CrossUI: a React AST editor and an IE6-era widget library sharing one repository

Two products in one repository: an IE6-era widget library and a 2026 React AST editor

The linb/CrossUI repository holds two distinct products with no overlap in their target technology. CrossUI Studio, released as studio-v0.9.5 on 2026-06-03, is a visual editor for React and MUI that writes directly to source files through AST operations, with each change producing a one-line diff. The original CrossUI framework is a JavaScript widget library for single-page applications, listing IE6, Firefox 3, Opera 9, and Safari 3 in its compatibility range.

The original framework ships more than 100 components, including Tabs, Dialog, TreeGrid, SVG Shapes, and Chart. JSON, XML, and SOAP web services can be bound directly without routing through a custom backend; PHP, C#, and Java backend service code is also available. Knowing which product you are evaluating matters from the start, because the README leads with Studio while the bulk of the repository directories, including API/, CodeSnip/, and Examples/, belong to the older framework.

CrossUI Studio rewrites one AST node per visual edit, leaving all other lines byte-identical

CrossUI Studio's architecture rests on a single rule: each visual change is one atomic write to one node in the React AST. Touch a variant property on the canvas and exactly one line changes in the file. Lines above and below stay byte-for-byte identical, which makes the resulting diff reviewable by teammates who never opened the editor.

This design also determines what happens when Studio is removed from a workflow entirely. No proprietary runtime is embedded in the project; no code generation creates files that need maintenance alongside handwritten source; running `npm install && npm run build` still works because the source was never transformed. The README gives this guarantee explicitly: hooks, custom logic, comments, and formatting come out of a round-trip through Studio unchanged.

Studio supports React 18, 19, and Canary, MUI v7, and shadcn. For version control hosts, it connects to GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure, Gitea, and Forgejo, including self-hosted installations of Gitea and Forgejo.

The Import Graph in v0.9.5 runs on static AST analysis, so a crashing component still maps cleanly

The Import Graph, added in v0.9.5, lets you set any file as the entry point and draw a dependency map of its full import chain. Circular dependencies appear in red. The analysis runs against the static AST rather than executing the code, which means a component that throws at render time still appears correctly in the graph.

This matters most during debugging. A circular dependency that causes a crash will appear in red in the Import Graph even before the crash is fixed, because Studio never needs to load the component to produce the map. Normal development tooling cannot do this: it needs the component to run in order to trace its dependencies.

The entry point can be set to any file in the project, not only the application root. Visualising the imports of a single utility module or a shared component falls within the feature's described scope, and the result is always based on the static structure of the source, never on runtime state.

Drilling into .map() iterations and ternary branches with synthesized type-correct mock data

Most visual editors are restricted to the outermost JSX render of a component. CrossUI Studio goes further by allowing you to drill past the outermost render and into a .map() iteration, a ternary branch, or a node passed as children, then design that inner node in isolation.

To make isolated rendering possible without the parent's runtime context, Studio synthesizes type-correct mock data so the target node renders on its own. After editing, those changes write back to the original AST position using the same atomic mechanism as any other edit. Nothing about the parent component's code changes as a result.

The README does not describe the format or origin of the synthesized mock data, and it gives no guidance on reviewing or overriding what Studio generates for a given node. Teams working with components that depend on runtime context such as authenticated user state, query results, or deeply nested prop chains would need to test this feature directly on their own code before deciding whether it is reliable enough for production use.

Loading the original CrossUI framework: CDN URLs and no npm install step

The original CrossUI framework has no npm install command in the README. Two CDN URLs are provided for loading the full library in a browser page. One points to the jsDelivr mirror:

https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/linb/CrossUI@latest/runtime/xui/js/xui-all.js

The other points to the crossui.com CDN:

https://crossui.com/libs/3.0/js/xui-all.js

The repository root holds API/, CodeSnip/, Examples/, and a version.3.0 file marking the current major version. Desktop versions are available at crossui.com/download.html, and the repository provides links to examples and tutorials at crossui.com.

This CDN-only approach fits the IE6 compatibility requirement: the library is designed to be loaded as a global script into an HTML page. A project using a modern JavaScript build pipeline that expects CommonJS or ES module imports would need to load xui-all.js as a global rather than a bundled dependency, creating friction in standard toolchains that expect all dependencies to go through the module resolution process.

Free in-browser editing versus Pro: where the tier boundary falls

CrossUI Studio's tiering has one clear line. The full editor is free when working with an in-browser virtual repository. Connecting to a real Git host requires a Pro subscription, and that constraint is stated in a single line at the end of the Studio section in the README with no pricing or subscription details attached.

A developer exploring Studio can test the complete editing experience, including the Import Graph, deep-layer editing, and AST round-trips, all without cost. The workflow changes only when the goal is to push to or pull from a repository the team actually uses. Studio pricing is at studio.crossui.com.

For teams that want to validate the editing model before committing, the free tier is sufficient for that evaluation. A small project, moved temporarily to an in-browser virtual repo, gives enough signal to decide whether the atomic-write approach suits the team's code review workflow.

Nine related no-code tools at crossui.com and what the README omits about each

Beyond the main framework and Studio, the README lists nine related tools: a React builder, a front-end builder with GitHub integration, a single-page builder, an embeddable designer, a theme roller, a form builder, a JSON editor, a GitHub JSON editor, and a GitHub code editor. Each has a separate URL at crossui.com or linb.github.io. None are versioned alongside the main repository, and no documentation depth appears in the README for any of them.

All nine operate on the premise of building or editing without writing code, and all run as standalone web applications rather than installable libraries.

One discrepancy in the documentation requires attention before adopting the original CrossUI framework: the README's feature list states it is open source under LGPL3, while the repository metadata records the licence as MIT, and those two statements cannot both be correct, so reading LICENSE at the repository root is the only way to determine which governs.

Editorial conclusion

CrossUI Studio suits React and MUI teams who want visual editing without giving up code ownership or readable git history. The atomic AST write model ensures the editor cannot produce a diff that obscures what changed, which is a concrete advantage over tools that maintain a parallel representation alongside your actual source. Free access ends at the in-browser virtual repo: any workflow that involves pushing to or pulling from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure, Gitea, or Forgejo requires a Pro subscription, and pricing is not in the README. The original CrossUI widget library is worth evaluating only for projects that must run on IE6 through modern browsers, with the caveat that the last core framework release was ver2.1 in November 2020.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. License: MIT
2. linb/CrossUI on GitHub
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases