THIS IS EXPERIMENTAL SOFTWARE.

It can be used in production, but may cause headaches to the developer.

Vleam

Incrementally incorporate Gleam in Vue projects to enjoy an enjoyable language

Vleam (Vue + Gleam) is a set of tools allowing developers to incrementally incorporate the Gleam programming language into their Vue projects.

Similarly to how Typescript helped with the large codebases of 2016, Gleam can help with the large codebases of today. Most apps aren't going to be rewritten. No reason why they shouldn't benefit from a better language, especially when introduced slowly and incrementally, and particularly if it means less Typescript.

To learn more about how Gleam can do those things, visit Gleam's language tour if you haven't already.

Vleam consists of three parts:

1. A Vite plugin that:

• Allows the use of <script lang="gleam"> in Vue SFCs
• Allows importing .gleam files in Javascript/Typescript.

2. A set of bindings to Vue's APIs.

3. An LSP that proxies messages between Gleam's LSP for functionality in SFCs. Plugins are availble for Neovim and VSCode.

Prerequisites

1. A Vue 3 project using Vite
2. Working installation of Gleam's CLI

Setup

The following uses pnpm but yarn or npm should work as well.

First, setup a Gleam project in your Vue project's root by using gleam new or by manually creating a gleam.toml file. Make sure you set target = "javascript".

Then, install Vleam:

pnpm add -D vleam
gleam add vleam

And add it as the first plugin in vite.config.ts:

import { vitePluginVueVleam } from "vleam";

export default defineConfig({
  // ... rest of your config ...
  plugins: [
    // Vleam first
    vitePluginVueVleam(),
    // Then the rest
    vue(),
    // ... rest of your plugins ...
  ],
});

Add src/vleam_generated to .gitignore.

For Neovim support, install vleam.nvim.

For VSCode support, install the vleam plugin.

If you'd like to get type information for Gleam code imported in Typescript, install ts-gleam as well:

pnpm add -D ts-gleam

and make sure gleam.toml has Typescript declarations configured:

[javascript]
typescript_declarations = true

That's it!

Usage

To use Gleam code in TS or JS files, simply import as usual:

// this imports the function `new_todo` from `models.gleam`
import { new_todo } from "../vleam_todo/models.gleam";

In Vue SFCs, you can use Gleam like so:

// this code is inside <script lang="gleam"> </script>
import gleam/option.{Some}
import vleam/vue.{type Component, Prop, define_component, setup, with_1_prop}

// THIS FUNCTION MUST EXIST
pub fn default_export() -> Component {
  define_component([], [], False)
  |> with_1_prop(#(Prop("initialCount", Some(0))))
  // Props are handed as Computed to stay reactive
  |> setup(fn(props: #(Computed(Int)), _, _) {
    let initial_count = props.0

    let counter =
      initial_count
      |> vue.computed_value
      |> vue.ref

    let increment = fn() -> Int {
      let current_count =
        counter
        |> vue.ref_value

      counter
      |> vue.ref_set(current_count)

      current_count
    }

    // returning an Error will cause `setup` to throw it
    Ok(#(
      #("counter", counter),
      #("increment", increment),
    ))
  })
}

Note that a Gleam script block inside a Vue SFC, without exception, MUST declare a public default_export function that returns a Component. The Vite plugin assumes it exists and the build will fail without it.

For more information on Vue bindings in Gleam, see the reference at Hexdocs:

https://hexdocs.pm/vleam

Automatic Unwrapping

Vleam takes inspiration from Gleam in its magic avoidance, only introducing it when the alternative is too poor of a developer experience. The only such case at the moment is null handling in templates.

Gleam doesn't have null. Therefore, every time a setup function returns an Option, it will be unwrapped to the contained value if Some, or to null if None.

This unwrapping happens for:

1. A literal Option
2. Functions returning an Option, recursively
3. Records' fields which are an Option, non-recursively

Recursing records for the unwrapping of fields in arbitrary depths is not supported due to performance considerations.

ALL THREE AFFECT ONLY VALUES RETURNED BY setup. If you have acquired an Option through other means (e.g a global vue value or an event), it will not be unwrapped. This is an unfortunate limitation of Vue.

Nullable values going from the template into Gleam code (via a function call) will need to be converted into an Option. This can be done ergonomically with globalProperties:

// define once in main.ts
import {
  Some,
  None,
} from "/build/dev/javascript/gleam_stdlib/gleam/option.mjs";

app.config.globalProperties.toOption = (nullable) =>
  nullable == null ? new None() : new Some(nullable);

Then, use in templates:

<button @click="signup(email, password, toOption(phoneNumber))">Sign Up</button>

Tips

• Use absolute paths with Gleam @external. Vite will resolve them relative to its root:

// Easy
@external(javascript, "/src/composables/useTodoInputEvent", "useTodoInputEvent")
fn use_todo_input_event(event: InputEvent) -> Result(Todo, TodoError)

// Pain
@external(javascript, "../../../../composables/useTodoInputEvent", "useTodoInputEvent")
fn use_todo_input_event(event: InputEvent) -> Result(Todo, TodoError)

• If the LSP glitches <script lang="gleam">, resave the file. Also try formatting the gleam code then save.

• If something doesn't work and you're not sure why, check the browser console for errors, and scroll up the terminal to see if any error slipped by.

Limitations

HMR

Due to the way HMR works, instanceof may break if a new version of the class is reloaded after objects were instantiated with its previous version. A full refresh is required in such cases.

Due to Gleam's heavy reliance on instanceof, please make sure you refresh on any dependency change. If this arises frequently with your own code, it's best to configure Vite to refresh on every change.

HMR will otherwise work as expected, enjoy!

toRefs, reactive support

toRefs and reactive are not easy to translate into Gleam. Research required.

Sponsored by Nestful

Vleam is developed for and sponsored by Nestful, the best app there is to manage your own time.

Thanks & Acknowledgements

• Enderchief/gleam-tools