gods-eye-view/docs/VUE-MIGRATION.md

Vue migration

The application UI moves from static templates plus imperative DOM wiring to Vue 3 components with Pinia stores. The migration keeps the experience the same: element ids, classes, the global stylesheet, translations, keyboard shortcuts, voice actions, share links and the phone layout all behave as before. The one intended change is the panel rail described below.

Goals

• Views are Vue single-file components; state that several views read lives in Pinia stores rather than in DOM classes.
• The owners listed in UI-OWNERSHIP.md keep their responsibilities. A component replaces DOM construction; it does not add a second owner of the same state.
• Public methods used by layers, scene playback, voice and host applications (setPanelCollapsed, setContextMode, setStyle, share and location subscriptions) keep their signatures.
• Ids and classes used by browser QA and host applications stay stable until a host can use an explicit extension point instead.

The panel rail

Each desktop sidebar gets a floating icon rail that lists every panel available on that side. Selecting an icon opens that panel; selecting it again closes it. One panel is open per side at a time, so the rail replaces the accordion stacking. Panels that are not available in the current mode (for example Weather before a weather layer is active) are shown disabled or omitted as the panel's own availability rule dictates. The rail hides with the rest of the chrome in Cockpit, scene playback, recording and the clean view.

Phones keep the existing bottom tab bar and sheets; the rail is desktop only.

Voice and keyboard openings go through the same panel store, so they follow the one-panel rule too. Share links continue to record which panels are open.

Component kit

src/ui/kit/ holds the generic components: UiRail, UiTooltip, UiIcon, UiButton, UiPanel and UiSegmented so far, with more (UiSlider, UiSelect and so on) joining as the controls they serve are converted. One component serves every use of a control, with props for the differences (UiPanel's sideways, glow, scroll), rather than a copy per panel. Names, props, events and class names follow Halfpixel's ui-vue kit so the two can merge later, but the components are written for this repository and styled by its existing stylesheet and custom properties; a kit class such as ui-button--icon carries no Core style yet, and a converted control keeps its own classes beside it. They contain no application state. UiPanel takes ui-vue's title, slots and v-model:collapsed, but its collapsed drives only the button and ui-panel--collapsed: the panel's owner hides the body by writing the root's collapsed class at once, and there is no closable, since Core's panels collapse rather than close. UiSegmented adds keyboard (none, arrows as in ui-vue, or radio with Home and End), since each of Core's groups keeps its own keyboard policy.

Controls share one skin, so every panel reads the same. Every scrolling surface carries the kit's .ui-scroll (ui-vue's name), which draws the thin themed scrollbar from --scroll-thumb and --scroll-track; the Cyber theme sets those two tokens, and Cockpit's HUD windows keep their accent tint. A surface without it would draw the platform's light scrollbar, because the page declares no dark color-scheme. Selects and number fields are .gev-field, which draws its own chevron in place of the platform's arrow and keeps native spinners dark; ranges are .gev-quantitative-slider, with a feature supplying only its accent.

Phases

1. Foundation. Vue, Pinia and the Vite Vue plugin join the browser build (build/vite.js, so host applications receive them too). One Vue runtime is created by the shell (src/ui/vueRuntime.js) with one Pinia instance that every view shares; disposing the shell unmounts them. Stores are added when a view needs one, mirroring state an owner already publishes, so there is never a second owner of the same state.

2. Rail. PanelChrome enforces one panel per side; the panel store mirrors each side's panels and the rail renders from it. The rail panels are RailPanels: the kit's UiPanel drawing Core's panel markup, bound to the gev-panel-chrome store, with their titles rendered by t() rather than data-i18n. Each panel's collapse button, the dock tray toggles and the dock pins render the open and pinned state PanelChrome presents to the gev-panel-chrome store, and their clicks call it there. Each panel's root draws its own state from there too (v-panel-state: collapsed, dock-pinned, dock-pinned-top, layout-auto-collapsed, accordion-collapsed): PanelChrome, the rails and the accordion present it rather than writing classes. The directive applies it in a synchronous watcher, not on Vue's next render, because the rails measure a panel in the same task that opens or closes it. Done.

3. Panels. Each template and its wiring become a component, keeping ids, classes and CSS; text a template renders with t() drops its data-i18n marker. The page places each view with a .gev-view host (display: contents), and mountApplicationViews() (src/ui/views/index.js) renders the view into it before the page is translated and wired. createApplication() calls it too, removing the hosts of any views its omitViews names. Views belong to the page and are unmounted only when a later call omits them. The loading screen is static markup in the page so it paints before any script runs. Markup tests read renderApplicationHtml() from src/testSupport, which renders the views on the server. Templates compile with Vue's preserve whitespace, which keeps the whitespace between elements as a single space, so a view renders as its template did; no view markup sits under a white-space: pre rule. Application views (src/ui/views/*View.vue) are kept out of Prettier; other components are formatted with strict whitespace sensitivity, so their source spacing is what renders. The markup has moved, unchanged: every template except the loading screen is a view.

