App Drawer

This document is an explainer for a potential browser-provided "App Drawer" component, implemented as a built-in module. App Drawer is delivered as a Custom Element, making it framework-agnostic and easy to integrate into existing applications. It supports the gestures users expect from experience with native mobile platforms, ensures a consistent UX for opening and dismissal, and solves accessibility issues common to web-based drawer implementations. It ships unstyled, and is easily customized via attributes and CSS Custom Properties.

Sample code

<app-drawer id="drawer">
  <header><h1>App</h1></header>
  <nav>
    <a href="/">Home</a>
    ...
  </nav>
</app-drawer>

<script type="module">
  import 'std:app-drawer';
  drawer.addEventListener('close', () => {
    console.log('closed');
  });
  drawer.open();
</script>

Motivation

The concept of an "app drawer" is pervasive on the web. Also referred to as "off-canvas navigation" or modal sidebars, these represent an important component of many User Interfaces and often contain an web app's primary navigation.

There are a multitude of drawer implementations in userland, many of which suffer from usability or performance issues. The inconsistency and unreliability of important UX characteristics like gestures & keyboard support has fractured web users' expectations of the metaphor, demonstrating the need for a browser-provided solution.

We want to win back the trust of web users by bringing consistency, reliability and performance to drawer UI's.

API

Slots

By default, any elements placed into <app-drawer> are rendered within the sliding drawer panel. Children can also be placed into other areas using Named Slots:

<app-drawer>
  <div slot="backdrop">Placed into the backdrop (grayed out) area</div>

  <div slot="header">Placed first in the drawer area</div>

  <div>Any other children are placed into the drawer (after the header)</div>
</app-drawer>

CSS Custom Properties

Styling can be adjusted using the following CSS Custom Properties:

• --width: the drawer's default width (default: 200px)
• --max-width: maximum drawer width as a percentage of the viewport (default: 100)
• --background: background color for the sliding drawer panel (default: #eee)
• --backdrop: background for the backdrop/shim behind the drawer (default: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5))

Additionally, the drawer exposes some of its state as CSS Custom Properties, which can be used to reactively style the drawer or any element within it:

• --percent: the current percent visibility/openness of the drawer during a drag gesture
• --tf-x: the current CSS transform (translateX(xx)) applied to the drawer during a drag gesture

AppDrawer

Custom Element constructor, inheriting from HTMLElement.

To create an App Drawer instance programmatically:

const appDrawer = document.createElement('app-drawer');

.toggle(forceState)

Opens or closes the drawer based on its current state.

If forceState is a Boolean value, the drawer will be opened or closed regardless of its current state.

.open()

Open the drawer if it is currently closed.

Note: If invoked during a drawer gesture, overrides the end state of the gesture.

.close()

Close the drawer if it is currently open.

Note: If invoked during a drawer gesture, overrides the end state of the gesture.

event: toggle(e)

Fired when the drawer finishes opening or closing. The event includes a .open property with a Boolean indicating the drawer's new state.

drawer.addEventListener('toggle', e => {
  console.log('Drawer is now ', e.open ? 'open' : 'closed');
})

Open issues and questions

Please see the issue tracker for open issues on the API surface detailed above.

Impact

This feature would be medium-effort, medium-reward.

• Applications would no longer need to build and ship custom drawer implementations
• Developers would not need to implement gesture support or platform-specific differences
• Users of assistive technologies would benefit from a well-known and DOM-controllable interaction model

Comparison to existing solutions

There are a number of standalone drawer implementations available on npm that offer comparable functionality:

• rc-drawer, 11kB and downloaded ~90k times per week
• @material/drawer, 7.8kB and downloaded ~30k times per week
• react-burger-menu, 5.2kB and downloaded ~25k times per week
• @iamadamjowett/angular-click-outside, 0.5kB and downloaded ~15k times per week
• react-sidebar, 2.4kB and downloaded ~12k times per week

(All of the above statistics are as of 2019-02-06.)