Web Components in Easy Mode https://webcomponent.io
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Web Component Base

This is a very minimal base class for creating reactive custom elements easily.

When you extend the WebComponent class for your component, you only have to define the template() and observedAttributes(), and changes in any attribute value will automatically cause the UI to render.

The result is a reactive UI on attribute changes.

Table of Contents

  1. Vanilla JS import
  2. Installation
  3. Usage
  4. Life-Cycle Hooks
    1. onInit - the component is connected to the DOM
    2. onChanges - an attribute value changed

Vanilla JS import

Import using unpkg in your component. We will use this in the rest of our usage examples.

import WebComponent from "https://unpkg.com/web-component-base";

Installation

If you have a bundler to help resolving imports:

npm i web-component-base

Usage

In your component class:

// HelloWorld.mjs
import WebComponent from "https://unpkg.com/web-component-base";

class HelloWorld extends WebComponent {
  name = "World";
  emotion = "excited";

  static get observedAttributes() {
    return ["name", "emotion"];
  }

  get template() {
    return `
        <h1>Hello ${this.name}${this.emotion === "sad" ? ". 😭" : "! 🙌"}</h1>`;
  }
}

customElements.define('hello-world', HelloWorld);

In your HTML page:

<head>
  <script type="module" src="HelloWorld.mjs"></script>
</head>
<body>
  <hello-world name="Ayo" emotion="sad">
  <script>
      const helloWorld = document.querySelector('hello-world');

      setTimeout(() => {
        helloWorld.setAttribute('emotion', 'excited');
      }, 2500)
  </script>
</body>

The result is a reactive UI that updates on attribute changes:

UI showing feeling toward Web Components changing from SAD to EXCITED

Life-Cycle Hooks

Define behavior when certain events in the component's life cycle is triggered by providing hook methods

onInit()

  • gets triggered when the component is connected to the DOM
  • best for setting up the component
import WebComponent from "https://unpkg.com/web-component-base";

class ClickableText extends WebComponent {
  // gets called when the component is used in an HTML document
  onInit() {
    this.onclick = () => console.log(">>> click!");
  }

  get template() {
    return `<span style="cursor:pointer">Click me!</span>`;
  }
}

onChanges()

  • gets triggered when an attribute value changed
import WebComponent from "https://unpkg.com/web-component-base";

class ClickableText extends WebComponent {
  // gets called when an attribute value changes
  onChanges({attr, prev, curr}) {
    console.log('>>> something changed', {attr, prev, curr})
  }

  get template() {
    return `<span style="cursor:pointer">Click me!</span>`;
  }
}