Svelte Poi Starter
Svelte 3 + POI + Prettier for Web Components or Applications
A simple starter setup for Svelte 3 that outputs both web apps and web components. I use POI for bundling, which behind the scenes uses webpack. POI automates WebPack configuration so much that in some cases it is completely zero-comnfig. In the case of Svelte all we have to do is to configure svelte-loader in poi.config.js.
Packages used
- Svelte 3, because it's so cool
- POI v12 for bundling (webpack zero config automation)
- Prettier to make your code look nice and the same as everyone else's
To do:
- some kind of testing setup
Usage
npx degit pbastowski/svelte-poi-starter my-svelte-project
cd my-svelte-project
npm i
This will clone the repo, removing all git references from it, leaving a clean project for you to start from.
You will have four npm tasks to use
| Task | Description |
|---|---|
| start | Starts the webpack dev server with automatic page reloading |
| start-wc | Starts the webpack dev server in WEB Component target mode with auto page reloading |
| build | Builds your web app and puts the compiled files in the dist folder |
| build-wc | Builds a version of your app that is wrapped in a Web Component and can be distributed and used just like any other HTML tag |
| test-static | uses the serve npm package to serve the static version of your app or web component from the dist folder, allowing you to see what it would look and work like in production. Make sure to run a build or build-wc before you run this task, otherwise there will be no files to serve. |
Why output Web Components with Svelte?
Why would we want to output web components when we already have Svelte? Well, you may not care to do that yourself, but, for example, your client might be using web components for all their front end work. This setup will allow you to conform to their requirements while not going back to the basics of programming everything yourself in JavaScript.
Why not use lit-element?
lit-element it is a tiny library that basically creates new HTML tags, which you can use in your web pages. However, it does not provide all the features of a fully fledged frameworks like SvelteJs, VueJs, React or AngularJs, which are designed for developing web applications.
While these frameworks are initially larger in byte-size than lit-element and plain Web Components, they do offer a lot more useful features and functionality out of the box. I won't have to code these features myself, which will thus save me a lot of code in the end.
Are Web Components useless then?
Definitely not. Web components are a low-level technology that allows you to create new HTML tags. I believe its best used in the following three ways:
- integration of various features in a web page
- used as building blocks within frameworks
- low level hand coding of web apps - more code and more chance of errors
Personally, I would not do options 2 and 3. However, I see a good use-case for wrapping features or code built using the aforementioned frameworks within web components and then integrating them into full web apps, in the same web page, if required.
Example:
Svelte app (accounts/admin) --> build Svelte app wrapped inside a Web Component --> <accounts-admin />
VueJs app (accounts/register) --> build Vue app wrapped with a Web Component --> <accounts-register />
Now, two teams have used two separate frameworks to create components that you can add to web pages in any way you like, because they are available through the new HTML tags <accounts-admin /> and <accounts-register />.
All you have to do is to import or include the distribution JS files for these components in your app and they are ready to use.
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