Mostly DOM

A Type-Safe virtual-dom implementation. A virtual-dom implementation that works for you.

Mostly-dom a virtual-dom implementation that provides strong types for everyday things like CSS values and HTML properties, you will be able to use itellisense to make your life easier. Say goodbye to a great deal of spelling mistakes.

Mostly DOM is written in and for TypeScript, it will work in plain JS environments, but it is not recommended as you will lose all benefits of strong types. If you're in a plain JS environment I would highly recommend the project snabbdom.

Credit where credit is due

This project is mostly a deriviation of snabbdom with some rather large breaking changes an design differences. Mostly DOM has been written with Motorcycle.js in mind, but is not useful for only this one project.

Typings for CSS is humbly reused from the amazing project TypeStyle.

I highly recommend both projects if they suit your needs!

Let me have it

npm install --save mostly-dom

Basic Usage

import { init, elementToVNode, h } from 'mostly-dom';

const patch = init([]);

const initialVNode = elementToVNode(document.querySelector('#app') as Element);

const vNode = h('div', [ h('h1', 'Hello, World') ]);

patch(initialVNode, vNode);

API

init(modules: Array<Module>): patch

The main function of the library, given an array of modules, it returns to you a patch function.

patch(elementVNode: ElementVNode, vNode: VNode): ElementVNode

The patch function is the workhorse of the library, taking 2 arguments. First it takes a vNode that has an Element associated to it, an ElementVNode, and a vNode that currently does not, returning to you an ElementVNode.

One noticable difference from Snabbdom, is that the patch function is no longer polymorphic. This function is designed to be used very well with Streams, such as Most.js, in particular in a scan or reduce operator.

h(selector: string): VNode;

h(selector: string, data: VNodeProps): VNode;

h(selector: string, children: HyperscriptChildren): VNode;

h(selector: string, data: VNodeProps, children: HyperscriptChildren): VNode;

The recommended way to created a VNode. h accepts a CSS selector, containing no spaces, but most start with a tag name. Optionally it accepts both VNodeProps and HyperscriptChildren to further represent your view.

import { h } from 'mostly-dom';

const vNode = h('div', { style: { color: '#000' } }, [
  h('h1', 'Headline'),
  h('p', 'A paragraph'),
]);

Also available a multitude of type-safe hyperscript-helper functions.

import { div, h1, p } from 'mostly-dom';

const vNode = div({ style: { color: '#000' } }, [
  h1('Headline'),
  p('A paragraph'),
]);

elementToVNode(element: Element): ElementVNode

Converts an element to an ElementVNode. particularly useful for an initial patch call.

const div = document.createElement('div');

div.id = 'hello';
div.className = 'test';

const divVNode = elementToVNode(div);

/*
{
  tagName: 'div',
  id: 'hello',
  className: 'test',
  props: {},
  children: [],
  element: HTMLDivElement // the original element
  text: undefined,
  key; undefined,
  scope: undefined,
  namespace: undefined,
  parent: undefined
}
*/

hasCssSelector(cssSelector: string, vNode: VNode): boolean

Given a CSS selector without spaces, this function does not search children, it will return true if the given CSS selector matches that of the VNode and false if it does not. If a CSS selector with spaces is given it will throw an error.

import { hasCssSelector, div } from '@motorcycle/dom';

console.log(hasCssSelector('.foo', div('.foo'))) // true
console.log(hasCssSelector('.bar', div('.foo'))) // false
console.log(hasCssSelector('div', div('.foo'))) // true
console.log(hasCssSelector('#foo', div('#foo'))) // true
console.log(hasCssSelector('.foo .bar'), div('.foo.bar')) // ERROR!

Types

There are a very large number of types in use in Mostly DOM, and it would be crazy to put even a small amount of them into this README, if you're interested or need more information about these types please browse through the types folder.

Some very useful typings to learn are that of VNodeProps which is the type for the optional second parameter to h.