Web Components
Download as PPTX, PDF0 likes1,407 views
Web Components are an attempt to create custom, reusable components that can be used in HTML markup. They utilize several emerging web standards including Shadow DOM for encapsulation, templates for reusability, and custom elements for defining new elements. While not fully supported yet, libraries like Polymer allow using web components today through polyfills to bring these capabilities to more browsers. The document discusses how web components work and provides examples of their usage.
Web Components
- 1. Web Components Jeff Tapper Digital Primates @jefftapper / @digitalprimates
- 2. Who am I? • Senior Consultant at Digital Primates – Building next generation client applications • Developing Internet applications for 19 years • Author of 12 books on Internet technologies
- 3. Who are you?
- 4. What are Web Components? Web Components are an attempt to let you write custom components that can be used like this: <body> Sales:<br> <my-super-cool-chart id="coolChart"> </ my-super-cool-chart > </body>
- 5. What is Polymer? A library built on top of Web Components. Allows us to use Web Components today in modern browsers which don’t yet support Web Components 3 main pieces • A set of polyfills • Web application framework • Set of UI components
- 6. What are we covering? Web Components, specifically: What in the world are web components? What problem are they trying to solve? How do they work? Can I actually use these things? What does it mean to my app/development process?
- 7. Life on the Edge Web Components are beyond leading edge. As of this moment, they do not work in their entirety in any browser A good portion of the functionality is available in Chrome Canary if you turn on all of the experimental WebKit and JavaScript features
- 8. So, is it real? Even though Web Components are not fully supported in any browser, and are only partially supported in some browsers, Polymer and Polyfills allow use in many modern browsers today
- 9. Where can I use this today?
- 10. So why do I care? A few minor reasons you may like the idea, first: Encapsulation • Manageable Reuse • Hiding complexity and implementation • Dealing with duplicated IDs • Dealing with CSS scoping / propagation Ease of Distribution Appropriate technology choices • Markup in markup, not in code
- 11. How does it work? Web Components are a series of editors draft specifications: • Shadow DOM – http://w3c.github.io/webcomponents/spec/shadow/ • Custom Elements – http://w3c.github.io/webcomponents/spec/custom/ • HTML Imports – http://w3c.github.io/webcomponents/spec/imports/
- 12. Example Application • Let’s look at a sample application built using a series of Web Components • Combination of custom components, and those provided by the polymer-project
- 13. Templates The concept of templates is prolific and nearly self-explanatory. Their use takes a bit more effort: Inactive DOM Fragment Easily Clone-able Easily Change-able
- 14. Built In Templates You define them with the template element <template id="productTemplate"> <div> <img src=""> <div class="name"></div> <div class="description"></div> </div> </template> This is parsed but it’s not active. It’s not rendered.
- 15. Shadow DOM Shadow DOM is at the heart of the whole component concepts It’s encapsulation Its used by the browsers today to implement their own controls Ultimately its about hiding implementation details and exposing an interface
- 16. Shadow DOM The name and the technical explanation sometimes get in the way of the concept. Put simply, the user sees this: Photo by Photo by: Mark Kaelin/TechRepublic
- 17. Shadow DOM The browser sees this: Photo by Photo by: Mark Kaelin/TechRepublic
- 18. Shadow Host/Root
- 19. Rendering
- 20. Styles The Shadow also forms a boundary. Styles don’t cross unless you let them. So you to keep control of this area
- 21. Styles This, by default, goes both ways… meaning we aren’t worried about collisions. Outside styles don’t affect shadow content Styles defined in here are scoped locally
- 22. HTML Imports • HTML imports are about importing and sharing HTML content. • Why? Well, reuse, it facilitates the reuse of templates and provides us a fundamental need if we are going to share an encapsulated chunk we might call a component. • <link rel="import" href="goodies.html">
- 23. HTML Imports • Last word on this… • Imports aren’t supported pretty much anywhere yet, however, there are polyfills. • Imports are blocking. So, your page will act as though it needs this content before it can render.
- 24. Custom Elements • Elements are the key to putting this together. • Custom Elements are DOM elements that can be defined by a developer. • They are allowed to manage state and provide a scriptable interface. • In other words, they are the shell of what will become our component
- 25. Custom Elements • Defining a custom element like this: <polymer-element extends="button" name="fancy-button"> </polymer-element> • Allows you to use that custom element in your own markup: <div> <fancy-button></fancy-button> </div>
- 26. Custom Elements • You can use the concepts we previously discussed, templates, Shadow DOM, etc. from within a custom element. • Further, custom elements give you a set of Lifecycle callbacks so you can know things like when you are inserted into the DOM, removed and ready. • This means you can define the visual aspects of a custom element in mark up and the code in script.
- 27. Resources • http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebComponents/ • http://www.polymer-project.org/ • @polymer – officical twitter of the polymer project • @digitalprimates • @jefftapper