I have a very old Cordova app, works well for the purpose, but looks so outdated. It uses pretty basic JavaScript, HTML & CSS with some help from jQuery and jQuery Mobile, and contains a few pages in separate files. It is built only for Android so far. Now it is time to give it a facelift and possibly build for iOS and Windows desktop, the reasons why Cordova has been chosen back then. Also a messy multi-page system could be converted into a single page app, as a nice bonus.
I'm thinking about dropping jQuery Mobile and perhaps jQuery too, possibly adding Vue.js (which I've used on the web) instead. I don't have that much time to spend on this, so preferably it should be doable quickly, I'm not looking to rewrite whole program.
At first I was looking at Onsen UI or similar UI framework, thinking it might be the easiest option. But now I'm wondering if switching to e.g. Ionic Framework or Quasar Framework would give extra features/benefits without needing significantly more time. And this is where I'd like to hear your thoughts, especially if you've done similar facelift?
I think Ionic would be a good choice for you.
It supports three main frameworks and Vue is one of them. As you already have experience with Vue, this should hopefully be rather straightforward.
I do think though you would be better building the app back up from scratch. If your current codebase is a few years old, bringing it up to date with a new build will include any new features, compatibility changes and security patches which may still be present in your present codebase. This will become obvious if you decide to release your app on iOS as Apple are notoriously strict on what they approve.
Also, take a look at Capacitor instead of Cordova. Personally, I prefer it as I found a lot of Cordova plugins weren't maintained and hadn't been updated in years. It might not be a problem for your project but I strongly encourage the use of Capacitor nowadays.