Unlock the Power of Stencil: A Compiler for Generating Web Components
Are you tired of dealing with cumbersome frameworks and libraries? Look no further than Stencil, a compiler for generating web components developed by the Ionic team. With Stencil, you can create custom HTML tags packed with additional logic written in JavaScript, making it a game-changer for web development.
What is Stencil?
Stencil is often mistaken for a framework, but it’s actually a compiler that allows you to write web components in TypeScript and compile them into various versions of JavaScript. This means you can use Stencil with any front-end framework or library, or even without one.
Key Features of Stencil
- Compatibility: Stencil is fully aligned with the implementation of Custom Elements v1 and supported across all major browsers, except for Edge versions 12-18.
- Lightweight: Production bundle sizes start from ~100 kb and can be gzipped for even smaller sizes.
- Easy to Learn: Stencil is easy to learn, especially for developers familiar with React and Angular.
Getting Started with Stencil
To get started with Stencil, you’ll need to install the latest LTS version of Node and NPM. Then, install Stencil as a global package and use the interactive wizard to generate your project.
Building a Simple Cryptocurrency Widget
Let’s build a simple cryptocurrency widget using Stencil. We’ll create a reusable component and use the @Component decorator to define our component. We’ll also use the @State decorator to store the response from the API and trigger re-rendering of the component.
Lifecycle Methods and Hooks
Stencil provides lifecycle methods and hooks, such as componentDidLoad, componentWillUpdate, and componentDidUpdate, which allow you to execute code at specific points in the life of the component.
Presentational Components
We’ll also create a presentational component called crypto-table to display the data. This component will receive data through props and display it using JSX.
Methods and Events
Stencil introduces the Method decorator to expose class methods, allowing the host application to refresh crypto data in our component. We’ll also use events to push data from child components to parent components.
Building and Using
To build our project and produce shareable bundles, we’ll run npm run build. The build will produce a dist folder and crypto-widget folder inside of it, which can be easily shared and used in other projects.
Conclusion
Stencil is a powerful and well-developed library that’s easy to learn and use. With its compatibility, lightweight size, and ease of use, Stencil is perfect for creating design systems, portable parts of applications, and more. Try it out today and see the difference for yourself!