Letter from the Author
When I first started work on Vuetify, it was intended to be a prototyping tool that would allow me to quickly mock-up sites for side projects. I had recently finished work on https://github.com/johnleider/vue-material , a Vue wrapper for the popular MaterializeCSS framework, and I was faced with a decision. In order to take the framework further, I would have to start creating more components. With Vue 2.0 on the horizon, I felt that starting something from scratch would help me better learn and understand the new features and functionality that was coming soon.
With that decision, Vuetify was born, well, Vuetiful at the time. I slowly started creating components and adding functionality week after week until I had built up a pretty solid core. Around this time, another Material Design framework had launched and I was considering using that instead. I loved the progress that I had made, but finding time to work on it was becoming more and more scarce.
During this time, I decided to showcase what I had created to a co-worker. After compliments and kind words, I was asked when it was going to release. As I mentioned earlier, I had never intended to release Vuetify as an open-source project, but Sean insisted that I at least try. With vue-material right around 100 stars at the time, my goal was to beat that.
On December 14th, 2016, I announced the project to the public and it immediately took off. We surpassed 1,000 stars within the first week and development was non-stop. Within this period developers from all around came together into the Vuetify Community and started to help grow the framework.
After a few weeks, usage normalized and I slowly continued development, fixing bugs, and helping developers. More and more developers began to use Vuetify and I found myself spending more and more hours expanding the functionality of the framework. Contributions from the community were almost constant and I was lucky enough that some of these individuals join the team and help guide the path of our development.
In June of 2016, I launched the Vuetify Patreon. Within 3 months, we became one of the most funded libraries in the Vue ecosystem. As explained in this issue https://github.com/vuetifyjs/vuetify/issues/2240 , this success did not come without a great cost. Raising a family, working a full-time job and developing Vuetify was becoming more and more difficult with each month passing. It was at this time I had to make a choice whether to continue the framework or leave my job. As I am currently writing this, you can probably tell which one happened.
After over a year of development, we have finally come to the official v1.0 release. The accomplishments that we have been able to make due to the amazing contributions from developers and generous patronage of our backers is nothing short of astounding. The consistent support from volunteers, moderators, contributors, the dev team and my family (love you) has enabled me to stay focused on providing the best possible experience for developers using Vue and Vuetify. I am forever grateful of the time and dedication that so many individuals have given in support of this framework. Of these contributions, there are a few individuals who made drastic impacts on the direction and progress of the framework that I feel should be recognized:
progahammer — One of the earliest core members. Helped create the initial implementation of v-menu
dohomi — Helped pioneer the first flex implementation of the Vuetify layout and greatly improved the functionality of the grid system.
mfferreira — Created the v-bottom-nav, v-bottom-sheet components and helped provide consistent support to the community.
nekosaur — My right hand man for as long as I can remember. Spearheaded a-la-carte, unit tests and countless other fronts. His support, dedication and knowledge has been pivotal in the framework’s success.
jacekkarczmarczyk — The king of the pickers. Among other things, he has transformed v-date-picker and v-time-picker into brilliant implementations of the Material Design spec.
KaelWD — One of the most intelligent, fiery characters that I have ever had the pleasure to work with.
mauromadeit — The master of the templates. Is responsible for all of the amazing boilerplates that Vuetify has to offer. And also for all of the mistakes!
Along with countless others, Phlow, Zikeji, Bdeo, Brandon, Zake, Chava…the list goes on. I am forever grateful for your support in making this framework what it is today, thank you.
As we move into the next chapter of Vuetify, I cannot help but smile. With so many amazing features planned on the Roadmap and having hired our second developer, Vuetify has a great future. We have planned component packs for the front and back-end, component refactors, video casts, themes and more. If you or your business have made amazing things with Vuetify, please consider backing the project. It is due to the generous patronage of our community that we have been able deliver this application experience. Once again, thank you. I look forward to bringing these new features and functionality soon and hope to see you in our Community.
