James Smith

I’ve worked on a couple of Rails projects facing the same challenge—modernizing UI without drifting too far from the Rails philosophy of server-rendered HTML snippets. Moving away from jQuery is definitely the right call, especially since a lot of modern UI component libraries are lightweight, accessible, and don’t require a huge JavaScript framework.

A few good options you might want to check out:

Webawesome (formerly Shoelace), as you mentioned—solid for web components, but yes, its is still fairly limited. HTMX + Alpine.js combo works nicely with Rails and lets you keep the server-driven approach while sprinkling in interactivity. Tom Select is a great replacement for Chosen—it provides searchable, taggable selects without needing jQuery. Flatpickr is one of the best lightweight date pickers out there and integrates easily with Rails partials. As for what 37signals (Basecamp/HEY) is doing, they’ve been leaning heavily into Hotwire (Turbo + Stimulus), which might be worth exploring if you want to stay aligned with the Rails ecosystem. By the way, speaking of upgrading workflows, I’ve noticed that just like developers seek better UI component sets, students often look for reliable writing tools or college essay writing services to simplify their academic journey. If that’s of interest, here’s a useful resource: myassignmenthelp.com/college-essay-writing-service.html .