4.0.0

Two years after releasing 3.0.0 and almost six years since 1.0.0, we're proud to ship ViewComponent 4. This release marks a shift towards a Long Term Support model for the project, having reached significant feature maturity. While contributions are always welcome, we're unlikely to accept further breaking changes or major feature additions.

Please report any issues at https://github.com/ViewComponent/view_component/issues.

Breaking changes (production)

• Remove dependency on ActionView::Base, eliminating the need for capture compatibility patch. In some edge cases, this change may require switching to use the helpers. proxy.

• Require non-EOL Rails (>= 7.1.0) and Ruby (>= 3.2.0).

• Remove render_component and render monkey patch configured with render_monkey_patch_enabled.

• Remove deprecated use_helper(s). Use include MyHelper or helpers. proxy instead.

• Support compatibility with Dry::Initializer. As a result, EmptyOrInvalidInitializerError will no longer be raised.

• Remove default initializer from ViewComponent::Base. Previously, ViewComponent::Base defined a catch-all initializer that allowed components without an initializer defined to be passed arbitrary arguments.

• Remove use_deprecated_instrumentation_name configuration option. Events will always use render.view_component name.

• Remove unnecessary #format methods that returned nil.

• Remove support for variant names containing . to be consistent with Rails.

• Rename internal methods to have __vc_ prefix if they shouldn't be used by consumers. Make internal constants private. Make Collection#components, Slotable#register_polymorphic_slot private. Remove unused ComponentError class.

• Use ActionView's lookup_context for picking templates instead of the request format.

  3.15 added support for using templates that match the request format, that is if /resource.csv is requested then
  ViewComponents would pick _component.csv.erb over _component.html.erb.

  With this release, the request format is no longer considered and instead ViewComponent will use the Rails logic for picking the most appropriate template type, that is the csv template will be used if it matches the Accept header or because the controller uses a respond_to block to pick the response format.

Breaking changes (dev/test)

• Remove config.view_component.test_controller in favor of vc_test_controller_class test helper method.

• config.view_component.component_parent_class is now config.view_component.generate.parent_class, moving the generator-specific option to the generator configuration namespace.

• config.view_component.view_component_path is now config.view_component.generate.path, as components have long since been able to exist in any directory.

• Move previews-related configuration (enabled, route, paths, default_layout, controller) to under previews namespace.

• --inline generator option now generates inline template. Use --call to generate #call method.

• Remove broken integration with rails stats that ignored components outside of app/components.

• Remove preview_source functionality. Consider using Lookbook instead.

• Use Nokogiri::HTML5 instead of Nokogiri::HTML4 for test helpers.

• Move generators to a ViewComponent namespace.

  Before, ViewComponent generators pollute the generator namespace with a bunch of top level items, and claim the generic "component" name.

  Now, generators live in a "view_component" module/namespace, so what was before rails g component is now rails g view_component:component.

New features

• Add SystemSpecHelpers for use with RSpec.
• Add support for including Turbo::StreamsHelper.
• Add template annotations for components with def call.
• Graduate SlotableDefault to be included by default.
• Add #current_template accessor and Template#path for diagnostic usage.
• Reduce string allocations during compilation.
• Add around_render lifecyle method for wrapping component rendering in custom instrumentation, etc.

Bug fixes

• Fix bug where virtual path wasn't reset, breaking translations outside of components.
• Fix bug where config.view_component.previews.enabled didn't function properly in production environments.
• Fix bug in SlotableDefault where default couldn't be overridden when content was passed as a block.
• Fix bug where request-aware helpers didn't work outside of the request context.
• ViewComponentsSystemTestController shouldn't be useable outside of test environment

Non-functional changes

• Remove unnecessary usage of ruby2_keywords.
• Remove unnecessary respond_to checks.
• Require MFA when publishing to RubyGems.
• Clean up project dependencies, relaxing versions of development gems.
• Add test case for absolute URL path helpers in mailers.
• Update documentation on performance to reflect more representative benchmark showing 2-3x speed increase over partials.
• Add documentation note about instrumentation negatively affecting performance.
• Remove unnecessary ENABLE_RELOADING test suite flag.
• config.view_component.previews.default_layout should default to nil.
• Add test coverage for uncovered code.
• Test against turbo-rails v2 and rspec-rails v7.