Abs-component NPM

Abs-Component

Introduction:

This module allows you to define classes and associate an instance of them to an HTML node so that these nodes can behave as autonomous components.

Its implementation remains rather simple and the main goal in mind is to give users a basic way of organizing the scripts for different elements in a page, especially in small projects such as static websites.

Development:

Ignore this if you don't intend to contribute on the project

Make sure you have the Node version 15 or greater.

A simple npm install will get everything needed for development.

Edit files under /src folder.

Once tested, commited and pushed in a development branch it will be merged over to main branch (through pull request if needed) and a new dist build will be generated with npm run build.

The build is then pushed to remote together with package version increase and publish.

Development branch can then be realligned with main branch.

Installation:

- As module

Install the module with your preferred package manager by typing the following in your terminal:

npm install -D abs-component

then import the module in your script

import { AbsComponentManager } from 'abs-component';

- In browser

All available files are the following:

# Typescript
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/abs-component/dist/abs-component.ts

# Javascript
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/abs-component/dist/abs-component.js

# Javascript without exports
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/abs-component/dist/abs-component.nx.js

To include it for browser usage inser this in your <head>:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/abs-component@1/dist/abs-component.nx.js"></script>

Remove @1 after the package name from the link to load the latest version or specify the version by changing the number

Component from the template side:

In HTML components are defined by simply applying a data-attribute to the desired node. This attribute can be configured as preferred, else it's data-abs-component by default.

<div data-abs-component="MyComponent"></div>

Component from the logic side:

Be it Typescript or Javascript (the only difference is simply that TS has explicit interfaces available), the base structure of a component class is the same.

// add `implements AbsComponent` for Typescript
class MyComponent {
  
  // The constructor receives an HTMLElement parameter
  // that is the DOM node reference
  // that the component is associated to

  // add `public` keyword to `node` for Typescript
  // recommended to add `readonly` keyword too to `node` for Typescript
  constructor (node) {}

  // All components are recommended to define an `init` function
  // but it's not required if know what to do
  init() {}

  // Then usually but optionally there is a `ready` function
  // (see the component lifecyle later in the README)
  ready() {
    this.myCustomMethod();
  }

  // And optionally, for unique use cases, a `destroy` function
  // NOTE: as of now components can only be destroyed manually
  destroy() {}

  // After these basic definitions you can start adding
  // additional methods to run custom logic

  myCustomMethod() {
    // For obtaining node references
    // contained inside the current component
    // you can use `this.node` as a starting node
    // to run a query selection
    const myComponentSubnode = this.node.querySelector('.my-component-subnode');
  }
}

Usage example:

1) Firstly create an instance of the module class optionally passing to the constructor a config object with your preferred options.

import { AbsComponentManager } from 'abs-component';
import { AbsComponentManagerConfig } from 'abs-component';

const absComponentManagerConfig: AbsComponentManagerConfig = {};
const absComponentManager = new AbsComponentManager(absComponentManagerConfig);

2) Define a component class

(I will build a switch button component to showcase a realistic yet simple example)

import { AbsComponent } from 'abs-component';

interface ButtonComponent {
  onButtonNode: HTMLElement;
  offButtonNode: HTMLElement;
  state: boolean;
  BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS: string;
}

class SwitchComponent implements AbsComponent {
  constructor(public readonly node: HTMLElement) {}

  init(): void {
    this.onButtonNode = this.node.querySelector('button.on') as HTMLElement;
    this.offButtonNode = this.node.querySelector('button.off') as HTMLElement;
    this.state = false;
    this.BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS = 'active';
  }

  ready(): void {
    this.setButtonEvents();
  }

  setButtonEvents(): void {
    this.onButtonNode.addEventListener('click', () => {
      if(this.state !== true) {
        this.node.querySelector(`.${this.BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS}`).classList.remove(this.BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS);
        this.onButtonNode.classList.add(this.BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS);
        this.state = true;
        this.reportState();
      }
    });
    this.offButtonNode.addEventListener('click', () => {
      if(this.state !== false) {
        this.node.querySelector(`.${this.BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS}`).classList.remove(this.BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS);
        this.offButtonNode.classList.add(this.BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS);
        this.state = false;
        this.reportState();
      }
    });
  }

  reportState(): void {
    console.log(this.state);
  }
}

and its template will look something like this:

<style>
  button.on.active,
  button.off.active {
    color: red;
  }
</style>

<div class="switch" data-abs-component="switch-component">
  <button class="on">ON</button>
  <button class="off">OFF</button>
</div>

3) Register your newly defined component, passing both the attribute value and the class

absComponentManager.registerComponent('switch-component', SwitchComponent);

4) After all components are defined and registered, initialize them all together with a single method

absComponentManager.initComponents();

NOTE: do not confuse initComponents (plural) with initComponent (singular). This last one allows you to initialize a single component. It can be useful if components are printed at runtime.

Now we will have our HTML elements completely autonomous with their self-contained logic ready to be interacted with.

Module lifecycle

The component initialization will select all HTML nodes having the component name data-attribute and call their init() method sequentially. After all components have been inited the same will be done calling their ready() method.

NOTE: if you want a component to interact with another writing code inside the init() method, one of the components may not exist yet depending on their order in the page. It is suggested to write inside init() for internal declarations and component preparation while the proper logic should go inside ready();

flowchart TB
    a[define a component class] --> b[register the component]
    b[register the component] --> a[define a component class]
    b[register the component] --> c[initialize components]
    c[initialize components] -- the order depends on how components are placed in DOM --> d([all components' `init` called sequentially])
    d([all components' `init` called sequentially]) --> e([all components' `ready` called sequentially])

Component interactions

There is currently no well-structured way for components to communicate with each other but the module still offers a bare-minimum possibility.

The component manager offers a read only components object that looks like a record of names of registered components containing an array of how many instances of each component is present in the page.

console.log(absComponentManager.components);

// log output
{
  'switch-component': [
    {
      init: Function,
      ready: Function,
      setButtonEvents: Function,
      reportState: Function,
      onButtonNode: HTMLElement,
      offButtonNode: HTMLElement,
      state: boolean,
      BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS: string
    }
  ]
}

Taking the previous example of a switch component we could say that a second component or any other script can access SwitchComponent's parameters and methods using the following:

// this is the component class
absComponentManager.components['switch-component'][0];

// the defined parameter containing `'active'`
absComponentManager.components['switch-component'][0].BUTTON_ACTIVE_CLASS;

NOTE: depending on how the page behaves this method of accessing other componets may result unreliable as when a component is destroyed their class is removed from the array inside the components record list. If you have previously assigned a local reference to an external component then this reference will not be valid anymore.

An additional and safer method of obtaining a class reference of other components is using the getComponentByNode methods exposed by the component manager class.

If you have the exact node of the interested component, this function will run a search within the components object and return the class associated to that node.

typescript javascript component quick easy simple module

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