Introducing Boxer: A New Theme for Agency & Client Portals
Andy Leverenz
I'm excited to share the latest Rails UI premium theme—Boxer.
This one's been in the works for a while. I kept hearing from users building agency tools, client portals, and multi-tenant apps. These projects have unique UI requirements that existing themes didn't fully address. Boxer is my answer to that and the most comprehensive theme to date.
Built for Multi-Tenant Apps
The core idea behind Boxer is to support apps that have different user types—admins, team members, and clients—each with their own experience. Some aspects are shared, and others are driven with a white-label mentality. This is common in the SaaS world.
The theme includes specialized authentication views you won't find elsewhere:
- Admin Sign In – A split-screen layout for internal team access
- Client Sign In – Branded portal login for your customers
- Onboarding – Profile completion flow after signup
Each auth page uses a minimal layout that you configure at the controller level. No more wrangling with partials.
Pages That Actually Ship
Boxer includes the kinds of views agency apps need out of the box:
- Client dashboards and management screens
- Project overviews and task lists
- Invoicing and billing pages
- Team directories
- Settings panels
The goal is always the same—get you past the UI grunt work so you can focus on the features that matter.
Components & Forms
All the usual Rails UI components are here and more, styled for Boxer's clean aesthetic. Cards, tables, modals, navigation, forms—the works.
I also improved the form builder documentation while building this theme. The examples are clearer and easier to integrate with your existing setup.
Other Improvements
While shipping Boxer, I made some updates that benefit everyone (and myself if I’m being honest):
Better Syntax Highlighting
I swapped out Highlight.js for Shiki. It uses VS Code's TextMate grammars, which means ERB files finally highlight correctly—both the Ruby and HTML parts. I went with Material Theme Palenight for the color scheme. It looks pretty slick to me.
Cleaner Auth Documentation
The auth snippets now use controller-level layout configuration rather than the old partial-based approach. Easier to understand, easier to integrate.
Coming up next
Tapping into e-commerce:
I just started working on an e-commerce theme called Pointer. It’s in its very early stages, but progress is moving along nicely. When you think of Rails, it’s probably not immediately what you’d pick for an e-commerce solution when you have things like Shopify out there that do it really well, but for some of you daredevils who want to roll your own solution, it may make sense to do so.
There are many factors to account for in e-commerce, so this project should be both daunting and rewarding. Wish me luck!
view_component
I’m exploring ViewComponent as an alternative “snippet” in Rails UI, alongside standard HTML and ERB snippets. Historically, I’ve leaned vanilla Rails conventions using partials and helpers as much as possible, but ViewComponent is a great way to group and test UI that’s mostly ERB and Ruby anyway. I’ve been asked by many for support, so it seems likely that’s on the horizon.
That’s it for now. As always, I’d love to hear any feedback you have or themes you wish we’d support. Feel free to email me if you have anything to share.
The Rails UI ecosystem is expanding
In addition to this update, I've been working on a new feature that extends what Rails UI can do. It's a standalone companion product that addresses one of the most tedious parts of building Rails apps—the kind of UI work every project needs but no one wants to spend time on. It'll ship as a standalone product but will fit naturally into the Rails UI ecosystem. Can't say much more yet, but it's coming together fast. Super excited to get it out there!
Get Boxer
Boxer is available now for Rails UI premium subscribers. Update to the latest gem release and start using it today!
Don’t have full access yet? Subscribe now to get access to Boxer and all premium + future themes.