# TypeScript support for Alpine.js
This package comes with a light TypeScript layer which provides full support for class components in Alpine.js.
It's used like this:
**Register a component**
```ts
import { DarkModeToggle }
Alpine.component('DarkModeToggle', DarkModeToggle);
```
**Use it the template**
```html
```
## Installation
```
npm install --save-dev github:leanadmin/alpine-typescript
```
```ts
// todo
```
## Usage
You can get a component by calling `Alpine.component('component-name')(arg1, arg2)`. If your component has no arguments, still append the `()` after the call.
The `component()` call itself returns a function that creates an instance of the component. Invoking the function ensures that the component has a unique instance each time.
```html
```
```html
...
```
## Creating components
To create a component, you need to create the component object and register it using one of the provided helpers.
Component objects can be:
- functions returning plain objects
- classes
In the context of plain objects, the wrapper function acts as a constructor that can pass initial data to the object.
## Registering components
A component can be registered like this:
```ts
import { ExampleComponent } from './ExampleComponent';
import { component } from '@leanadmin/alpine-typescript';
component('example', ExampleComponent);
```
Which will make it accessible using `Alpine.component('example')('foo', 'bar)`.
**Note: It's better to avoid using `Alpine.component('example', ExampleComponent)`** even if it might work in some cases. The reason for this is that `window.Alpine` might not yet be accessible when you're registering components, and if it is, it's possible that it's already evaluated some of the `x-data` attributes.
To register multiple components, you can use the `registerComponents()` helper.
This can pair well with scripts that crawl your e.g. `alpine/` directory to register all components using their file names.
```ts
import { registerComponents } from '@leanadmin/alpine-typescript';
const files = require.context('./', true, /.*.ts/)
.keys()
.map(file => file.substr(2, file.length - 5)) // Remove ./ and .ts
.filter(file => file !== 'index')
.reduce((files: { [name: string]: Function }, file: string) => {
files[file] = require(`./${file}.ts`).default;
return files;
}, {});
registerComponents(files);
```
## Class components
You can create class components by extending `AlpineComponent` and exporting the class as `default`.
The `AlpineComponent` provides IDE support for Alpine's magic properties. This means that you can use `this.$el`, `this.$nextTick(() => this.foo = this.bar)`, and more with full type support.
```ts
import { AlpineComponent } from '@leanadmin/alpine-typescript';
export default class DarkModeToggle extends AlpineComponent {
public theme: string|null = null;
/** Used for determining the transition direction. */
public previousTheme: string|null = null;
public browserTheme(): string {
return window.matchMedia('(prefers-color-scheme: dark)').matches ? 'dark' : 'light';
}
public switchTheme(theme: string): void {
this.$nextTick(() => this.previousTheme = this.theme);
this.theme = theme;
window.localStorage.setItem('leanTheme', theme);
this.updateDocumentClass(theme);
}
// ...
public init(): void {
this.loadStoredTheme();
this.registerListener();
}
}
```
## Plain object components
To register a plain object as an Alpine component, return a function that wraps the object like this:
```ts
export default (foo: string, bar: number) => ({
foo,
bar,
someFunction() {
console.log(this.foo);
}
})
```
The function will serve as a "constructor" for the object, setting default values and anything else you might need.
Note that the `=> ({` part is just syntactic sugar, you're free to use `return` if it's useful in your case:
```ts
export default (foo: string, bar: number) => {
return {
foo,
bar,
// ...
}
}
```