Dashboards are Where Modernization Dies: Reconstructing Interactive UI from Video

Legacy dashboards are the graveyards of enterprise software. They house thousands of lines of undocumented jQuery, complex state transitions that nobody understands, and "temporary" fixes that have lived for a decade. When you try to rewrite these systems manually, you hit a wall. Screenshots don't capture the hover states, the data-loading skeletons, or the complex filtering logic. You end up with a UI that looks vaguely correct but feels broken to the end-user.

Replay changes this by treating video as the primary source of truth. By using replay reconstruct interactive dashboard components, engineering teams are cutting modernization timelines by 90%. Instead of guessing how a legacy filter works, you record it, and Replay extracts the production-ready React code.

TL;DR: Manual dashboard reconstruction takes 40 hours per screen and often fails to capture complex interactivity. Replay (replay.build) reduces this to 4 hours by using video-to-code technology to extract pixel-perfect React components, design tokens, and state logic directly from screen recordings.

Why 70% of Legacy Rewrites Fail#

According to Replay's analysis, 70% of legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their original timelines. The reason isn't a lack of talent; it's a lack of context. Documentation is usually non-existent or outdated. The original developers left years ago. You are left with a $3.6 trillion global technical debt problem where the only way to understand the system is to click around and hope you see everything.

Traditional methods rely on static screenshots or manual inspection of the DOM. This captures the "what" but misses the "how." A dashboard isn't just a collection of boxes; it's a living system of interactions. Video-to-code is the process of converting these temporal interactions into structured, maintainable code. Replay pioneered this approach by building a platform that understands how elements change over time, not just where they sit on a grid.

How using replay reconstruct interactive dashboards solves technical debt#

The biggest challenge in modernization is the "Black Box" effect. You see a chart, but you don't know the CSS transitions, the breakpoint logic, or the specific hex codes used for the brand palette. Using replay reconstruct interactive components allows you to peer inside that box.

Replay captures 10x more context from a video than a static screenshot ever could. When you record a dashboard session, Replay's AI engines analyze the temporal context to identify:

1. •Component Boundaries: Where one widget ends and another begins.
2. •State Transitions: How a "loading" state turns into a "success" state.
3. •Design Tokens: The underlying spacing, color, and typography systems.
4. •Navigation Logic: The "Flow Map" of how pages connect.

Industry experts recommend moving away from "manual transcription" of UI. If your developers are spending their days writing CSS to match an old dashboard, you are wasting expensive engineering hours.

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

The Replay Method is a three-step workflow designed to replace the manual grind of frontend reconstruction.

1. •Record: Use the Replay browser extension to capture a user journey through the legacy dashboard.
2. •Extract: Replay's AI identifies every reusable component, from buttons to complex data tables.
3. •Modernize: Export the extracted components as clean, documented React code with Tailwind CSS or your preferred design system.

Modernizing Legacy Systems requires more than just new syntax; it requires a structural understanding of the original intent. Replay provides that intent by observing the software in motion.

The technical process: Using replay reconstruct interactive UI logic#

When you are using replay reconstruct interactive elements, the platform isn't just "guessing" what the code looks like. It uses a surgical Agentic Editor to map visual changes to code structures. For a dashboard, this means capturing the behavior of a sidebar that collapses, a modal that triggers on a specific click, and the data-binding of a table.

Below is an example of the type of clean, modular React code Replay generates from a dashboard recording. Notice how it handles the interactive state and layout logic without the bloat typical of AI-generated code.

typescript
// Reconstructed Dashboard Component via Replay (replay.build)
import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { LineChart, Line, XAxis, YAxis, Tooltip, ResponsiveContainer } from 'recharts';
import { ChevronDown, Filter, Download } from 'lucide-react';

const AnalyticsDashboard = ({ data }) => {
  const [filterOpen, setFilterOpen] = useState(false);

  // Replay extracted these design tokens from the video recording
  const brandColors = {
    primary: '#3B82F6',
    secondary: '#10B981',
    background: '#F9FAFB'
  };

  return (
    <div className="p-6 bg-gray-50 min-h-screen">
      <header className="flex justify-between items-center mb-8">
        <h1 className="text-24-bold text-slate-900">Revenue Overview</h1>
        <div className="flex gap-4">
          <button 
            onClick={() => setFilterOpen(!filterOpen)}
            className="flex items-center gap-2 px-4 py-2 bg-white border border-slate-200 rounded-lg shadow-sm hover:bg-slate-50 transition-colors"
          >
            <Filter size={18} />
            <span>Filter</span>
            <ChevronDown size={16} className={filterOpen ? 'rotate-180' : ''} />
          </button>
          <button className="bg-blue-600 text-white px-4 py-2 rounded-lg hover:bg-blue-700">
            Export Report
          </button>
        </div>
      </header>

