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JavaScript

Our JavaScript is compiled by Babel, using the @vue/babel-preset-app as a base configuration. You can update this configuration in .babelrc.js.

If you're new to features such as const, let, and => (arrow functions), take some time to read about the following features in Babel's ES2015 guide:

Reading these sections alone will get you 99% of the way to mastering Babel code. It's also a good idea to read about Promises, if you don't yet feel comfortable with them. Here's a good intro.

Polyfills

This project uses Vue CLI's modern mode, which creates two bundles: one modern bundle targeting modern browsers that support ES modules, and one legacy bundle targeting older browsers that do not.

For each bundle, polyfills for any JavaScript features you use are included based on the target bundle and supported browsers defined by browserslist in package.json.

Vue

Since Vue is such a huge part of our app, I strongly recommend everyone read through at least the Essentials of Vue's guide.

Vue Router

To understand how to manage pages with Vue Router, I recommend reading through the Essentials of those docs. Then you can read more about routing in this application.

Vuex (state management)

To wrap your head around our state management, I recommend reading through those docs, starting at What is Vuex? and stopping before Application Architecture. Then skip down and read Form Handling and Testing. Finally, read about state management in this application.

JavaScript FAQ

Why not use TypeScript instead of JavaScript? Isn't that more appropriate for enterprise environments?

At its current rate of development, I think TypeScript will eventually become the standard, but I don't think it's there yet. First, I don't believe the advantages are currently that significant:

  • The vast majority of bugs I encounter are not due to type violations. The most powerful tools against bugs remain linting, tests, and code reviews - none of which are made easier by TypeScript.
  • TypeScript doesn't guarantee type safety - that still requires discipline. You can still use hundreds of any annotations and libraries without any type definitions.
  • In Visual Studio Code, users can already get a lot of useful intellisense (including type information) without having to use TypeScript.
  • You can get type checks without static types. Just not at compile time. Between Vue's type checks for props, typeof, and instanceof, developers can still get warnings about type violations during development and tests.

There are also a few disadvantages I've seen in practice:

  • Despite most bugs having nothing to do with type violations, developers can spend a lot of time working towards full type safety. As I mentioned earlier, I think that time would be better spent on tests and code reviews.
  • ESLint remains a much more versatile linter than TSLint and its TypeScript parser is still experimental, so may waste time with false positives - or worse, simply miss clear violations.

HTML

All HTML will exist within .vue files, either:

Templates

~95% of HTML will be in .vue files. Since Vue has a chance to parse it before the browser does, we can also do a few extra things that normally aren't possible in a browser.

For example, any element or component can be self-closing:

<span class="fa fa-comment" />

The above simply compiles to:

<span class="fa fa-comment"></span>

This feature is especially useful when writing components with long names, but no content:

<FileUploader
  title="Upload any relevant legal documents"
  description="PDFs or scanned images are preferred"
  icon="folder-open"
/>

Render functions

Render functions are alternatives to templates. Components using render functions will be relatively rare, written only when we need either:

  • the full expressive power of JavaScript, or
  • better rendering performance through stateless, functional components

These components can optionally be written using an HTML-like syntax within JavaScript called JSX, including support for some template features.

HTML FAQ

Why not use a preprocessor like Jade instead of HTML?

Jade offers too little convenience (no new features we'd want, just simpler syntax) and would break eslint-plugin-vue's template linting.

If using a render function instead of a template, why not use a .js(x) file instead of a .vue file?

There are no advantages to using a JS(X) file, other than not having to use a <script> tag. By sticking to .vue files, you can:

  • leave out components' name property, because vue-loader adds a __filename property to exported objects as a fallback for Vue's devtools
  • easily add styles if you later decide to
  • easily refactor to a template if you later decide to

CSS

For our styles, we're using SCSS and CSS modules, which you can activate by adding the lang="scss" and module attributes to style tags in Vue components:

<style lang="scss" module>
/* Styles go here */
</style>

SCSS

SCSS is a superset of CSS, meaning any valid CSS is also valid SCSS. This allows you to easily copy properties from other sources, without having to reformat it. It also means you can stick to writing the CSS you're still comfortable with while you're learning to use more advanced SCSS features.

I specifically recommend reading about:

Just those features cover at least 95% of use cases.

