nude-element

Nude Element

Composable web component helpers for creating reactive web components that behave just like native HTML elements.

Elements can extend NudeElement to get the nicest, most declarative syntax, or import individual mixins as helper functions and use them with any HTMLElement subclass.

Note: This is a work in progress, developed in the open. Try it and please report issues and provide feedback!

Features

• Easy reactive attribute-property reflection (props)
• Automatic dependency tracking (+ manual overrides)
• Reactive dynamic default values, just like native HTML elements (e.g. having value default to (this.min + this.max) / 2 in a slider)
• Events that can properly create oneventname attributes, just like native HTML elements
• Accessible, form associated elements with a sigle line of code

Usage

No hassle, less control: the NudeElement class

Defining your element as a subclass of NudeElement gives you the nicest, most declarative syntax.

import NudeElement from "nude-element";

class MySlider extends NudeElement {
	constructor () {
		// ...
	}

	static props = {
		min: {
			type: Number,
			default: 0,
		},
		max: {
			type: Number,
			default: 1,
		},
		step: {
			type: Number,
			default () {
				return Math.abs((this.max - this.min) / 100);
			},
		},
		defaultValue: {
			type: Number,
			default () {
				return (this.min + this.max) / 2;
			},
			reflect: {
				from: "value",
			},
		},
		value: {
			type: Number,
			defaultProp: "defaultValue",
			reflect: false,
		},
	};

	static events = {
		// Propagate event from shadow DOM element
		change: {
			from () {
				return this._el.slider;
			}
		},

		// Fire event when specific prop changes (even programmatically)
		valuechange: {
			propchange: "value",
		},
	};

	static formAssociated = {
		like: el => el._el.slider,
		role: "slider",
		valueProp: "value",
		changeEvent: "valuechange",
	};
}

More hassle, more control: Composable mixins

If Nude Element taking over your parent class seems too intrusive, you can implement the same API via one-off composable helper functions aka mixins, at the cost of handling some of the plumbing yourself.

Each mixin modifies the base class in a certain way (e.g. adds properties & methods) and returns an init function, to be called once for each element, either at the end of its constructor or when it’s first connected. This is what the example above would look like:

import {
	defineProps,
	defineEvents,
	defineFormAssociated,
} from "nude-element";

class MySlider extends HTMLElement {
	constructor () {
		// ...

		initEvents.call(this);
		initFormAssociated.call(this);
		initProps.call(this);
	}
}

let initProps = defineProps(MySlider, {
	min: {
		type: Number,
		default: 0,
	},
	max: {
		type: Number,
		default: 1,
	},
	step: {
		type: Number,
		default () {
			return Math.abs((this.max - this.min) / 100);
		},
	},
	defaultValue: {
		type: Number,
		default () {
			return (this.min + this.max) / 2;
		},
		reflect: {
			from: "value",
		},
	},
	value: {
		type: Number,
		defaultProp: "defaultValue",
		reflect: false,
	},
});

let initEvents = defineEvents(MySlider, {
	// Propagate event from shadow DOM element
	change: {
		from () {
			return this._el.slider;
		}
	},

	// Fire event when specific prop changes (even programmatically)
	valuechange: {
		propchange: "value",
	},
});

let initFormAssociated = defineFormAssociated(MySlider, {
	like: el => el._el.slider,
	role: "slider",
	valueProp: "value",
	changeEvent: "valuechange",
});

Each mixin will also look for a static initQueue property on the element class and add its init function to it if it exists, so you can make things a little easier by defining such a property. Then all you need to do is run

this.constructor.initQueue.forEach(init => init.call(this));

the first time connectedCallback is called or at the end of your constructor.

Read more:

• Using Props