Unlock the Power of Micro Frontends: A Hands-on Guide
What are Micro Frontends?
Imagine a world where complex applications are broken down into smaller, independent components, each owned and maintained by separate teams. This is the concept of micro frontends, a revolutionary approach to frontend development inspired by microservices architecture.
The Benefits of Micro Frontends
By adopting micro frontends, large organizations can:
- Streamline their development process, eliminating bottlenecks and drag on progress
- Achieve faster time-to-market
- Improve collaboration
- Reduce maintenance costs
Creating a Micro Frontend Application with Svelte and Podium
In this tutorial, we’ll create two basic Svelte applications and combine them into a single app using Podium. This hands-on guide assumes a basic understanding of Svelte and Node.js.
Creating the Svelte Applications
First, create two folders, svelte-app-one and svelte-app-two, and clone Svelte’s GitHub template using the following command:
npx degit sveltejs/template svelte-app-one
npx degit sveltejs/template svelte-app-twoNext, make some small changes to each app. Since both apps will be combined, we need to differentiate between the two body elements by adding unique IDs.
Displaying a Message in the Svelte Apps
In both apps, we’ll display a simple message. For app-one, navigate to App.svelte and add a heading tag with a message. Repeat the same process for app-two.
<h1>Hello from App One!</h1>
<h1>Hello from App Two!</h1>Preparing the Svelte Apps for Podium
To combine the two apps, Podium needs to know the location of the apps’ HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. We’ll achieve this using a manifest.json file and the podlet tool.
Combining the Two Svelte Apps using Podium
Create a new folder, podium-merger, and create a layout.js file. In this file, we’ll assess the two podlets, get the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, and combine them into a single app.
import { render } from 'podium/layout';
const appOne = await podlet('svelte-app-one');
const appTwo = await podlet('svelte-app-two');
render(`
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Micro Frontend App</title>
</head>
<body>
${appOne.html}
${appTwo.html}
</body>
</html>
`);The Final App
With micro frontends, you can achieve what microservices do for your backend – streamlining the development process in large organizations. By following this hands-on guide, you’ve taken the first step towards unlocking the power of micro frontends.