@siakvc/vue-custom-element

Table of content

• Demo
• Installation
• Description
• Example
• Browsers support
• Options
• How does it work?
• Testing
• Caveats

Demo

You can check Vue-custom-element demos at https://karol-f.github.io/vue-custom-element/

Installation

NPM

npm install vue-custom-element --save

import vueCustomElement from 'vue-custom-element'

Vue.use(vueCustomElement);

Direct include

If you are using Vue globally, just include vue-custom-element.js and it will automatically install the Vue.customElement method.

<script src="path/to/vue-custom-element.js"></script>

Optional polyfill

For cross-browser compatibility (IE9+) use Custom Elements polyfill.

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/document-register-element/1.4.1/document-register-element.js"></script>

or

import 'document-register-element/build/document-register-element';

Description

Vue-custom-element is a tiny wrapper around Vue components. It provide seamless way to use it in HTML, plain JavaScript, Vue, React, Angular etc., without manually initialising Vue. It's using power of Web Components' Custom Elements.

• Works with Vue 0.12.x, 1.x and 2.x
• Small - 2.5 kb min+gzip, optional polyfill - 5 kb min+gzip

Why you might need Vue-custom-element?

It might be confusing for users to understand difference between Vue components, Custom Elements and it's use cases.

Why you might need Vue-custom-element? Simply, for your Vue components user's convinience. All they would need to do is include your JavaScript file and then they can:

• include HTML tag (e.g. <my-component><my-component />) in any time of document lifecycle. You can use your elements in e.g. SPA application just by including HTML tag - no Vue initialization or JavaScript usage is needed. Custom Elements will auto initialize when mounted into document. You can include them in e.g. Vue, Angular or React projects and browser will take care of detecting it and initialization
• use simple API that allows for interacting with underlaying Vue instance by changing attributes, props or listening to events
• take advantage of features like lazy-loading, that allows for loading components on demand, only when user add them to document

Features

• Simplicity - only tag-name and Vue component object is needed for Vue.customElement() usage
• Compatibility - using optional polyfill we can support wide range of browsers, including IE9+, Android and IOS
• Full featured - you can use nesting, HMR, slots, lazy-loading, native Custom Elements callbacks.
  • reactive props and HTML attributes
  • automatic props casting (numbers, booleans) so they won't be available as strings but proper data types
  • listening to Vue component $emit'ed events
  • 'default' and 'named' slots are available for passing static content, check demo for example
  • Hot Module Replacement for seamless developer experience (unminimized build, Vue 2.x+)
  • lazy-loading - you can download component after it's attached to document. Useful for e.g. UI library authors. Check demo for example
  • detecting if detached callback is not invoked due to opening vue-custom-element in modal - element is then detached and attached to DOM again. It would be undesirable to destroy it immediately
• Custom Elements v1 - compatible with latest specification. Vue-custom-element will use native implementation if supported

Check demos site to see it in action.

Example

For additional examples and detailed description check the demos page.

Custom Element HTML

<widget-vue prop1="1" prop2="string" prop3="true"></widget-vue>

JavaScript - register with Vue-custom-element

Vue.customElement('widget-vue', {
  props: [
    'prop1',
    'prop2',
    'prop3'
  ],
  data: {
    message: 'Hello Vue!'
  },
  template: '<p>{{ message }}, {{ prop1  }}, {{prop2}}, {{prop3}}</p>'
});

JavaScript - element API usage

document.querySelector('widget-vue')[0].prop2 // get prop value
document.querySelector('widget-vue')[0].prop2 = 'another string' // set prop value

You can also change <widget-vue> HTML attributes and changes will be instantly reflected.

Browsers support

Firefox	Chrome	Safari	Opera	iOS	Android
behind --flag	54+	10.1+	42+	10.3+	55+

Custom Elements v1 support

With optional polyfill

IE / Edge	Firefox	Chrome	Safari	Opera	iOS	Android
IE9+, Edge	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓

Options

Additional, optional, third parameter to Vue.customElement() is options object. You can pass following methods.

'This' in callbacks points to Custom Element's DOM Node.

{
  // 'constructorCallback' can be triggered multiple times when e.g. vue-router is used
  constructorCallback() {
      console.info('constructorCallback', this);
  },

  // element is mounted/inserted into document
  connectedCallback() {
    console.info('connectedCallback', this);
  },

  // element is removed from document
  disconnectedCallback() {
    console.warn('disconnectedCallback', this);
  },

  // one of element's attributes (Vue instance props) is changed 
  attributeChangedCallback(name, oldValue, value) {
    console.info('attributeChangedCallback', name, oldValue, value);
  },
  
  // in case of using vue-custom-element with modals, we destroy  it after defined timeout
  destroyTimeout: 3000,
  
  // only needed when using lazy-loading - 'props' are not accessible on Custom Element registration so we have to provide them
  props: [],

  // you can set shadow root for element. Only works if native implementation is available.
  shadow: false,
  
  // you can set CSS that will be available in Shadow DOM.
  shadowCss: ''
}

Example options usage:

import MyElement from './MyElement.vue';

Vue.customElement('my-element', MyElement, {
  shadow: true,
  shadowCss: `
  .card {
     background-color: blue;
  }`
});

Callbacks are executed before lifecycle hooks from Vue component passed to Vue-custom-element. It's better idea just to use Vue component lifecycle hooks (e.g. created, mounted, beforeDestroy).

How does it work?

Inside HTML tag of defined custom element, Vue-custom-element will create:

• Proxy component for seamless Hot Module Replacement, using render function for performance (Vue 2.x+)
• Vue component passed to Vue-custom-element

Custom Element HTML tag will expose API to interact with underlying Vue component - you can change HTML attributes or props, using JavaScript.

Testing

For advanced access, when exposed API is not enough, defined custom element will expose Vue instance via __vue_custom_element__ prop.

console.info(document.querySelector('widget-vue').__vue_custom_element__)

Caveats

• custom elements must contain a hyphen in its tag name. For example, my-element is valid, but myelement is not
• in dev mode Vue will display console warning about element not being registered. It's desirable behaviour as we want to use browser's Custom Elements registration. You can use https://vuejs.org/v2/api/#ignoredElements to get rid of this warnings.

Contribute

Developement

npm install
npm run dev:demo

Release

npm run build

This command will compile vue-custom-element.js and docs files.

Please take a note that npm run build will use config.build.assetsPublicPath, which is set to Github Pages path in config/index.js.

License

MIT