[Bug] element in classic components no longer is a "normal" HTMLElement in the stable types

[boris-petrov]

🐞 Describe the Bug

Check the repro.

app/components/foo-component.ts:9:18 - error TS2339: Property 'dispatchEvent' does not exist on type 'SimpleElement'.

9     this.element.dispatchEvent(new Event('mousedown'));
                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🔬 Minimal Reproduction

Repo.

Run npm install and then ./node_modules/.bin/tsc.

😕 Actual Behavior

Type error on dispatchEvent.

🤔 Expected Behavior

No error. Removing the last commit (which upgrades Ember) and rerunning npm install and then tsc will remove the errors.

🌍 Environment

• Ember: 5.1.0
• Node.js/npm: 20.3.1/9.7.2
• OS: Linux
• Browser: N/A

cc @chriskrycho

[chriskrycho]

This is an interesting one and I'm curious to hear other folks' thoughts here—not least because this is a case where the stable types are telling the truth here about what Ember's internals actually assume and promise; but our public API has been that this.element can be assumed to a real Element forever. Our best bet here may be yet another creative lie.

(While I am quite comfortable holding the line in general on our stance that we will not be doing additional work to support Classic classes and features, this one is fairly fundamental to a lot of code bases and I think this should be made to work.)

cc. @jamescdavis @wagenet @gitKrystan

[chriskrycho]

#20491 may be a viable fix here (per my spelunking!). However, I will wait for @wagenet to comment before we merge and cut another release.