Importing global modules

To import files from node_modules, Webpack's css-loader requires adding ~ to the beginning of a module name to denote that it's a global (not relative) file reference. For example:

@import '~nprogress/nprogress.css';

Referencing aliased asset URLs

Similarly to importing global modules, referencing aliased assets also requires the ~ at the beginning of the name. For example:

background: url('~@assets/images/background.png');

Design variables and tooling

All our variables, placeholder classes, mixins, and other design tooling are in the src/design folder. Each of these files define variables, prefixed with the name of the file, then combined in src/design/index.scss. This combined file is aliased as @design for convenience and can be imported into SCSS using:

@import '@design';

This makes all our design variables available in your component or SCSS file.

NOTE: The src/design folder should never contain code that compiles to actual CSS, as that CSS would be duplicated across every component the file is imported into.

CSS modules

As mentioned earlier, every Vue component should be a CSS module. That means the classes you define are not actually classes. When you write:

<style lang="scss" module>
.inputLabel {
  /* ... */
}

.input {
  /* ... */
}
</style>

You're actually defining values on a $style property of the Vue instance such as:

$style: {
  inputLabel: 'base-input_inputLabel_dsRsJ',
  input: 'base-input_input_dsRsJ'
}

These values contain automatically generated classes with:

  • the file name of the component
  • the name of the class
  • a random hash

Do you know what that means?! You can never accidentally write styles that interfere with another component. You also don't have to come up with clever class names, unique across the entire project. You can use class names like .input, .container, .checkbox, or whatever else makes sense within the isolated scope of the component - just like you would with JavaScript variables.

Styling subcomponents

To pass a class to a child component, it's usually best to do so as a prop:

<template>
  <BaseInput :labelClass="$style.label">
</template>

<style lang="scss" module>
.label {
  /* ... */
}
</style>

In some cases however, you may want to style a component arbitrarily deep. This should generally be avoided, because overuse can make your CSS very brittle and difficult to maintain, but sometimes it's unavoidable.

In these cases, you can use an attribute selector to take advantage of the fact that generated class names will always start with the same characters:

<template>
  <div :class="$style.container"><SomeOtherComponentContainingAnInput /></div>
</template>

<style lang="scss" module>
.container [class^='base-input_inputLabel'] {
  /* ... */
}
</style>

In the above example, we're applying styles to the inputLabel class inside a base-input component, but only when inside the element with the container class.

Sharing SCSS variables with JavaScript

If you ever need to expose the value of an SCSS variable to your JavaScript, you can with CSS module exports! For example, assuming you have this variable defined:

$size-grid-padding: 1.3rem;

You could import our design tooling, then use CSS modules' :export it:

<style lang="scss" module>
@import '@design';

:export {
  grid-padding: $size-grid-padding;
}
</style>

Then you can access the value using this.$style['grid-padding'].

If you need access from outside a Vue component (e.g. in a Vuex module), you can do so in src/design/index.scss. See that file for specific instructions.

Global CSS

Typically, only src/app.vue should ever contain global CSS and even that should only include base element styles and utility classes (e.g. for grid management).

CSS FAQ

Why use SCSS instead of plain CSS or another CSS preprocessor?

CSS preprocessors offer a lot of additional power - just having a browser-independent way to use variables is invaluable. But SCSS has some other advantages over competing preprocessors:

  • SCSS it a superset of CSS, which means:
    • You can copy and paste valid CSS into SCSS and it will always be valid.
    • There's a gentler learning curve, as devs can write the same CSS they're used to, gradually incorporating more SCSS features as they're needed.
  • It's well-supported by both Stylelint and Prettier, eliminating nearly all arguments over code style.

Why use CSS modules for scoping, instead of Vue's scoped attribute?

While a little more complex to begin with, CSS modules offer:

  • Universality. The same scoping strategy can be used anywhere in our app, regardless of whether it's in a .vue file or .scss file.
  • True protection from collisions. Using the scoped attribute, vendor CSS could still affect your own classes, if you both use the same names.
  • Improved performance. Generated class selectors like .base-input_inputLabel__3EAebB_0 are faster than attribute selectors, especially on an element selector like input[data-v-3EAebB].
  • Increased versatility. There are cases the scoped attribute just can't handle, such as passing a scoped class to a child component that does not render HTML directly. This is fairly common for component wrappers of views driven by WebGL or Canvas, that often inject HTML overlays such as tooltips at the root of the <body>.

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