dees-wcctools/readme.hints.md

# Project Hints and Findings

## UI Redesign with Shadcn-like Styles (2025-06-27)

### Changes Made
Updated the WCC Dashboard UI components (properties and sidebar) to use shadcn-like design patterns:

1. **Color System**: Implemented CSS variables for theming:
   - `--background`, `--foreground`, `--card`, `--primary`, `--secondary`
   - `--muted`, `--accent`, `--border`, `--input`, `--ring`
   - Consistent dark theme with subtle borders and proper contrast

2. **Properties Panel Improvements**:
   - Changed from fixed 3-column grid to flexible flexbox layout
   - Properties now wrap and use space more efficiently
   - Added rounded corners and better spacing
   - Complex properties (Objects/Arrays) show "Edit" button
   - Advanced JSON editor appears above properties panel when editing complex types
   - Dynamic height adjustment (50px when editor is open, 100px normally)

3. **Sidebar Styling**:
   - Updated with consistent color scheme
   - Added rounded corners to menu items
   - Improved hover states with smooth transitions
   - Better typography with proper font weights

4. **Advanced Property Editor**:
   - JSON editor for complex types (Objects and Arrays)
   - Monaco-style monospace font for code editing
   - Live updates to element properties
   - Positioned above the properties panel with smooth transitions

### Technical Details
- Uses system font stack for better native appearance
- Subtle borders with rgba values for transparency
- Consistent spacing using CSS variables
- Smooth transitions (0.15s ease) for interactive elements
- Custom scrollbar styling for better visual integration

## Properties Panel Element Detection Issue (Fixed)

### Problem
The properties panel had timing issues detecting rendered elements because:
1. Elements are rendered asynchronously via lit's `render()` function in the dashboard component
2. The properties panel tried to find elements immediately without waiting for render completion
3. Element search only looked at direct children of the viewport, missing nested elements or those inside shadow DOM

### Solution Implemented
1. Added a 100ms initial delay to allow render completion
2. Implemented recursive element search that:
   - Searches through nested children up to 5 levels deep
   - Checks both light DOM and shadow DOM for all elements
   - Handles complex DOM structures generically
   - Works with any wrapper elements, not specific to dees-demowrapper
3. Added retry mechanism with up to 5 attempts (200ms between retries)
4. Improved error messages to show retry count
5. Comprehensive error handling:
   - Errors in element search don't break the update cycle
   - Individual property errors don't prevent other properties from rendering
   - scheduleUpdate always completes even if createProperties fails
   - Clears warnings and property content appropriately on errors

### Code Flow
1. Dashboard renders element demo into viewport using `render(anonItem.demo(), viewport)`
2. Properties panel waits 200ms for demo wrappers to run and set initial values
3. Searches recursively for the element instance
4. If not found, retries with delays to handle async rendering
5. Once found, extracts and displays element properties
6. Uses property binding (`.value=`) instead of attribute binding to prevent input events during initialization

## Demo Tools

### DeesDemoWrapper Component
A utility component for wrapping demo elements with post-render functionality.

**Usage:**
```typescript
import * as demoTools from '@design.estate/dees-wcctools/demotools';

// In your demo function:
demo: () => html`
  <dees-demowrapper .runAfterRender=${(wrapper) => {
    // Use querySelector for specific elements
    const myElement = wrapper.querySelector('my-custom-element');
    myElement?.setAttribute('data-demo', 'true');
    
    // Access all children
    console.log('All children:', wrapper.children);
    
    // Use querySelectorAll for multiple elements
    wrapper.querySelectorAll('div').forEach(div => {
      console.log('Found div:', div);
    });
    
    // Full DOM API available
    const firstChild = wrapper.firstElementChild;
    const hasClass = wrapper.querySelector('.my-class');
  }}>
    <my-custom-element></my-custom-element>
    <div>Additional content</div>
  </dees-demowrapper>
`
```

**Features:**
- Wraps demo elements without affecting layout (uses `display: contents`)
- Provides the wrapper element itself with full DOM API access
- Use querySelector/querySelectorAll for powerful element selection
- Access children via wrapper.children property
- Supports async operations in runAfterRender callback
- Automatically handles timing to ensure elements are fully rendered