :string
  belongs_to :parent, Page
end

use Narabe.Ordered, group: :parent_id, tree: true, rules: [max_depth: 6]

New rows get a position with Narabe.Ecto.insert_position/4 (or put_position/4 in a changeset); Narabe.Ecto.ordered/2 reads them in order. See the Database guide.

Guides

• Quickstart - a first sortable list, step by step.
• Lists - sortable_list, streams, selection, swipe actions.
• Trees - nesting, depth, lazy children, filter, rename, phones, tree_picker.
• Boards - columns and cards, kanban.
• Database - Narabe.Ecto: keys, moves, trees, Postgres, MySQL and SQLite, benchmarks.
• Rules - what may go where, in the browser and on the server.
• Collaboration - who is moving what, with Issho; agents.
• Testing - Narabe.Test in Phoenix.LiveViewTest.
• Theming - the custom properties, dark mode, Sumi.
• Accessibility - the keyboard and screen readers.
• Known limits - what Narabe does not do yet.

Development

mix deps.get
mix narabe.build   # the bundle and the style sheets, into priv/static
mix dev            # a list, a tree, a board and a picker at http://localhost:4097

Tests

mix test                   # Elixir, on Postgres, MySQL and SQLite
NARABE_DBS=sqlite mix test # some of the databases (none: "none")
mix test --include build   # the build and the package
mix test.js                # the browser's keys, rules and drop places
mix test.e2e               # in Chromium, Firefox and WebKit
MIX_ENV=test mix run bench/ecto.exs  # the database benchmark

The tests expect Postgres at postgres:postgres@localhost and MySQL at narabe:narabe@127.0.0.1 (or NARABE_POSTGRES_URL and NARABE_MYSQL_URL). The position keys and the rules that both the server and the browser apply are tested on both sides with one fixture each: test/fixtures/position.json and test/fixtures/rules.json.

Release

mix release builds the bundle, checks priv/static and the version of package.json, publishes to Hex and tags the version.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Security problems: SECURITY.md.

License

MIT. See LICENSE and NOTICE.