Cells
A view component library for Ruby and Rails that encapsulates UI into reusable, testable view models.
What is Cells?
Cells is a view component library for Ruby and Rails that encapsulates UI into reusable view models. It solves the problem of tangled view logic by moving presentation code into Ruby classes, making components testable, maintainable, and composable. It integrates with the Trailblazer framework and supports various template engines like ERB, Haml, and Slim.
Ruby and Rails developers building complex UIs who need reusable, testable components, especially those using or interested in the Trailblazer architecture. It's ideal for teams prioritizing clean separation of concerns and object-oriented design in their views.
Developers choose Cells for its object-oriented approach to views, enabling encapsulation, easy testing, and reuse without the limitations of Rails helpers. Its integration with Trailblazer, caching, and asset packaging makes it a robust solution for building scalable UI components.
Overview
View components for Ruby and Rails.
Use Cases
Best For
- Encapsulating UI logic into reusable Ruby classes in Rails applications
- Building testable view components with isolated rendering logic
- Implementing complex, nested UI compositions with clean separation
- Adding view caching with dynamic keys and expiration policies
- Creating self-contained widgets with bundled JavaScript and CSS assets
- Adopting the Trailblazer architecture for view layer organization
Not Ideal For
- Teams heavily reliant on Rails' built-in helpers and partials who prefer minimal abstraction
- Projects not using the Trailblazer framework, as full features and documentation are tied to it
- Applications with simple, static views where the overhead of cell classes isn't justified
- Environments where rapid prototyping with conventional Rails MVC is prioritized over long-term component architecture
Pros & Cons
Pros
Encapsulates UI logic in Ruby classes, promoting clean separation of concerns and reusable components, as evidenced by the view model approach that replaces Rails helpers.
Components render to plain HTML, allowing seamless testing with RSpec, MiniTest, or other frameworks, with a consistent API between production and test environments.
Offers caching per state with configurable expiration and dynamic keys, enabling performance optimizations for frequently rendered components without extra gems.
Supports bundling JavaScript, CSS, and images with cells, creating self-contained widgets that integrate with Rails' asset pipeline for encapsulation.
Cons
Requires separate gems for ERB, Haml, or Slim templates (e.g., cells-erb) and manual inclusion in non-Rails environments, adding dependency management overhead.
Deep integration with Trailblazer means developers must learn an additional framework for advanced features, with documentation centered around that ecosystem.
The object-oriented layer introduces slight overhead compared to raw Rails views, though caching mitigates this; instantiation and method calls add complexity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
ViewComponentA framework for building reusable, testable & encapsulated view components in Ruby on Rails.
PhlexObject-oriented views in Ruby.
KomponentAn opinionated way of organizing front-end code in Ruby on Rails, based on components
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