Future of this library?

[simonarcher]

Hey all,

We recently were looking for a drag and drop library for our application and came across this library and its one of the best Ive tried so far in terms of features and customizabiulity that its a shame that its going unmaintaned, as not supporting the latest architecture is indeed one of the issues of us fully adopting it with confidence.

From what I understand, there are some people currently out there who are trying to see if they can update the library to make it work with the new RN architecture...

Im just curious if they can provide a small update on how much effort that would take and if its still someting that is being 'actively' worked on, and if, at the very least, provide a small overview of what is needed to happen to make it work.

I might be able to try help with some things if I know where I could help, as would be a shame to see this library die when it has so much great value as it is. :)

But I think an overview on what's needed and if others are actively looking into it would be interesting to know about and if we believe there just might be a future for this library ☺️

[lafiosca]

Hi there @simonarcher, and thanks for your interest. I created this library a shocking five years ago. I needed the functionality for a mobile app I was developing for my own startup Nuclear Pasta (the org this repository currently resides in). Establishing the framework took a lot of experimental trial and error on both iOS and Android because the methods used were inconsistent and not well-documented. As the solo developer for that company, my time was stretched thin, and I was not able to maintain the library as well as I had hoped. There were a few helpful contributions from community members for specific issues, but I was the only maintainer.

A couple years later, economic circumstances forced me to take a full-time role elsewhere, which allowed me even less time for Drax. Furthermore, my work in Nuclear Pasta became more web-focused as our mobile app went into a sort of holding pattern, and due to technical debt it was not updated the newer versions of RN and RNGH, which made it even more difficult to keep pace with the latest state-of-the-art, let alone enhance the feature set.

At this point I have not worked in React Native professionally or personally for quite some time, and I am in the process of winding down the company Nuclear Pasta. I have little to no availability or ability to vet non-trivial PRs, and I think the entire library is due for a reboot. To my understanding, @LunatiqueCoder has put some significant effort into refreshing the library in a separate fork for his professional needs, but his availability is also dependent on where his work (and life) takes him. Most recently I heard that they are expecting to put in some strong focus on Drax soon, including web support, but I cannot provide a timeline.

I am open to feedback from the community on the best approach forward, and I have long hoped that people with greater allocable energy than myself might be interested in maintaining and improving the library. I have the standard anxieties about making the wrong decisions or handing off to the wrong folks, but the fact is that the library is so old and dusty now that things cannot get much worse, and even if it ultimately fades away, nothing will invalidate the original work.

I wish that I could bring you better news than this in response to your request, and I hope that folks can come together to make something wonderful from this foundation. I will do whatever I can to facilitate that, even if I am unable to actively develop Drax. I will pin this issue for visibility.

Thank you,
/joe

[lafiosca]

What I would like to see:

• Refreshing the library so that it works smoothly with the latest RN and RNGH (including Expo?)
• Ensuring that the position math also works correctly inside the most common navigation frameworks
• Bringing it up to whatever the current best practices are for a TypeScript library and community repo (build/publish steps, lint rules, contributors spec, etc)
• Continuing to keep the basic functionality ergonomics very simple for the 80% use case
• Enhancing the documentation to make the advanced flexible features more understandable Create the full API reference #13
• Addressing some enhanced use case requests, such as multi-column DraxList doesn't work correctly with numColumns > 1 #14
• Multiple maintainers sharing access and responsibility, for redundancy and load distribution
• Whatever else best serves the userbase :)

[simonarcher]

Thanks for the reply and thoughtful response, @lafiosca !

Again, i value and appreciate all the work this project has provided.

Ive not worked on a 3rd party library before, but Im willing to assist with helping wherever I can, especially around just trying to make it compatible with the latest RN. (im not sure how much effort this will be, but Im happy to invest some time into it :) )
I also can assist with updating and supporting it for TypeScript.

Then hopefully others can assist with the bugs and whatever else. :)

I do know that @LunatiqueCoder has been doing some work in the past few weeks/months so would be great to get an update from them and see if maybe their work would be a good place to pick up from.

But again, this library, despite being a few years old now, has already proven valuable to our team so Im keen and happy to invest some time in giving it new life again. 😊

[LunatiqueCoder]

Hello everybody

Our team has changed plans considerably. We will also need the drag and drop to work on web (see #177 (comment)). That being said, we were busy contributing to a number of other libraries to refresh them and make them work for web. (For example, react-native-video: TheWidlarzGroup/react-native-video#3958 (comment))

Of course, react-native-drax will also be in our plan. I'll do my best to finish #177 in the Christmas Holiday. If we were all good kids, maybe Santa Claus will come to our town too :D

You can help by testing PR: #177 and provide feedback. Let me know if you need help with the testing!

Also, I might answer faster on Discord. You can find me with the username @LunatiqueCoder.

Cheers everyone 🍺

[ericcAtGitHub]

@lafiosca
I have taken a look at the code. Amazing code with detailed comments. A lot of effort and expectations should go into it. Understand what you said and thank you!

[deezyomar]

Is there any update on this? I would LOVE to help out where I can! This exact what I need for my next project.

[lafiosca]

@deezyomar I have been in touch with @LunatiqueCoder every few days as he updates me on his progress. They're currently testing the latest work, and I hope we can package up a new release before too long. I am sure additional help from the community will be greatly appreciated when the new version ships!

[LunatiqueCoder]

Check these videos out: https://x.com/LunatiqueCoder/status/1894626315245871339

We're almost there :D

[deezyomar]

Let's GOOOOOO. That looks amazing! It looks like its set to release tonight 👀.

[Moussa321]

Hey all, when do you think we can have this PR merged ?

[Djhitman]

Any updates about release date? 👀