An in-depth hands-on workshop about building interactive web components using modern JavaScript. No frameworks, no libraries; learn how to create fast, responsive user experiences, built with 100% native code.
Workshop Overview
JavaScript runs in every web browser, tablet and smartphone on the planet. It’s used to create all kinds of applications, from business productivity tools to social media apps and online games. Modern JavaScript is a flexible, powerful development platform – but it’s a platform that comes with a dizzying array of standards, frameworks and tools. From the dark days of document.layers , through jQuery and prototype, to modern ecosystems like React and vueJS, developers have long relied on frameworks and libraries when it comes to building client-side components and systems using JavaScript.
With modern JavaScript, you don’t need to. Technologies like web components, custom elements and the shadow DOM are natively supported by over 90% of browsers, and using these technologies, we can create lightweight, responsive web components that leverage modern browsers’ native APIs to deliver blisteringly fast performance.
In this two-day workshop, you’ll find out how to design, build and deploy custom web components built with pure native JavaScript. Over the course of the workshop, attendees will build several web components, from a simple “Hello World” app to an interactive puzzle game implemented entirely as a custom element built with HTML and JavaScript.
Workshop Structure
Overview of modern web component architecture
- Modern browser APIs: web components, custom elements
- Understanding events and event handlers
- Client-side tooling: working with the DOM inspector
- Server-side tooling: introducing Webpack and Babel
Working with the Shadow DOM
- What is a shadow DOM, why does it matter?
- Rendering HTML elements via JavaScript
- Working with templated HTML
- Styling components with CSS
Architecture of a web component
- Working with JavaScript classes
- Registering custom elements
- Structuring your code: models, views, renderers and handlers
- Putting it all together: building your first web component
Rendering strategies for web components
- Managing state via models and views
- CSS layouts: document, flex and grid
- Working with the HTML
<canvas>element - Responsive design considerations for web components
User interactions and events
- Handling mouse and keyboard events
- Mobile and tablet interfaces: working with touch events
- Animations, loops and timeouts
- Interacting with components via custom events
Testing web components with Jest
- Introduction: unit testing JavaScript with Jest
- Application testing: validating behaviour with the arrange/act/assert pattern
- Interaction testing: simulating events and mocking handlers
- Testing strategies for web components: how much test coverage is enough?
Web component tooling
- Bundling and publishing your component using Webpack
- Working with SASS and SCSS
- Supporting older browsers using Babel
- Versioning and release management
Target Audience and Prerequisites
This workshop is aimed at software professionals with some web development experience. You don’t need to be a JavaScript expert - if you’re comfortable editing code in a text editor, you know what document.getElementById does, and you can write some basic HTML, you should be able to pick up the rest as we go.
Attendees will need a laptop running a modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox or Microsoft Edge). For the sections of the workshop based on SASS/SCSS, Webpack, and Babel, you will need a nodeJS v16 or higher runtime - instructions will be provided on installing this if you don’t already have it set up.
About the Trainer
Dylan Beattie created his first web page in 1992. With nearly 25 years’ experience as a professional developer, he’s worked on everything from static websites to distributed microservice architectures. Dylan is a Microsoft MVP and the creator of the Rockstar esoteric programming language, and he’s presented talks about technology and software development at conferences and events all over the world.
Dylan’s been building web applications using JavaScript since the late 1990s. His public JavaScript projects include iPuzzler, an web component for publishing crossword puzzles on the web, and Satriani, a JavaScript interpreter for Rockstar. Dylan is online at https://dylanbeattie.net/ and on Twitter as @dylanbeattie.
Upcoming Course Dates
No public dates are currently scheduled.
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