Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Dragula looks to take the bite out of drag-and-drop

news
Feb 5, 20162 mins

The open source library exclusively focuses on drag-and-drop, allowing users to move elements around a Web page

With his Dragula open source library, developer Nicolas Bevacqua is looking to make drag-and-drop so simple that “it hurts.”

Dragula is a micro-library, sized at about 48KB, and is exclusively focused on drag-and-drop capabilities. Now at version 3.6.3, it has been fitted with much better touch event support, handling more mobile browsers.

“A drag-and-drop library helps developers allow users of their websites to move elements around the page,” said Bevacqua, an independent Web consultant, in an email. “In the case of Dragula, it helps you move elements from one container to another, as well as sort elements in the same container on a page.” Dragula, he said, makes this simple by providing an intuitive and easy-to-use API.

“Dragula is simple because it caters to the most common use cases while providing options to accommodate for the more advanced use cases as well,” said Bevacqua. “A key feature in Dragula is that it was designed starting at its API, making it simple for developers to use,” he said. “At the same time, Dragula is a very small component that doesn’t meddle with your websites, staying out of your way and allowing you to compound that small library with other small libraries to get the results that you need.”

Libraries before Dragula came out were large and did lots of things, while Dragula only focuses on providing a drag-and-drop experience that also works on mobile devices, said Bevaqua. JQuery UI, for example, came with dozens of components, and the drag-and-drop component had a complicated API that focused on implementation rather than on the consumer of that API, he said.

Dragula supports vanilla JavaScript as well as Angular and React JavaScript technologies.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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