   Next each view takes over its wiring: markup an owner builds with createElement becomes component markup that renders from a Pinia store the owner publishes to, and user actions come back to the owner through the store, so the owner keeps every decision. Static markup that the translation pass rewrites (data-i18n*) stays outside v-if and v-for, because re-rendering it would bring back the English; component text uses t() instead. Shared builders become components first and keep their imperative entry points until their owners are components: the rail cards, card blocks and timeline (src/ui/rail/) render through Vue's synchronous render() behind createRailCards(), createRailCardBlocks() and createRailTimeline(). Order: Scenes (done: SceneOptions and SceneShotList over the gev-scenes store; the panel's buttons, status line, progress bar and the runtime chip render the panel SceneControls presents there, and the buttons and file chooser call its actions), Weather (done: the owner renders WeatherReadout from the view it computes), Recent imagery (done: RecentImageryReadout and its day cards, the same way), Street level (done: StreetLevelPanel renders the gev-street-level store that StreetLevelControls publishes to; the controls keep their listeners, EXPAND, focus and resizing), CCTV (done: CctvPanel renders the whole panel from the gev-cctv store, including the camera picker, the inline pose editor, the frame preview, source badge and typed summary; CctvControls keeps its listeners, the frame requests and the live video surface), Layers (done: LayerPanel presents each row and renders LayerRows synchronously; keyed chips and list items keep focus through the refresh their own click triggers, and clicks re-read the live descriptor before acting), Display (in progress: DisplayPanel renders the HUD, Sonar, Scope, Celestial, detection, bloom and sharpen from the gev-display store, which VisualSettings publishes to, and the 3D aircraft group, the Draw controls and the imported file list, which AircraftDisplay, the draw tool and the file import publish beside it; the file import restores keyboard focus once the list has rendered; the style parameter rows render through Vue behind createStyleParameters(), as a render function so the portable ./ui/input entry needs no component compiler; the other groups follow one owner at a time), Context and Radio (in progress: RadioPanel renders the directory row, station card, transport, volume and playback line from the gev-radio store that RadioControls publishes to, and SdrCard the local RTL-SDR card that LocalSdrControls publishes beside it; fields a person edits take their value through v-field-value, which never writes a focused field; RadioTuner renders the directory tuner, where RadioControls keeps the drag and its slot and publishes the band, readouts, slider and needle, and the component lays out the tick tape against the dial's measured width and lays out the snapped needle before it drops the drag class; ContextView renders the mode switch and the nearby sites search from the gev-context store, which ContextControls reaches only through its publish option, so ./ui/context needs no Vue; AwarenessPanel renders the Contacts panel that the awareness layer publishes through subscribePanel(), the first layer to hand its rail content to a view, and MissionRoster and MissionDetail the Space Missions roster and selected mission that the launches layer publishes the same way), the command dock (in progress: the style buttons, the dock's style mini status and the ACTIVE STYLE corner render the style VisualSettings publishes to the gev-display store; the buttons keep their owner's listeners; the map source chips and status badge render what createMapSourceControls() publishes beside it, so ./ui/maps needs no Vue; the location tray's city and landmark pills, mini status and search error render what LocationControls publishes to the gev-location store, and the search field keeps its listeners; beside the voice control, the dock teleports each voice pointer reticle to the body where its PointerReticle presents it in the gev-pointer-reticle store), the phone shell (PhoneTabBar renders the tabs and open sheet the shell publishes to the gev-display store, teleporting the tab bar and sheet backdrop to the end of the page from the first publish until the shell is destroyed; the shell takes their clicks from the document), the imagery dividers (ImagerySplitView, in the scene chrome, teleports each before/after divider that createImagerySplit publishes to the gev-imagery-split store to the body; the split keeps the drag, keyboard, CSS position and scene split), the status chips (the top-center loading status and the road network and camera grid chips render what ShellFeedback and CctvControls publish to the gev-status store; SplitFlapText plays the departure-board flip that splitFlap.js plans, writing only the label's one text node; the toast renders what each owner's createToast() publishes there, on that owner's own timer, and the title bar's FPS readout what createFrameRateMonitor() publishes), the Scene actions panel (SceneInteractions teleports what the scene interactions owner publishes to the gev-scene-interactions store into the viewer's container; the owner keeps the pick handler and focuses the picked action), the data-pack attribution cards (DataPacks teleports what the data-pack presentations publish to the gev-data-packs store into the viewer's container and stops a removed card's player), the wind inspection marker (WindInspectionMarker teleports the marker into the wind layer's container where createWindInspectionMarker(), now in src/layers/wind/inspectionMarker.js so the portable ./tools entry needs no Vue, places it after each rendered frame; an unchanged frame publishes nothing), the Space Missions replay vehicle (MissionReplayOverlay teleports into the globe container what the launches layer presents through subscribeReplayOverlay(), which the application shell publishes to the gev-mission-replay