API components now support v1 web components spec

After a few months of preparation I am proud to announce that more than a half of web components that are part of API components ecosystem now support version 1 (stable version) of Web Components specification. In short, this means native support on all browsers without polyfills.

As you may know already, ARC's API components were used to build MuleSoft's (now SalesForce) API console. Earlier this year API console was scheduled to upgrade to use new data model generated by AMF - the AML Modeling Framework (AML stands for Anything Modeling Language). Both AMF and AML was developed by MuleSoft last year. It allows to create common data model for all API specs (or anything else for that matter).

This change required major change in the components to support new data model. I saw it as an opportunity to upgrade the components from v0 of the Web Components specification (supported natively by Chrome and Opera only) to final specification. Now all components that are part of the API console are upgraded to the new specification and then some that are used in Advanced REST Client. Release of new API console is planned later this month. Currently it is on GitHub on the preview branch. In time all API and ARC components will be upgraded to version 1 of the specification.

But what does it mean to you?

If you just use ARC or API console - nothing at all. Well, there's a lot of design improvements in API console so general UX is just better.
However, if you are a developer and you work with API testing or API documentation you may leverage the power of API components in your projects.

First of all, API components are open source and free to use to everyone. Then it has support of MuleSoft (well, SalesForce since last Friday). We are using API console in our internal products so it has to pass the same tests (integration, unit testing, security) as any other enterprise application offered by MuleSoft. Finally, since latest major update to the components they can be used in any web environment where majority already support Web Components specification natively.

API components offer a number of UI and logic components to build API testing applications. But that's not all. API components can also render a documentation for an API using AMF data model (generated json/ld model). This means you can use, for example, the documentation component (api-documentation) and include it into your website or web app to render documentation for your API.
Soon I'll publish official documentation for using the components. For now you can follow instructions from Polymer documentation as it uses the same development process.

I'll be happy to fear from you what are your use cases and how I can improve API components. But not only the components but also API console and Advanced REST Client.