@frontmeans/drek

Document Render Kit

A kit of conventional tools for coordinated DOM manipulation.

Rendering Context

The kit attaches and maintains a DOM rendering context for document nodes.

The rendering context serves several purposes:

• Provides a render scheduler suitable for performant DOM manipulations.
• Provides a namespace aliaser.
• Provides a settlement phase of rendering. A DOM node (e.g. custom element) may use to perform custom actions before it is added to the document.
• Notifies when node added (connected) to document.

The rendering context of particular DOM node may be obtained using drekContextOf function.

There are three kinds of rendering contexts:

• Document rendering context.

  Such context is always available in document and returned by drekContextOf function for any DOM node connected to the document.

• Fragment content rendering context.

  It is created for each rendered fragment and is available via DrekFragment.innerContext property. The drekContextOf function returns this context for fragment's content, as well as for each DOM node added to it.

• Unrooted rendering context.

  When a DOM node is neither connected to a document, nor part of a rendered fragment's content, the drekContextOf function creates an unrooted context for the root node of that node.

  Unrooted context tracks a document connection and settlement semi-automatically. A DrekContext.lift method can be used to forcibly update them.

  Semi-automatic tracking means that each time an unrooted context created, it is registered for automatic lifting. The lifting happens either asynchronously, or synchronously right before the drekBuild function exit.

  Alternatively, a drekLift function can be used to lift a context of the root node after adding it to another one.

Rendered Fragment

A DrekFragment is a fragment of DOM tree, which content is to be placed to the document once rendered.

The content of rendered fragment is a DocumentFragment.

The rendered fragment provides a separate rendering context for its content nodes. The latter informs content nodes when they are added to document. It also establishes a settlement phase for them.

import { drekAppender, drekContextOf, DrekFragment } from '@frontmeans/drek';

// A fragment appended to document body once rendered.
// Another rendering target can be specified. E.g. it may be another fragment.
const fragment = new DrekTarget(drekAppender(document.body));

// Render content.
render(fragment.content);

fragment.whenRendered(() => {
  // This is called when content is fully rendered and added to the target.
});

// Await for content to be rendered, then add it to the target.
fragment.render();

function render(content: Node): void {
  // Render some content.
  // The renderer don't have to be aware of the rendering target.
  // It can either render directly to the document or add to document fragment.
  const context = drekContextOf(content);

  // Schedule DOM manipulations.
  // The scheduler utilizes `requestAnimationFrame` when adding to the document directly,
  // but when adding to the fragment the rendering is immediate.
  context.scheduler()(() => {
    content.append('rendered content');
  });

  context.whenConnected(() => {
    // This is called when content nodes added to the document.
    // If the rendering target is another fragment, this will be called only when the target fragment's content,
    // in turn, added to the document.
  });
}

Settlement Phase

A settlement phase is designed primarily for custom elements.

A custom element rendering consists of two main phases:

• Element construction (either during upgrade or by document.createElement call).
• Element connection to document with connectedCallback.

An element constructor can not manipulate DOM tree. So typically, the DOM manipulations happen inside connectedCallback. This, however, is a source of potential performance issues, as connectedCallback is called only after the element is added to document, while custom element rendering may be slow. E.g. when a custom element renders nested ones.

The better approach would be to render custom elements to DocumentFragment and then add the fully rendered fragment to the document.

This requires an additional settlement callback that is available via rendering context. An event is sent by DrekFragment.settle method. A custom element may receive this event via DrekContext.whenSettled method and start rendering right away, before it is added to the document.

Here is a usage example.

import { drekAppender, drekContextOf, DrekFragment } from '@frontmeans/drek';

const fragment = new DrekTarget(drekAppender(document.body));

// Render content.
render(fragment.content);

// Settle content.
fragment.settle();

// Await for content to be rendered, then add it to the target.
// This also settles the content
fragment.render();

function render(content: Node): void {
  // ...render some content.

  const context = drekContextOf(content);

  context.scheduler()(() => {
    const indicator = content.appendChild(document.createElement('div'));

    context.whenSettled(() => {
      // This is called after `fragment.settle()` call.
      // If the `fragment.settle()` is not called, then this is called when the content is added to the document,
      // just like a `context.whenConnected()` callback.
      indicator.innerText = `Settled at ${new Date().toISOString()}`;
    });
  });
}

Rendering Target

A rendering target (DrekTarget) represents a part of the DOM tree to place the rendered content to.

There are several convenient target implementations available:

• drekAppender - Creates a rendering target that appends content to parent node.

• drekCharger - Creates a rendering target that charges rendered content prior to placing it to another target.

  By default, encloses the rendered content into comments. The ongoing content updates replace the nodes between comments thus making the updated content occupy the same place.

• drekInserter - Creates a rendering target that inserts content to parent node at particular position.

• drekReplacer - Creates a rendering target that replaces content of the given node.

Miscellaneous

A DrekCssClasses is an accessor to CSS classes of some element. With it, element's CSS classes can be manipulated concurrently in a safe manner. E.g. multiple parties may add and remove CSS classes to the same element, even if the class names are the same.