ETAF

ETAF is a small text-application framework built above the independent Ebox layout and rendering engine.

Its complete public model is:

Component(props, Scope) → View → Renderer → Ebox Node → Emacs buffer

Every visible structure uses one form:

(name :property value ... child ...)

The only child computation bridge is expr :value; attribute values are ordinary Elisp expressions.

(etaf-view
 (column
  (text :face 'bold "Hello")
  (text
   :color "#687386"
   (expr :value (if ready "Ready" "Waiting")))))

Define a Component:

(etaf-define-component status-label (&key label)
  "Render a status label."
  :view
  (text :face 'bold (expr :value label)))

(etaf-mount
 "*etaf-demo*"
 (etaf-view (status-label :label "Connected")))

etaf-view is the single public View constructor. Structural forms do not use quote; quote remains ordinary Elisp data syntax, such as 'bold. A View returned from ordinary Elisp is explicitly constructed with (etaf-view ...) inside expr.

Executable examples

The examples/ directory contains three core-only best-practice applications: retained state and Actions, Data Controller ownership, and Resource error/cleanup lifecycle. They are byte-compiled and driven through mounted public event paths by make check.

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/github/etaf/examples")
(require 'etaf-counter-example)
(etaf-counter-example-open)

Documentation

• Architecture · 中文架构
• User guide · 中文用户指南
• Implementation plan · 中文实施计划
• Best-practice examples · 中文示例

Independent packages

Package	Role
etaf-ui	Official Component catalog: Button, Checkbox, Label, Panel, and DataGrid.
etaf-sqlite	Concrete SQLite Data Source; the Data Controller remains in ETAF core.
etaf-playground	ETAF examples, with the UI catalog loaded only when requested.
ebox-playground	Ebox-only layout examples, independent from ETAF.

There is no separate etaf-data install: Data is a core ETAF capability. There is no generic etaf-adapters package: other databases, services, files, or ORMs should provide concrete Data Source packages with explicit names.

Load and verify

ECSS 0.1.0 and TP 1.0.0 are independent packages and may be installed in either order. Install both before Ebox 2.0.0, then install ETAF. ETAF consumes only the Ebox 2.0 public rendering contract.

During development, load the sibling Ebox checkout before ETAF:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/github/ebox")
(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/github/etaf")
(require 'etaf)

Run the complete local gate:

make check EMACS=/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs

The core gate byte-compiles the implementation, runs the core/Data/Resource tests, and checks documentation/API boundaries. Run make check in the sibling etaf-ui, etaf-sqlite, etaf-playground, and ebox-playground repositories for their independent gates; none is loaded by the core facade.