Sapper Takeshape Example

Using TakeShape with Sapper

Tutorial: Using TakeShape with Sapper

Quickstart

1. Use the Deploy to TakeShape button to create the project in TakeShape.

2. Set up and run the client application

   1. git clone https://github.com/lelouchB/sapper-takeshape-example && cd sapper-takeshape-example
   2. npm install - This will install all dependencies

3. Add your TakeShape project's id and API key to .env file.

TAKESHAPE_API_KEY=
TAKESHAPE_PROJECT=

4. Run the development server:

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 with your browser to see the result.

Directory structure

Sapper expects to find two directories in the root of your project — src and static.

src

The src directory contains the entry points for your app — client.js, server.js and (optionally) a service-worker.js — along with a template.html file and a routes directory.

src/routes

This is the heart of your Sapper app. There are two kinds of routes — pages, and server routes.

Pages are Svelte components written in .svelte files. When a user first visits the application, they will be served a server-rendered version of the route in question, plus some JavaScript that 'hydrates' the page and initialises a client-side router. From that point forward, navigating to other pages is handled entirely on the client for a fast, app-like feel. (Sapper will preload and cache the code for these subsequent pages, so that navigation is instantaneous.)

Server routes are modules written in .js files, that export functions corresponding to HTTP methods. Each function receives Express request and response objects as arguments, plus a next function. This is useful for creating a JSON API, for example.

There are three simple rules for naming the files that define your routes:

• A file called src/routes/about.svelte corresponds to the /about route. A file called src/routes/blog/[slug].svelte corresponds to the /blog/:slug route, in which case params.slug is available to the route
• The file src/routes/index.svelte (or src/routes/index.js) corresponds to the root of your app. src/routes/about/index.svelte is treated the same as src/routes/about.svelte.
• Files and directories with a leading underscore do not create routes. This allows you to colocate helper modules and components with the routes that depend on them — for example you could have a file called src/routes/_helpers/datetime.js and it would not create a /_helpers/datetime route.

src/node_modules/images

Images added to src/node_modules/images can be imported into your code using import 'images/<filename>'. They will be given a dynamically generated filename containing a hash, allowing for efficient caching and serving the images on a CDN.

See index.svelte for an example.

src/node_modules/@sapper

This directory is managed by Sapper and generated when building. It contains all the code you import from @sapper modules.

static

The static directory contains static assets that should be served publicly. Files in this directory will be available directly under the root URL, e.g. an image.jpg will be available as /image.jpg.

The default service-worker.js will preload and cache these files, by retrieving a list of files from the generated manifest:

import { files } from "@sapper/service-worker";

If you have static files you do not want to cache, you should exclude them from this list after importing it (and before passing it to cache.addAll).

Static files are served using sirv.

Bundler configuration

Sapper uses Rollup or webpack to provide code-splitting and dynamic imports, as well as compiling your Svelte components. With webpack, it also provides hot module reloading. As long as you don't do anything daft, you can edit the configuration files to add whatever plugins you'd like.

Production mode and deployment

To start a production version of your app, run npm run build && npm start. This will disable live reloading, and activate the appropriate bundler plugins.

You can deploy your application to any environment that supports Node 10 or above. As an example, to deploy to Vercel Now when using sapper export, run these commands:

npm install -g vercel
vercel

If your app can't be exported to a static site, you can use the now-sapper builder. You can find instructions on how to do so in its README.

Using external components

When using Svelte components installed from npm, such as @sveltejs/svelte-virtual-list, Svelte needs the original component source (rather than any precompiled JavaScript that ships with the component). This allows the component to be rendered server-side, and also keeps your client-side app smaller.

Because of that, it's essential that the bundler doesn't treat the package as an external dependency. You can either modify the external option under server in rollup.config.js or the externals option in webpack.config.js, or simply install the package to devDependencies rather than dependencies, which will cause it to get bundled (and therefore compiled) with your app:

npm install -D @sveltejs/svelte-virtual-list

Bugs and feedback

Sapper is in early development, and may have the odd rough edge here and there. Please be vocal over on the Sapper issue tracker.