store, so the portable ./layers/launches entry needs no Vue), the Bhote Koshi reconstruction panel (BhoteKoshiPanel, last in the context rail, renders what the event layer publishes to the gev-bhote-koshi-panel store: each control's text, hidden, disabled, value and attributes as the layer writes them, unchanged frames sending nothing; the rail takes bhote-event-active while it shows), the full-globe celestial ring (CelestialRing teleports into the globe container what CelestialRing in src/celestialRing.js publishes to the gev-celestial-ring store and hands its two canvases back for the owner to paint; the application shell passes the store in, so the keyhole helpers other packages import need no Vue), the screen-space map annotations (ScreenAnnotations teleports to the body the board the screen annotation renderer publishes to the gev-screen-annotations store after each rendered frame: each mark's SVG parts as attribute records, the fading marks until they leave; the view hands back the callout text and mark groups the renderer measures, and the tracked-entity fade is measured once the frame is in the document; the styles it injected now live in src/ui/styles/annotations.css), the visible map target list (the scene chrome renders the buttons and status the world overlay presents through subscribeWorldOverlayActions(), which the application shell publishes to the gev-world-overlay-actions store and answers with activateWorldOverlayAction(); the module needs no Vue for the portable transit entry, and its card and detection canvases stay painting surfaces it draws on, like the Cesium canvas), the Global Context compass and contact bearings (AwarenessDirection teleports into the globe container what the awareness layer presents through subscribeDirectionOverlay(), which the application shell publishes to the gev-awareness-direction store, so the portable ./layers/awareness entry needs no Vue), the Intel HUD (the intel-hud view renders #intel-hud, its corners, edges and bottom bar from the gev-hud store, which IntelHUD publishes to through its publish option: the readouts, the typing summary, the REC blink, visibility, layout variant and style colors; the vessel layer presents the selected vessel's readout through src/hudReadouts.js instead of writing into the HUD), the first-run mission launcher (the welcome view renders the card's visibility, busy state, status line, copy and scroll fade from the gev-first-run store that initFirstRunExperience publishes to, and its choices, DISMISS and "Don't show this again" call the launcher's controls; a refused save hands the tick back to the view to revert. The launcher still reads the rendered card for its hit test, keyboard trap, focus and overflow measurement), then Cockpit (in progress: CockpitBriefing renders the briefing card's pages, cycle toggle, regional news and local conditions, and CockpitContext the Contact card's scope, navigation, counts, nearest contact and weather toggle, CockpitView the instruments, destination arrow and vision selector, and CockpitRoute the flight plan card, from the gev-cockpit store that the Cockpit controller publishes to, starting from cockpitBriefPages.js, cockpitContextState.js and cockpitInstrumentState.js, which both read; the odometer readouts (CockpitRollingValue) keep their throttle and roll in cockpitRollingValue.js. CockpitSignalList renders the live signal rows; v-focus-safe-children turns Vue's move of the focused row into moves of the rows around it, and hands focus to the shown briefing tab before the focused row is removed, so a keyed list reorders several times a second without dropping keyboard focus. The instruments publish on every HUD update (about 10 Hz); in a dev build their Vue patch costs about 0.5 ms, close to the DOM writes it replaced. The controller also publishes which surfaces are shown: the entry button and TR-3B chip in the Context panel, the HUD with its exit and reset buttons and briefing card, and the Contact card. Focus moves to the exit button, and back to the entry, only after Vue renders them. The cards' collapse is part of that presence too: each card's data-collapsed and its toggle's words and icon render from it. The controls keep the controller's listeners, and the cards' layout stays with the controller, which reads their visibility when it lays them out. CockpitUtilityControls renders the Display and Radio launchers, which popover is open and the compact Radio controls from the gev-radio store that RadioControls publishes to; the Display popover's slots stay static for the Cockpit display portal). Layers that write into the right rail directly gain a slot instead.

4. Cleanup. The build-time template expansion is retired: index.html lists the view hosts and the loading screen itself. The attribute translation pass goes with the move to vue-i18n. Hosts register panels and rail items through an explicit API instead of editing markup. Markup-string tests are replaced by component tests.

Verification

• Unit tests: stores and components run under npm test. Single-file components are compiled by a test loader; component tests render with @vue/test-utils and happy-dom. npm test registers the loader; to run one file that reaches a component (including anything importing the shell), use node --import=./build/registerVue.js --test <file>.
• Never pass happy-dom nodes to assert.equal or deepEqual: a failure prints both operands, and a node reaches the whole page and window, which runs the process out of memory. Compare nodes with assertSameNode() (src/testSupport/domAssert.mjs).
• Panels lifted out of a view keep its verbatim markup in src/ui/views/panels/, which Prettier leaves alone like the views.
• Visual parity: before/after screenshots of every panel at desktop and phone widths, in the default and Cyber themes, with the rail as the only expected difference.
• Browser QA: the selector-based scripts/qa-*.mjs suites keep passing.
• npm run format:check, npm run check:boundaries, npm run i18n and npm run build.