What is @storybook/react?
@storybook/react is a development environment for UI components. It allows developers to create components independently and showcase components interactively in an isolated development environment. Storybook helps in building UI components in isolation from the business logic and context of the app, which makes it easier to develop hard-to-reach states and edge cases.
What are @storybook/react's main functionalities?
Component Story Format (CSF)
CSF is an ES Module-based standard for defining component examples. This format is simple and portable. Developers can write their component stories in plain JavaScript objects.
import React from 'react';
import { Button } from './Button';
export default {
title: 'Example/Button',
component: Button,
};
const Template = (args) => <Button {...args} />;
export const Primary = Template.bind({});
Primary.args = {
primary: true,
label: 'Button',
};
Addons
Addons are essentially plugins that extend Storybook's core functionalities. With addons, developers can add features like knobs to dynamically change props, accessibility checks, and story source code display.
import { withKnobs, text, boolean, number } from '@storybook/addon-knobs';
export default {
title: 'Example/Button',
decorators: [withKnobs],
};
export const DynamicVariables = () => {
const name = text('Name', 'Aragon');
const age = number('Age', 30);
const content = `I am ${name} and I'm ${age} years old.`;
return <div>{content}</div>;
};
Controls
Controls give the ability to interact with a component's arguments dynamically without needing to code. It's a more robust version of the addon-knobs but built into Storybook by default.
export default {
title: 'Example/Button',
component: Button,
argTypes: {
backgroundColor: { control: 'color' },
size: {
control: { type: 'select', options: ['small', 'medium', 'large'] },
},
},
};
export const Primary = (args) => <Button {...args} />;
Primary.args = {
primary: true,
label: 'Button',
};
Other packages similar to @storybook/react
react-cosmos
React Cosmos is a development tool for creating reusable React components. It scans your project for components and enables you to render components with any context or state. Compared to @storybook/react, React Cosmos focuses more on the component's lifecycle and state rather than the component's variations.
docz
Docz leverages MDX files to help you document your components easily. It's more focused on documentation than interactive development. Unlike @storybook/react, Docz provides a more straightforward approach to documenting components using markdown, but it lacks some of the interactive development features that Storybook offers.
8.2.0
Hold onto your hats! Storybook 8.2 has dropped, packed with a treasure trove of new features and bug fixes:
- 🪝 New test hook
beforeAll
- 🕹️ Enhanced
play
function - 📦 Portable stories that let you use your stories in other testing tools
- 🎁 Consolidated dependency to bring you better performance in a smaller package
- ✨ Brand new onboarding experience to get you up to speed quicker
- 💯 Hundreds more improvements
<details>
<summary>List of all updates</summary>
- Addon Controls: Fix saving on Windows - #28485, thanks @ghengeveld!
- Addon Interactions: Use unique keys when rendering array nodes in panel - #28423, thanks @yannbf!
- Addon Onboarding: Add icons for dev/test/doc to the splash screen - #28389, thanks @ghengeveld!
- Addon Onboarding: New design and flow based on Save from Controls - #28327, thanks @ghengeveld!
- Addon Onboarding: Trigger onboarding during init for Vue and Angular projects - #28482, thanks @ghengeveld!
- Addon-A11y: Fix property default assignment - #27224, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Angular: Allow format configuration of custom source preview - #28305, thanks @64BitAsura!
- Angular: Allow outputPath object syntax - #28144, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Angular: Cleanup types - #27189, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Angular: Fix enableProdMode setting - #28415, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Angular: Fix wrong detection of standalone components - #27353, thanks @dario-baumberger!
- Angular: Introduce preserveSymlink builder option - #28145, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Angular: Update outputPath default value in angular-cli-webpack.js - #28418, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Babel: Ensure story files not transpiled earlier than ES2017 - #28469, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Blocks: Fix reference to storybook core - #28422, thanks @yannbf!
- Blocks: Prebundle
tocbot
- #28318, thanks @shilman! - Build: Change require/import order, so that import has higher prio if both are specified - #27730, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Build: Ignore ts stories in cra/default-js sandbox - #28354, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- CLI: Add
--no-dev
option to init
- #26918, thanks @fastfrwrd! - CLI: Add optional
--dev
and --no-dev
options to storybook init
CLI - #26918, thanks @fastfrwrd! - CLI: Add support for Nuxt to project init - #26884, thanks @tobiasdiez!
