derive Clone for IntoElement components?

[Moulberry]

Is there a reason why most IntoElement components (e.g. Breadcrumb, Button, etc.) don't implement Clone?

[huacnlee]

This is because of the GPUI IntoElement design.

In GPUI, the element that impl IntoElement are use RenderOnce, and you can see the render method of this, the self is designed with will take ownership.

Followhing this design, all elements of IntoElement (We call it Stateless) does not implement Clone. Because we couldn't, there may have some not clonable members in it, for example a children used Div, the Div is not clonable.

struct Button {
  children: Vec<Div>
}

---

You may see the Icon element, it is an IntoElement, but it is clonable. This just a special one, the clone is very special.

https://github.com/longbridge/gpui-component/blob/7de69d1dd134c2ddcf3ca9fa46e7c0b9317ccd45/crates/ui/src/icon.rs#L231-L240