create-elms

Create HTML elements, set attributes, add to other elements, and return an array of DOM nodes or HTML markup in a single function call.

---

• Features
• Installation
• Examples
• Usage
• Contact
• License

---

Features

• Create elements using strings or objects
• Append, prepend, and insert elements before or after other elements
• Return an array of elements or HTML markup
• UMD and ES6 module available
• Compatible with modern and legacy browsers (IE9+)
• Compatible with Node environments using jsdom
• Lightweight (~1k min+gzip) and dependency-free

Installation

NPM:

npm install create-elms

// file.js
import createElms from 'create-elms';
const elms = createElms(/* ... */);

Git:

git clone https://github.com/jhildenbiddle/create-elms.git

CDN (jsdelivr.com shown, also on unpkg.com):

<!-- ES5 (latest v1.x.x) -->
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/create-elms@1"></script>
<script>
  var elms = createElms(/* ... */);
</script> 

<!-- ES6 module (latest v1.x.x) -->
<script type="module">
  import getCssData from 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/create-elms@1/dist/create-elms.esm.min.js';
  const elms = createElms(/* ... */);
</script> 

Examples

Render elements using strings and/or objects:

let elm, elms;
 
// Create an element from a string
elm = createElms('<p>Foo</p>'); // => [elm]
 
// ... or an object
elm = createElms({
  tag : 'p',
  text: 'Foo'
}); // => [elm]
 
// ... or multiple elements from a string
elms = createElms('<p>Foo</p><p>Bar</p><p>Baz</p>'); // => [elm, elm, elm]
 
// ... or an array of strings
elms = createElms([
  '<p>Foo</p>',
  '<p>Bar</p>',
  '<p>Baz</p>'
]); // => [elm, elm, elm]
 
// ... or an array of objects
elms = createElms([
  { tag: 'p', text: 'Foo' },
  { tag: 'p', text: 'Bar' },
  { tag: 'p', text: 'Baz' }
]); // => [elm, elm, elm]
 
// ... or an array containing strings and objects
elms = createElms([
  '<p>Foo</p>',
  '<p>Bar</p>',
  { tag: 'p', text: 'Baz' }
]); // => [elm, elm, elm]

Set per-element attributes or shared attributes:

let elm, elms;
 
// Set attributes on specific elements...
elm = createElms({
  tag : 'p',
  text: 'Foo',
  attr: { id: 'foo', class: 'myclass' }
});
 
// ... or use the 'sharedOptions' argument for multiple elementData objects
elms = createElms(
  // elementData
  [
    { text: 'Foo', attr: { id: 'foo' } },
    { text: 'Bar', attr: { id: 'bar' } },
    { text: 'Baz', attr: { id: 'baz' } }
  ],
  // sharedOptions
  {
    tag : 'p',
    attr: { class: 'myclass' }
  }
);
 
// ... or to apply options to one-or-more elementData strings
elms = createElms(
  // elementData
  [
    '<p id="foo">Foo</p>',
    '<p id="bar">Bar</p>',
    '<p id="baz">Baz</p>'
  ],
  // sharedOptions
  {
    class: 'myclass'
  }
);

Append, prepend, or insert elements:

let elm, elms;
 
// Use CSS selectors, HTMLElement(s) or Node(s)
elm = createElms({ tag: 'p', appendTo: 'body' });
elm = createElms({ tag: 'p', appendTo: document.body });
elm = createElms({ tag: 'p', appendTo: document.querySelector('body') });
elm = createElms({ tag: 'p', appendTo: document.querySelectorAll('div') });
 
// ... or an array of CSS selectors, HTMLElements, and/or Nodes
elm = createElms({
  tag     : 'p',
  appendTo: [
    'body',
    document.querySelectorAll('div')
  ]
});
 
// Specify multiple append/prepend/insert points per element
elms = createElms({
  tag         : 'p',
  appendTo    : 'body',
  prependTo   : document.body,
  insertBefore: document.querySelectorAll('div'),
  insertAfter : document.getElementsByTagName('h1')
});
 
