## ADR #0001: The UI is a web app

1. **What did you decide?**

    The user interface of Smarthut is a single-page web application implemented 
    using modern frontend web frameworks. 

2. **What was the context for your decision?**

    <!-- What is the goal you are trying to achieve? -->
    The user application of Smarhut should be easily accessible by users and be 
    compatible with as many devices and platforms as possible. Therefore, the UI 
    should work on desktop and mobile devices alike. 

    <!-- What are the constraints? -->
    Targeting several platforms poses the challenge of dealing with different 
    programming language and UI framework constraints. Few paradigms are 
    universally supported and thus there is a risk of additional complexity and
    cost per each custom logic or code a platform may require.

    <!-- What is the scope of your decision? Does it affect the entire architecture? -->
    This decision affects mainly the frontend side of Smarthut, possibly
    constraining UI/UX design freedom. Additionally, due to the way data may be 
    shown data flow between UI and components evaluating business logic 
    (e.g. user-defined triggers) and storing state (e.g. user-defined room
    configuration) may be affected, thus the connectors between these components
    may optimized to fit the chosen way to show the data in the UI. 

3. **What is the problem you are trying to solve?**
    
    <!-- You may want to articulate the problem in form of a question. -->
    _Which technology, framework or paradigm should be used to implement the
    user interface of Smarthut?_


4. **Which alternative options did you consider?**

    - Producing custom-built apps per each major platform, namely *Android*, *iOS*, 
      *Desktop* - possibly Windows-MacOS multiplatform, and *Web*)
    - Using a market-ready multiplatform technology like Xamarin or
      Ionic+Electron, and target the *Web* platform separately
    - Focus on the *Web* platform for the first MVP and later target
      other platform repackaging the web application (e.g. using PWAs or
      Webviews) 

5. **Which one did you choose?**

    - Focus on the *Web* platform for the first MVP and later target
      other platform repackaging the web application (e.g. using PWAs or
      Webviews) 

6. **What is the main reason for that?**

    Building a web application is cheaper and easier than building for any 
    other platform due to the ubiquitousness of web products and solutions 
    nowadays. This is the most suitable choice to have a cheap yet satisfactory
    MVP of Smarthut.

    Pros:

    - Cheap development;
    - Lots of compatibility with different devices and platforms;
    - Ease of repackaging in native applications (through PWAs or Webviews).

    Cons:

    - UX may degradate due to use of non-native components for each platform;
    - Performance is inferior than native components;
    - The *Web* platform is more limited than other platforms (e.g. for 
      storage), thus targeting it as a common denominator may impact the ease
      of development of features that may be trivial to implement on other 
      platforms natively.