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bootbox-to-bootprompt.md

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Differences from Bootbox

Bootprompt is a fork of Bootbox but it is also a break with the past. Some features of Bootbox are costly to support and were removed. So for the benefit of those who might be upgrading from Bootbox 4 to Bootprompt, here are the major differences between the two libraries:

  • This package has a new name "Bootprompt", consequently, the CSS class names and the DOM event names have also changed from using a bb- prefix to bp-.

  • Bootprompt does not contain a polyfill for Object.keys. You should setup your own polyfill to load before Bootprompt or use libraries like core-js to provide it for you.

  • Bootprompt does not support chaining of the module-wide functions.

  • Bootprompt formally imports the module named bootstrap. (Bootbox did not.) If you had custom configuration in your module loader to fix Bootbox, you don't need it for Bootprompt. (If you are not using a module loader or bundler, the JS for bootstrap just needs to be loaded through a script element before Bootprompt.)

  • Bootprompt cannot be loaded without the module bootstrap being first loaded. (Bootbox allowed it.) (If you are not using a module loader or bundler, the JS for bootstrap just needs to be loaded through a script element before Bootprompt.)

  • Bootprompt will not kinda-sorta work with Bootstrap 2 or earlier. It throws an error if it looks like Bootstrap is not at least 3.

  • Bootprompt no longer exports a module-level init function. In Bootbox you could use it to produce new instances of the whole module. If you need to create multiple instances of Bootprompt, configure your module loader/bundler to do it for you.

  • For the value option, Bootprompt accepts an array but only an array of strings. Bootbox was ambiguous about what the array could contain. (The value is passed to $().val(...). The documentation for it does not mention passing arrays of things other than strings.)

  • Bootprompt does not systematically do runtime checks to figure whether you are passing the required number of arguments, etc. People who need such checks should use TypeScript to have their code checked at compile-time.

  • Bootprompt's API is strict when it comes to undefined and null. If a value is optional, and may be undefined, then you cannot pass null instead. These are different JS values. Bootbox did not systematically distinguish the two values (and would in some cases also treat false, "", 0 and other falsy values the same as undefined or null).

  • Bootprompt does not allow numbers as values for the various input types that prompt supports. The TS declarations disallow numbers. So if you are using TS, the type-checking will prevent you from passing numbers. If you are using plain JS with Bootprompt and pass numbers instead of strings, it may or may not work. The safe thing to do when you upgrade is to change all number values to strings.

    Why this? Bootbox relied on "magic" happening at the DOM level (or jQuery, but the distinction is not relevant here). Suppose the input element el. If you do el.value = 1, it works fine. However, when you read el.value back you always get a string, not a number. This violates the principle of least astonishment. A developer might specify a prompt with radio buttons associated with numbers for possible values, but would always get a string when reading back the selected value. Etc.

    Note that this is also true when creating a prompt with number or range input. Even there, the values are strings, not number.

    And this is also true when specifying min max and step. In the DOM, those values are strings, so we accept strings.

    The mishmash of values that Bootbox accepted was not only leading to confusing results, it also caused bugs. If the logic is going to compare two values that could be strings, or numbers or a mix, it has to take into account these various cases. Bootbox had bugs due to this.

    Bootprompt will throw an error if the default value is a number, or if any of the values passed as the value field of inputOptions is a number.

  • Tieson Trowbridge's improvements included the capability to set placeholder on a select input. There was a comment explaining that it is not a valid attribute for select, etc. Since there is no standard semantics for placeholder on select, I (lddubeau) removed this capability. It may be added back if someone can make a case for it. (I (lddubeau) searched the issues on Bootbox but could not find a discussion of this feature.)