// ... or use the 'shadedOptions' argument for multiple elements
elms = createElms(
  // elementData
  [
    '<p>Text1</p>',
    '<p>Text2</p>'
  ],
  // shadedOptions
  {
    appendTo    : 'body',
    prependTo   : document.body,
    insertBefore: document.querySelectorAll('div'),
    insertAfter : document.getElementsByTagName('h1')
  }
);

Have elements returned as HTMLElements or HTML markup:

// Return as HTML elements (default)
let elm = createElms({ tag: 'p' });
// => [elm]
 
// Return as HTML markup
let html = createElms({ tag: 'p' }, { returnHtml: true });
// => '<p></p>'

Usage

createElements(elementData, sharedOptions = {}, documentObject = window.document)

• Returns: Array
  • An array of of elements (default)
  • An array of HTML markup (when returnHtml option is true).

elementData

• Type: Object, String, or Array
  • String should be valid HTML markup
  • Object should be an HTMLElement or Node
  • Array should contain HTML markup, HTMLElements, and/or Nodes

Strings

• Strings may contain multiple elements
• Each top-level element in a string will be returned in the return Array
• Use sharedOptions to apply properties to String elementData
• If sharedOptions are used, options will be applied to all top-level elements in the string

Objects

• The html value will be inserted as HTML content
• The text value will be inserted as text content. This value is ignored if html is defined.
• The attr value should contain attribute name/value pairs
• The appendTo, prependTo, insertBefore and insertAfter properties accept a CSS selector, HTMLElement, HTMLCollection, Node, NodeList, or an Array of these Object types.

Property	Type	Description
tag	string	Element HTML tag
attr	object	Element attributes
html	string	Content to append to element(s) as HTML
text	string	Content to append to element(s) as text
appendTo	object|string	Node(s) to append element(s) to
prependTo	object|string	Node(s) to prepend element(s) to
insertBefore	object|string	Node(s) to insert element(s) before
insertAfter	object|string	Node(s) to insert element(s) after

Examples

// String
let elm1 = createElement('<p id="foo" class="myclass"><a href="/">Home</a>');
// => [elm] (top-level <p> is returned, not nested <a>)
 
// String with multiple elements
let elms1 = createElement('<p>Text1</p><p>Text2</p><p>Text3</p>');
// => [elm, elm, elm] (all top-level elements returned)
 
// Object
let elm2 = createElement({
  tag : 'p',
  html: '<a href="/">Home</a>',
  attr: { id: 'foo', class: 'myclass' }
});
// => [elm]
 
// Array of strings and/or objects
let elms = createElement([
  '<p>Text</p>',
  { tag: 'p', text: 'Text' }
]);
// => [elm, elm]

sharedOptions

• Type: Object
• Default: {}

Options are applied to all elementData with the following rules:

• When applied to an elementData Object, all options are valid.
• When applied to an elementData String, the tag property is ignored.
• Existing tags, attributes, HTML and text content will not be replaced by shared options.

Object properties

All properties from elementData plus the following:

Property	Type	Default	Description
returnHtml	Boolean	false	Return elements as array of HTML markup when true.

Example

// Return as HTML markup
let html = createElms(
  // elementData
  { tag: 'p', text: 'Text' },
  // sharedOptions
  { returnHtml: true }
);
// => '<p>Text</p>'

documentObject

• Type: Object
• Default: window.document

This is the document object on which document.createElement and document.querySelectorAll methods will be called. The default value assumes a browser environment, but passing a reference to a document object created by tools like jsdom allows creating HTML elements and markup in a Node environment (without polluting global variables).

Example

const createElms = require('create-elms');
const jsdom      = require('jsdom');
const dom        = new JSDOM();
const jsDocument = dom.window.document;
 
let elm = createElms({ tag: 'p', {}, dom.window.document)
// => [elm]
 
let html = createElms({ tag: 'p', { returnHtml: true }, dom.window.document)
// => '<p></p>'

Contact

• Create a Github issue for bug reports, feature requests, or questions
• Follow @jhildenbiddle for announcements
• Add a ⭐️ star on GitHub or ❤️ tweet to support the project!

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE for details.

Copyright (c) John Hildenbiddle (@jhildenbiddle)