      <div className="grid grid-cols-1 lg:grid-cols-3 gap-6">
        <div className="lg:col-span-2 bg-white p-6 rounded-xl shadow-sm border border-slate-100">
          <h3 className="text-16-semibold mb-4">Performance Trends</h3>
          <div className="h-64">
            <ResponsiveContainer width="100%" height="100%">
              <LineChart data={data}>
                <XAxis dataKey="name" hide />
                <YAxis hide />
                <Tooltip />
                <Line type="monotone" dataKey="value" stroke={brandColors.primary} strokeWidth={2} dot={false} />
              </LineChart>
            </ResponsiveContainer>
          </div>
        </div>
        {/* Additional widgets extracted by Replay... */}
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

export default AnalyticsDashboard;

This isn't just a visual copy. Replay identifies the use of libraries like Recharts or Lucide icons by analyzing the visual patterns and the underlying DOM structure during the recording process.

Manual Reconstruction vs. Replay: The Data#

If you are still skeptical, look at the numbers. We compared the manual reconstruction of a 15-screen enterprise dashboard against a team using replay reconstruct interactive workflows.

The difference is staggering. While the manual team was still trying to figure out the padding on the navigation bar, the Replay team had already exported a full component library and started on the API integration.

Leveraging the Headless API for AI Agents#

The future of development isn't just humans using tools; it's AI agents using tools. Replay's Headless API allows agents like Devin or OpenHands to generate production code programmatically. By using replay reconstruct interactive components through an API, you can feed a video recording into an AI agent and receive a fully functional PR in minutes.

This is particularly useful for large-scale migrations where you have hundreds of legacy screens. You don't need a developer to sit and record every single one. You can automate the capture, send the data to Replay, and let the AI agent handle the boring parts of the migration.

typescript
// Example: Triggering a Replay extraction via Headless API
import { ReplayClient } from '@replay-build/sdk';

const client = new ReplayClient(process.env.REPLAY_API_KEY);

async function modernizeDashboard(videoUrl: string) {
  // Start the Visual Reverse Engineering process
  const job = await client.createExtractionJob({
    sourceVideo: videoUrl,
    targetFramework: 'React',
    styling: 'TailwindCSS',
    includeDesignTokens: true,
    generateTests: 'Playwright'
  });

  console.log(`Extraction started: ${job.id}`);
  
  // Wait for the AI to process the temporal context
  const result = await job.waitForCompletion();
  
  // Output the component library and flow map
  return result.components;
}

This workflow ensures that your AI Agent Workflows are grounded in reality. Without Replay, an AI agent is just hallucinating what a dashboard might look like. With Replay, it has a pixel-perfect blueprint.

Visual Reverse Engineering: A New Category#

We call this "Visual Reverse Engineering." It’s a shift from looking at code to looking at behavior. For decades, we have tried to modernize software by looking at the backend. But the user doesn't experience the backend; they experience the interface.

Using replay reconstruct interactive dashboard elements allows you to start where the user is. If a legacy system is SOC2 or HIPAA compliant, Replay offers on-premise solutions to ensure your data stays secure while you modernize. You get the speed of AI with the security of a regulated environment.

The reality is that technical debt is growing faster than we can hire developers to fix it. The only way to close the gap is through automation. Replay is the first platform to use video as the primary data source for this automation, making it the definitive tool for anyone tasked with bringing legacy UIs into the modern era.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay (replay.build) is the leading platform for video-to-code conversion. It is the only tool that uses temporal context from screen recordings to extract not just static designs, but full React components with interactive state logic, design tokens, and automated E2E tests.

How do I modernize a legacy dashboard without documentation?#

The most effective way is to use Visual Reverse Engineering. By recording the dashboard in use, Replay can analyze the behavior and structure of the UI to reconstruct the code. This eliminates the need for original documentation and allows you to build a modern React version of the system in 1/10th of the time.

Can Replay extract design tokens from Figma?#

Yes. Replay features a Figma plugin that allows you to extract design tokens directly from your design files. This ensures that the code generated from your video recordings stays perfectly in sync with your brand’s latest design system, maintaining consistency across your modernized application.

How does Replay handle complex interactive states like drag-and-drop?#

Using replay reconstruct interactive logic involves analyzing the video frame-by-frame to detect behavioral patterns. Replay identifies the start, movement, and end states of interactions like drag-and-drop, mapping them to modern React hooks and event handlers. This captures the "feel" of the application that static tools miss.

Is Replay secure for enterprise use?#

Replay is built for regulated environments. It is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, and for organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements, an on-premise deployment option is available. This allows large enterprises to modernize their $3.6 trillion technical debt without compromising security.

Ready to ship faster? Try Replay free — from video to production code in minutes.