RFC: Deprecate/Remove Style component and unify MapViews prop styleURL and styleJSON

[KiwiKilian]

Working through the examples, I noticed for the first time the Style component. The component basically allows to read a style.json and it will create Source and Layer components, to render the style partially.

This is confusing, because it's also possible to pass a JSON style via styleJSON on MapView, so this functionality is duplicated. It turns out, initially there was no support for local JSON styles at all. Then the Style component was introduced, before finally MapView got support for also styleJSON. The author of both did also recommend to keep only the functionality on MapView through styleJSON, but that component seemed to got forgotten.

I would like to do the following:

• Deprecate/Remove Style component
  • Removes duplicate funcitonality and confusion about which to use
  • If someone wants to render a style, but not as the MapView styleJSON, this is a user space concern, nothing this library has to solve
  • It will help keep us this library clean in functionality
• Unify styleURL and styleJSON to a new prop mapStyle, just like react-map-gl uses, mapStyle should then accept either a URL or a Style object

Smoothest migration would be first to deprecate Style and MapViews styleURL and styleJSON for one major version and then drop on the next major version. Immediate removal would be less work.

[cashc]

I'd vote for removing it now. Seems to me like a straightforward change that is a cleaner approach and breaking changes like these can be expected with a major version release.
I imagine that would mean you'd want to add some sort of 10.0 migration documentation to the readme that outlines the fact the if you're using the Style component currently, you'll have to switch to using MapView mapStyle=... approach.

Just my two cents (: Thank you for your work!

[KiwiKilian]

@cashc thanks for your comment! I'm with you on immediate removal of the Style component, my guess is, there are very few users of it.

The migration towards mapStyle from styleJSON and styleURL will affect everyone. So maybe deprecate those two props for one major version and remove them in the next major version?

A migration doc should be a must, you are right!

[KiwiKilian]

@tyrauber would love your feedback on this one 🙏.

[tyrauber]

I agree with htis. styleJSON and styleURL is more explicit. Having a prop that takes a url or json is not. I am fine with the breaking change as long as the docs are updated.

[KiwiKilian]

Are you also fine with removing the Style component?

[tyrauber]

If it is not needed. Reviewing the style component it looks like it is responsible for parsing the JSON and adding it to the map based on the style spec. Does styleJSON handle this differently?

[KiwiKilian]

Yeah it's not needed, see my initial comment:

Initially there was no support for local JSON styles at all. Then the Style component was rnmapbox/maps#846, before finally MapView got support for also styleJSON. The author of both did also recommend to keep only the rnmapbox/maps#1102 (comment), but that component seemed to got forgotten.

Right now a use case could only be to render layers separate from the map style injected from a style json – but that should be the users concern and not be covered by this library. maplibre-gl-js also only supports this through the maps style.

[github-actions]

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version 10.0.0-beta.11 🎉

The release is available on:

• npm package (@beta dist-tag)
• GitHub release

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