Boolean Conditional Loading

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StealJS.guides.boolean_conditional_loading  

StealJS supports conditional module loading through the steal-conditional extension; 2 types of conditionals are currently supported, string substitution and boolean.

In this guide, we'll build a small demo that uses the boolean conditional syntax to import a Custom Elements V1 polyfill only when the host browser doesn't support it natively.

Install Prerequisites

Window Setup

  1. Install NodeJS.
  2. Install Chocolatey, Python, Windows SDK, and Visual Studio as described here.

Linux / Mac Setup

  1. Install NodeJS.

Setting up a new project

Create a new project folder

Create a new folder for your project and then run npm init. Answer all questions with their defaults.

> mkdir boolean-demo
> cd boolean-demo
> npm init

Create and host the main page

Create index.html with:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head></head>
  <body>
    Hello World!
  </body>
</html>

Next install and run a local fileserver. http-server handles our basic needs. We'll install it locally and then and it to our npm scripts:

> npm install http-server --save

Next edit your package.json so that the start script looks like:

"scripts": {
  "start": "http-server -c-1"
}

This allows us to start the server with:

> npm start

Open http://127.0.0.1:8080/. You should see the Hello world! test.

Before proceeding kill the development server so we can install some dependencies. Use cmd+c on Mac or ctrl+c on Windows or Linux/BSD.

Install the application dependencies

Installing these dependencies gives us everything we need to build our application.

> npm install document-register-element --save-dev
> npm install steal steal-tools steal-conditional --save-dev

Set up polyfill and steal-conditional

Next we need to make sure the right modules are loaded, first edit your package.json with the following:

{
  "name": "boolean-demo",
  "steal": {
    "paths": {
      "document-register-element": "./node_modules/document-register-element/build/document-register-element.js"
    }
  }
}

We are using StealJS' paths configuration to make sure the browser version of the polyfill is loaded.

Then, we configure StealJS to load the steal-conditional extension as a configuration dependency; in your package.json add the following:

{
  "name": "boolean-demo",
  "steal": {
    "paths": { ... },
    "configDependencies": [
      "./node_modules/steal-conditional/conditional.js"
    ]
  }
}

Now restart your server; you can keep it on while you develop the rest of the application.

> npm start

Import your first module

Create the module

Create index.js with the following:

import "document-register-element";

function MyElement() {
  return Reflect.construct(HTMLElement, arguments, MyElement);
}

MyElement.prototype = Object.create(HTMLElement.prototype);
MyElement.prototype.constructor = MyElement;

MyElement.prototype.connectedCallback = function() {
  this.appendChild(this._makeLinkElement());
};

MyElement.prototype._makeLinkElement = function() {
  let link = document.createElement("a");

  link.href = this.getAttribute("url");
  link.appendChild(this._makeFigureElement());

  return link;
};

MyElement.prototype._makeFigureElement = function() {
  let figure = document.createElement("figure");

  figure.appendChild(this._makeImageElement());
  figure.appendChild(this._makeCaptionElement());

  return figure;
};

MyElement.prototype._makeImageElement = function() {
  let img = document.createElement("img");

  img.alt = this.getAttribute("name");
  img.src = this.getAttribute("img-url");

  return img;
};

MyElement.prototype._makeCaptionElement = function() {
  let caption = document.createElement("figcaption");

  caption.innerText = this.getAttribute("caption");
  return caption;
};

customElements.define("my-element", MyElement);

Yikes! that's a lot of code there! But bear with me, let's break it up in smaller pieces and figure out what's going on:

import "document-register-element";

function MyElement() {
  return Reflect.construct(HTMLElement, arguments, MyElement);
}

MyElement.prototype = Object.create(HTMLElement.prototype);
MyElement.prototype.constructor = MyElement;

First, we import the polyfill, notice we are using the regular import syntax here, we'll change it in a moment to use the steal-conditional boolean syntax; the rest of the code is defining the custom element constructor function.

Next, we define the connectedCallback function:

MyElement.prototype.connectedCallback = function() {
  this.appendChild(this._makeLinkElement());
};

the connectedCallback function is called every time the element is inserted into the DOM.

The following functions with _ in their names (e.g: _makeLinkElement) are used during rendering and the naming choice is to indicate that these are private methods that shouldn't be used by the custom element's consumer.

Finally, and probably the most interesting piece of the code:

customElements.define("my-element", MyElement);

This is where the custom element is actually defined, and the whole reason why we might need to load the polyfill.

Use steal.js in your page

Update index.html with:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head></head>
  <body>
    <script src="./node_modules/steal/steal.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

Add custom element to your page

Next, add the custom element to the index.html page:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head></head>
  <body>
    <my-element
      name="DoneJS"
      url="https://donejs.com/"
      caption="Your App. Done."
      img-url="http://donejs.com/static/img/donejs-logo-white.svg"
    >
    </my-element>
    <script src="./node_modules/steal/steal.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

Reload index.html to see your changes.

Use steal-conditional boolean syntax

One issue with our current code is that the polyfill is loaded every time, even when the browser already supports the Custom Elements V1 api. We cannot afford wasting precious time and resources to download code that's not needed.

The goal here is to detect whether the browser already supports the feature and only load the polyfill when it's needed.

The boolean conditional syntax

Let's change the import in index.js to look like this:

import "document-register-element#?needs-polyfill";

This should look a little bit weird to you, if it doesn't, you might want to read this article first.

The part before the #? is the polyfill package name we had before, the interesting bit is the text after; needs-polyfill is a module name, the steal-conditional extension will load it first and grab its default export; if the value is not a boolean it will throw an error, otherwise document-register-element will only be loaded if the value is true.

It is also possible to negate conditionals via:

import "document-register-element#?~supports-custom-elements";

See steal-conditional's README for more details.

Create the condition module

Create needs-polyfill.js with:

export default typeof customElements === "undefined";

Reload index.html to see your changes.

screen shot 2017-01-04 at 15 24 17

In the screenshot above, there is Chrome on the left (Version 55.0.2883.95) and Firefox on the right (Version 50.0.2), highlighted on blue is the request of the condition module which happens on both browsers, in our example that's the needs-polyfill module, then highlighted on red is the request to load the polyfill which only happens in Firefox which (for the tested version) doesn't support the Custom Elements V1 api.

Build a production app

Now that we've created our application we need to share it with the public. To do this we'll create a build that will concat our JavaScript and styles down to only one file, each, for faster page loads in production.

Build the app and switch to production

When we first installed our initial dependencies for myhub, one of those was steal-tools. steal-tools is a set of tools that helps with bundling assets for production use.

In your package.json "scripts" section add:

{
  "scripts": {
    ...
    "build": "steal-tools"
  }
}

And then you can run:

> npm run build

To use the production artifacts rather than the development files we need to update our index.html to load them.

Update index.html with:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head></head>
  <body>
    <my-element
      name="DoneJS"
      url="https://donejs.com/"
      caption="Your App. Done."
      img-url="http://donejs.com/static/img/donejs-logo-white.svg"
    >
    </my-element>
    <script src="./dist/steal.production.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

By using steal.production.js instead of steal.js StealJS will know to load the production files we just built.

A bundle for each conditional module

During the build, steal-tools will create separate bundles for each conditionally loaded module, this way only browsers without support will get the penalty of downloading and parsing the polyfill code.

If we take a look at the artifacts created during the build process

screen shot 2017-01-04 at 16 13 00

We can see (the red hightlighted box) the bundle created for the document-register-element polyfill module.

If we reload index.html and inspect the network tab, we'll notice that the polyfill bundle is only loaded in Firefox.

screen shot 2017-01-04 at 18 24 40

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