- CLI: Fix CLI always asking all automigrations - #28238, thanks @ndelangen!
- CLI: Improve error message when fetching CLI version - #28289, thanks @yannbf!
- CLI: Include
@storybook/addon-svelte-csf
when initializing new projects - #27070, thanks @benmccann! - CLI: Prebundle get-npm-tarball-url and @ndelangen/get-tarball - #28481, thanks @ndelangen!
- Config: Apply JavaScript-only story glob extensions for JavaScript projects - #28338, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Controls: Fix date picker control validation and assignment - #26695, thanks @leeovictor!
- Controls: Fix grouped Radio controls to have the same name - #23374, thanks @srapilly!
- Controls: Throttling makes Color control lagging - #22615, thanks @gitstart!
- Core: Add context as a property of the context (self-referencing) - #28353, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Core: Add support for
beforeAll
hook - #28255, thanks @ghengeveld! - Core: Fix startup hang caused by watchStorySpecifiers - #27016, thanks @heyimalex!
- Core: Make sure StorybookError message shows up in browser console and interactions panel - #28464, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Core: Migrate from
pkg-dir
to fd-package-json
- #28270, thanks @43081j! - Core: Refactor phases to run in order
loading
-> rendering
-> playing
- #28431, thanks @kasperpeulen! - Core: Remove more
.stories.mdx
handling - #25973, thanks @JReinhold! - Core: Remove util dependency - #28191, thanks @43081j!
- CPC: Add
CJS
for core/components
- #28440, thanks @ndelangen! - CPC: Core Package Consolidation - #27039, thanks @ndelangen!
- CSF: Automatically extract componentPath - #24396, thanks @shilman!
- CSF: Rename
preview.js
globals
to initialGlobals
- #27517, thanks @shilman! - Dependencies: Allow esbuild version 0.21.x - #28245, thanks @edoardocavazza!
- Dependency: bump
markdown-to-jsx
to v7.4.5 - #26694, thanks @xyy94813! - Dependency: Bump Express.js - #26680, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Dependency: Remove node-fetch - #28160, thanks @yk-kd!
- Dependency: Upgrade
webpack-virtual-modules
to 0.6.0 - #27102, thanks @fyodorovandrei! - Deps: Migrate from
read-pkg-up
to fd-package-json
- #28272, thanks @43081j! - Docs-tools: Replace
doctrine
with jsdoc-type-pratt-parser
- #26305, thanks @43081j! - Docs: Filter mount stories from
Stories
block, error when referenced in MDX - #28434, thanks @kasperpeulen! - Docs: Fix
Typeset
Doc block fontSizes
type - #26475, thanks @noranda! - Index: Fix MDX to override project-level autodocs - #28461, thanks @shilman!
- Indexer: Improve locating stories with specials chars in path - #22110, thanks @jankoritak!
- Next: Set default targets for next babel config - #28443, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Next.js: Set
env.bugfixes
in SWC so destructuring is never transpiled - #28363, thanks @kasperpeulen! - React: Export ButtonProps and HeaderProps in CLI templates - #28487, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- SWC: Set default targets for swc that align with our esbuild targets - #28435, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Telemetry: Stop prompting about crash reports in CI - #28433, thanks @yannbf!
- Test: Add args to
mount
in react, svelte, and vue renderers - #28385, thanks @kasperpeulen! - Test: Add mount property to the story context - #28383, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Test: Enhance the context with canvas when the test package is used - #28368, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Test: Improve MountMustBeDestructuredError error message - #28468, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Test: Reactive spies preserve the this instance - #28445, thanks @kasperpeulen!
- Types: Fix type implementation for
CompatibleString
- #27180, thanks @sni-J! - Vite: Fix asset warning by externalizing sb-common-assets font - #27110, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
- Vue3: Enable new hydration mismatch compile time flag - #27192, thanks @Cherry!
- Webpack5/Vite: Fix sourcemaps - #27171, thanks @valentinpalkovic!
</details>