When are self-closing tags expanded and not, unreliable and unpredictable (bug?) - web components (latest version thymeleaf with Spring boot)

[gregjotau]

<div slot="header" th:text="#{project}"/>
        <wa-button data-dialog="open project-dialog" size="small"
                   slot="header-actions"
                   th:text="#{project.create}" variant="brand"></wa-button>
        <div>

        <wa-button data-dialog="open project-dialog" size="small"
                   slot="header-actions"
                   th:text="#{project.create}" variant="brand"/>

I feel like most of the times self-closing tags are opened up when Thymeleaf renders it. But not always.

I like using self-closing tags on web components like the above example, but it must be expanded as the web components does not work as self-closing tags.

So my question is why Thymeleaf is only sometimes expanding wa-button : https://webawesome.com/docs/components/button

Note that I'm only talking about cases where th:text is used, in these cases Thymeleaf should expand the tag since otherwise it would not be able to put in the value inside the tags.

[danielfernandez]

As long as we are talking about Thymeleaf 3.0+, there is no reason why Thymeleaf should be modifying your <wa-button> tag from one of your examples to the other above. If you write it closed, it will be closed, if not, it will not be.

What you mean is that there are some scenarios in which your <wa-button> is being modified? If so, could you be more specific about what exactly are the changes you are seeing and what you feel is wrong?

[gregjotau]

As long as we are talking about Thymeleaf 3.0+, there is no reason why Thymeleaf should be modifying your <wa-button> tag from one of your examples to the other above. If you write it closed, it will be closed, if not, it will not be.

What you mean is that there are some scenarios in which your <wa-button> is being modified? If so, could you be more specific about what exactly are the changes you are seeing and what you feel is wrong?

I modified the description to expand a bit on this. So I don't think you're right in writing that Thymeleaf should not expand. When using th:text, the text has to be put somewhere, right?

And that somewhere is between an opening and closing tag. And this works very unreliably.

[gregjotau]

So very specifically: th:text on a closed HTML element should always expand it since the value of th:text should be between an opening and closing tag. Where would it be otherwise?

[danielfernandez]

I'm closing this as the definition of the issue is not clear. Thymeleaf does not modify your tags unless totally necessary because instructed to do so, as is the case for th:text as you mention. Indeed <wa-button th:text="${something}"/> will be modified to <wa-button>The text</wa-button> as there is no other possibility.

But it isn't clear what are those cases in which this happens "sometimes" or not, or why it is an issue. Please reopen if you can provide a more specific description of the issue.