@storybook/preview-api

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.

README

Preview API

TODO write proper documentation of this package

"Sub packages" README documents

This package used to be multiple packages (they have been combined into this one):

• @storybook/addons read (old) docs
• @storybook/client-api read (old) docs
• @storybook/core-client read (old) docs
• @storybook/preview-web read (old) docs
• @storybook/store read (old) docs