HTML Webpack Plugin
This is a webpack plugin that simplifies creation of HTML files to serve your
webpack bundles. This is especially useful for webpack bundles that include
a hash in the filename which changes every compilation. You can either let the plugin generate an HTML file for you or supply
your own template (using blueimp templates).
Installation
Install the plugin with npm:
$ npm install html-webpack-plugin --save-dev
Basic Usage
The plugin will generate an HTML5 file for you that includes all your webpack
bundles in the body using script
tags. Just add the plugin to your webpack
config as follows:
var HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin')
var webpackConfig = {
entry: 'index.js',
output: {
path: 'dist',
filename: 'index_bundle.js'
},
plugins: [new HtmlWebpackPlugin()]
}
This will generate a file dist/index.html
containing the following:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<title>Webpack App</title>
</head>
<body>
<script src="index_bundle.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
If you have multiple webpack entry points, they will all be included with script
tags in the generated HTML.
Configuration
You can pass a hash of configuration options to HtmlWebpackPlugin
.
Allowed values are as follows:
title
: The title to use for the generated HTML document.filename
: The file to write the HTML to. Defaults to index.html
.
You can specify a subdirectory here too (eg: assets/admin.html
).
Here's an example webpack config illustrating how to use these options:
{
entry: 'index.js',
output: {
path: 'dist',
filename: 'index_bundle.js'
},
plugins: [
new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
title: 'My App',
filename 'assets/admin.html'
})
]
}
Generating Multiple HTML Files
To generate more than one HTML file, declare the plugin more than
once in your plugins array:
{
entry: 'index.js',
output: {
path: 'dist',
filename: 'index_bundle.js'
},
plugins: [
new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
filename: 'test.html',
template: 'src/assets/test.html'
})
]
}
Writing Your Own Templates
If the default generated HTML doesn't meet your needs you can supply
your own blueimp template.
The default template
is a good starting point for writing your own.
Let's say for example you wanted to put a webpack bundle into the head of your
HTML as well as the body. Your template might look like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<title>My App</title>
<script src="{%=o.htmlWebpackPlugin.assets.head%}"></script>
</head>
<body>
<script src="{%=o.htmlWebpackPlugin.assets.main%}"></script>
</body>
</html>
To use this template, configure the plugin like this:
{
entry: 'index.js',
output: {
path: 'dist',
filename: 'index_bundle.js'
},
plugins: [
new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
template: 'src/assets/my_template.html'
})
]
}
The o
variable in the template is the data that is passed in when the
template is rendered. This variable has the following attributes:
-
htmlWebpackPlugin
: data specific to this plugin
-
htmlWebpackPlugin.assets
: a massaged representation of the
assetsByChunkName
attribute of webpack's stats
object. It contains a mapping from entry point name to the bundle filename, eg:
"htmlWebpackPlugin": {
"assets": {
"head": "assets/head_bundle.js",
"main": "assets/main_bundle.js"
}
}
If you've set a publicPath in your webpack config this will be reflected
correctly in this assets hash.
-
htmlWebpackPlugin.options
: the options hash that was passed to
the plugin. In addition to the options actually used by this plugin,
you can use this hash to pass arbitrary data through to your template.
-
webpack
: the webpack stats
object. Note that this is the stats object as it was at the time the HTML template
was emitted and as such may not have the full set of stats that are available
after the wepback run is complete.