Insular

Insular is a Ruby gem that enables rendering JSX components in Ruby applications through the Deno runtime. It provides a bridge between Ruby and JavaScript/JSX, allowing you to render Preact components on the server side while writing your application logic in Ruby.

Insular runs a Deno-based server that handles JSX rendering. Your Ruby application sends component information (path, name, and props) to this server, which:

1. Dynamically imports the requested JSX component
2. Renders it to an HTML string using Preact
3. Returns the rendered HTML to your Ruby application

This architecture allows you to:

• Write UI components in JSX/Preact
• Use them seamlessly within Ruby applications
• Take advantage of the Deno runtime's module caching and performance

Add this gem to your application's Gemfile:

bundle add insular

Or install it directly:

gem install insular

Before rendering components, you need to start the Insular Deno server:

bundle exec insular server

The server accepts the following environment variables:

• INSULAR_SERVER_HOST - Server host (default: localhost)
• INSULAR_SERVER_PORT - Server port (default: 3001)

Alternatively, pass flags directly:

bundle exec insular server --host 0.0.0.0 --port 3001

Use the HTTPRenderer to render JSX components from your Ruby application:

require 'insular'

# Render a component with props
html = Insular::HTTPRenderer.render(
  './tmp/components',  # Path to components directory
  'Name',               # Component name (without .tsx)
  { value: 'World' }   # Props to pass to the component
)

puts html
# => <span class="ok">Hello World</span>

Place your JSX components in a directory accessible to the Deno server. Components should export a function:

// tmp/components/Name.tsx
export function Name({ value }: { value: string }) {
  return (
    <span class="ok">
      Hello {value}
    </span>
  )
}

For more direct control, you can use the embedded renderer which integrates the Deno runtime directly:

require 'insular'

html = Insular::EmbeddedRenderer.render(
  './tmp/components',
  'Name',
  { value: 'World' }
)

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/insular/insular.

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