remove the <'a> requirement on TextArea

[pm100]

Dropping TTA into an existing project can be very disruptive since it requires lifetime annotation. This can ripple up through an app. This makes it a barrier to adoption by other projects (speaking from experience here)

The solution would be to have a private Block equivalent that owns the title string (s) rather than using references.

[rhysd]

The lifetime parameter is used for ratatui's Block instance which is set to inner Pragraph on rendering. It cannot be removed.

[pm100]

I know, hence the different block in my pr

[rhysd]

I saw your PR changes a bit. Do you mean adding new API which is very similar to Block only for removing the lifetime parameter? I don't think it is a good tradeoff. We should use ratatui's API as much as possible to make our API as minimal as possible. If we add new widget, users need to learn about it. I feel the cost is much bigger than just handling small one lifetime parameter.

If you want to hide the parameter and you're not benefit from it, you can do:

type TextArea = TextArea<'static>;

[pm100]

I tried multiple things to avoid propagating the 'a over several weeks , and yet I never tried that one :-). I know it comes with some restrictions, I need to check if it will work in gitui.

[pm100]

Ty, that worked beautifully. I should have asked you in the first place

[rhysd]

Great. Thanks for your confirmation.

[joshka]

Ha - I almost mentioned the same solution in the Ratatui side of this :D

[holly-hacker]

Could this be documented somewhere? I just spent 15 minutes adding and removing lifetimes everywhere and was about to open a duplicate of this issue. Using a 'static lifetime is a fine workaround but it's something you need to be aware off first.