Turbo Mount

TurboMount is a simple library that allows you to add highly interactive components from React, Vue, Svelte, and other frameworks to your Hotwire application.

• The art of Turbo Mount: Hotwire meets modern JS frameworks
• Excel-lent palettes: a demo application for the Turbo Mount gem

• Installation
  • Importmaps
• Usage
  • Initialization
    • Standard Initialization
    • Simplified Initialization
    • Plugin-Specific Initialization
  • View Helpers
  • Supported Frameworks
  • Custom Controllers
  • Auto-Loading Components
    • Components in Nested Directories
    • Vite Integration
    • ESBuild Integration
  • Mount Target
• License

To install Turbo Mount, add the following line to your Gemfile and run bundle install:

gem "turbo-mount"

Run the following command to install the necessary files:

bin/rails generate turbo_mount:install

This will add turbo-mount package and framework dependencies to your package.json or importmap.rb, and create the Turbo Mount initialization file.

You can also install the necessary JavaScript files manually.

If your project utilizes build tools such as Vite, also install the turbo-mount package:

npm install turbo-mount
# or with yarn
yarn add turbo-mount

# and the desired framework
npm install react react-dom
# or
npm install vue
# or
npm install svelte

If you're using Vite, don't forget to add framework-specific plugins to your vite.config.js.

To use TurboMount with importmaps, you need to pin the necessary JavaScript files in your config/importmap.rb:

pin "turbo-mount", to: "turbo-mount.min.js"
pin "turbo-mount/react", to: "turbo-mount/react.min.js"

This ensures that turbo-mount and its plugins are available in your application.

Also pin the desired framework:

bin/importmap pin react react-dom react-dom/client
# or
bin/importmap pin vue
# or
bin/importmap pin svelte

Note: Importmap-only mode is quite limited in terms of JavaScript dependencies. If you're using a more complex setup, consider using a bundler like Vite.

To begin using TurboMount, start by initializing the library and registering the components you intend to use. Here's how to set it up with a React plugin:

// app/javascript/turbo-mount.js

import { TurboMount } from "turbo-mount";
import { registerComponent } from "turbo-mount/react";
import { HexColorPicker } from 'react-colorful';

const turboMount = new TurboMount(); // or new TurboMount({ application })

registerComponent(turboMount, "HexColorPicker", HexColorPicker);

If you prefer not to specify the application explicitly, TurboMount can automatically detect or initialize it. Turbo Mount uses the window.Stimulus if available; otherwise, it initializes a new Stimulus application.

Make sure your application.js is importing turbo-mount.js:

import "@hotwired/turbo-rails"
import "./controllers"
import "./turbo-mount"  // <------

Use the following helpers to mount components in your views:

<%= turbo_mount("HexColorPicker", props: {color: "#034"}, class: "mb-5") %>

This will generate the following HTML:

<div data-controller="turbo-mount"
     data-turbo-mount-component-value="HexColorPicker"
     data-turbo-mount-props-value="{&quot;color&quot;:&quot;#034&quot;}"
     class="mb-5">
</div>

TurboMount supports the following frameworks:

• React: "turbo-mount/react"
• Vue: "turbo-mount/vue"
• Svelte 4: "turbo-mount/svelte4"
• Svelte 5: "turbo-mount/svelte"

To add support for other frameworks, create a custom plugin. See included plugins for examples.

To customize component behavior or pass functions as props, create a custom controller:

import { TurboMountController } from "turbo-mount";

export default class extends TurboMountController {
  get componentProps() {
    return {
      ...this.propsValue,
      onChange: this.onChange,
    };
  }

  onChange = (color) => {
    // same as this.propsValue = { ...this.propsValue, color };
    // but skips the rerendering of the component:
    this.setComponentProps({ ...this.propsValue, color });
  };
}

Then pass this controller to the registerComponent method:

import HexColorPickerController from "controllers/turbo_mount/hex_color_picker_controller";

registerComponent(turboMount, "HexColorPicker", HexColorPicker, HexColorPickerController);

TurboMount includes a registerComponents functions that automates the loading of components. registerComponents also accepts an optional controllers property to autoload customized controllers.

The registerComponents helpers search for controllers in the following paths:

• controllers/turbo-mount/${controllerName}
• controllers/turbo-mount-${controllerName}

Turbo Mount supports components located in nested directories. For example, if you have a component structure like:

components/
├── Dashboard/
│ └── WeatherWidget.tsx
└── ...

You can use the following helper to mount the component:

<%= turbo_mount("Dashboard/WeatherWidget") %>

For nested components, controllers are searched in these paths:

• controllers/turbo_mount/dashboard/weather_widget_controller.js
• controllers/turbo_mount_dashboard__weather_widget_controller.js

Vite helper requires the stimulus-vite-helpers package to load components and controllers. Here's how to set it up:

npm install stimulus-vite-helpers

Then use the registerComponents helper to autoload components and controllers:

import plugin, { TurboMount } from "turbo-mount/react";
import { registerComponents } from "turbo-mount/registerComponents/vite";

const controllers = import.meta.glob("./**/*_controller.js", { eager: true });
const components = import.meta.glob("/components/**/*.jsx", { eager: true });

const turboMount = new TurboMount();
registerComponents({ plugin, turboMount, components, controllers });

ESBuild helper requires the esbuild-rails package to load components and controllers. Read the ESBuild Rails README for more information on how to set it up.

import plugin, { TurboMount } from "turbo-mount/react";
import { registerComponents } from "turbo-mount/registerComponents/esbuild";

const turboMount = new TurboMount();

import controllers from "./controllers/**/*_controller.js";
import components from "./components/**/*.jsx";

registerComponents({ plugin, turboMount, components, controllers });

To specify a non-root mount target, use the data-<%= controller_name %>-target="mount" attribute:

<%= turbo_mount("HexColorPicker", props: {color: "#430"}) do |controller_name| %>
  <h3>Color picker</h3>
  <div data-<%= controller_name %>-target="mount"></div>
<% end %>

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.