What is @storybook/preview-api?
The @storybook/preview-api package is part of the Storybook ecosystem, which is a tool for developing UI components in isolation for React, Vue, Angular, and more. This package provides APIs to interact with the Storybook preview, allowing developers to control the rendering of stories, listen to events, and manipulate the state of the Storybook UI.
What are @storybook/preview-api's main functionalities?
Fetching and rendering stories
This feature allows developers to fetch story data by ID and render it using a custom component or utility.
import { useStorybookApi } from '@storybook/api';
function MyComponent() {
const api = useStorybookApi();
const story = api.getData('some-story-id');
return <StoryRenderer story={story} />;
}
Listening to Storybook events
This feature enables components to listen to Storybook-specific events and react accordingly, as well as emit events to the Storybook environment.
import { useEffect } from 'react';
import { useChannel } from '@storybook/api';
function MyComponent() {
const emit = useChannel({
'storybook/my-event': (eventData) => {
console.log('Event data:', eventData);
}
});
useEffect(() => {
emit('storybook/my-event', { payload: 'data' });
}, [emit]);
return <div>Check the console for event data.</div>;
}
Manipulating the Storybook UI
Developers can use this feature to programmatically control the Storybook UI, such as changing the current story displayed.
import { addons } from '@storybook/addons';
addons.setChannel(new Channel({ transport: new PostmsgTransport({ key: 'iframe-key' }) }));
addons.getChannel().emit('setCurrentStory', { storyId: 'some-story-id' });
Other packages similar to @storybook/preview-api
@storybook/addon-actions
This package allows developers to create callbacks that appear in the actions panel of the Storybook UI when clicked. It is similar to @storybook/preview-api in that it enhances the Storybook development experience but focuses on actions rather than preview functionality.
@storybook/addon-links
This package provides a way to create links between stories. It is similar to @storybook/preview-api in that it interacts with the Storybook UI, but it specifically focuses on linking stories together rather than providing a general API for preview manipulation.
@storybook/addon-storysource
This addon shows the source of the story next to the story itself. While it enhances the Storybook experience by providing source code context, it does not offer an API for controlling the preview like @storybook/preview-api does.
7.0.0-beta.0 (December 8, 2022)
We made it to beta, folks! 🎉
SB7 overhauls our build architecture, modernizes our output to ESM only, promotes Vite to a first-class peer to Webpack, rethinks our Docs addon, cleans up the UI, and contains hundreds of improvements at every level of the stack. We've been sharing some of these changes on the Storybook blog and will share more over the coming weeks.
Beta means that we don't have any more major changes on the radar for 7.0 and it's mostly stabilization from here on out. The core team is doing some basic testing now, and once we have a good QA plan, we'd love your help to make that happen. Please keep an eye out on the blog and on our Twitter or Mastadon (coming soon!) or Discord if you're interested in helping.
Bug Fixes
- Extend Angular Zone.js peer dependency range #20107
- Vite: Fix static source handling for addon-docs #20147
- Controls: Arrow keys don't work on number controls #19954