Usage

Web Awesome components are just regular HTML elements, or custom elements to be precise. You can use them like any other element. Each component has detailed documentation that describes its full API, including properties, events, methods, and more.

If you're new to custom elements, often referred to as "web components," this section will familiarize you with how to use them.

Awaiting Registration Jump to heading #

Unlike traditional frameworks, custom elements don't have a centralized initialization phase. This means you need to verify that a custom element has been properly registered before attempting to interact with its properties or methods.

Individual components: customElements.whenDefined() Jump to heading #

You can use the customElements.whenDefined() method to ensure a specific component is ready:

await customElements.whenDefined('wa-button');

// <wa-button> is ready to use!
const button = document.querySelector('wa-button');

        

All Web Awesome components: allDefined() Jump to heading #

When working with multiple components, checking each one individually can become tedious. For convenience, Web Awesome provides the allDefined() function which automatically detects and waits for all Web Awesome components in the DOM to be initialized before resolving.

import { allDefined } from '/dist/webawesome.js';

// Waits for all Web Awesome components in the DOM to be registered
await allDefined();

// All Web Awesome components on the page are ready!

        

Advanced Usage Jump to heading #

By default, allDefined() will wait for all wa- prefixed custom elements within the current document to be registered. You can customize this behavior by passing in options:

• root allows you to pass in a different element to search within, or a different document entirely (defaults to document).
• match allows you to specify a custom function to determine which elements to wait for. This function should return true for elements you want to wait for and false for those you don't.
• additionalElements allows you to wait for custom elements to be defined that may not be present in the DOM at the time allDefined() is called. This can be useful for elements that are loaded dynamically via JS.

Here is an example of using match and root to await registration of Web Awesome components inside an element with an id of sidebar, plus a <my-component> element if present in the DOM, and <wa-slider> and <other-slider> elements whether present in the DOM or not:

import { allDefined } from '/dist/webawesome.js';

await allDefined({
  match: tagName => tagName.startsWith('wa-') || tagName === 'my-component',
  root: document.getElementById('sidebar'),
  additionalElements: ['wa-slider', 'other-slider']
});

        

Attributes & Properties Jump to heading #

Many components have properties that can be set using attributes. For example, buttons accept a size attribute that maps to the size property which dictates the button's size.

<wa-button size="small">Click me</wa-button>

        

Some properties are boolean, so they only have true/false values. To activate a boolean property, add the corresponding attribute without a value.

<wa-button disabled>Click me</wa-button>

        

Events Jump to heading #

You can listen for standard events such as click, mouseover, etc. as you normally would. In addition, some components have their own custom events. For example, you might listen to wa-after-show to determine when a dialog has been shown.

Custom Web Awesome events are prefixed with wa- to prevent collisions with standard events and other libraries. Refer to a component's documentation for a complete list of its events.

Methods Jump to heading #

Some components have methods you can call to trigger various behaviors. For example, you can set focus on a Web Awesome input using the focus() method.

<wa-input></wa-input>

<script>
  const input = document.querySelector('wa-input');
  input.focus();
</script>

        

Refer to a component's documentation for a complete list of its methods and their arguments.

Slots Jump to heading #

Many components use slots to accept content inside of them. The most common slot is the default slot, which includes any content inside the component that doesn't have a slot attribute.

For example, a button's default slot is used to populate its label.

<wa-button>Click me</wa-button>

        

Some components also have named slots. A named slot can be populated by adding a child element with the appropriate slot attribute. Notice how the icon below has the slot="prefix" attribute? This tells the component to place the icon into its prefix slot.

<wa-button>
  <wa-icon slot="prefix" name="gear" variant="solid"></wa-icon>
  Settings
</wa-button>

        

The location of a named slot doesn't matter. You can put it anywhere inside the component and the browser will move it to the right place automatically!

Refer to a component's documentation for a complete list of available slots.

Don't Use Self-closing Tags Jump to heading #

Custom elements cannot have self-closing tags. Similar to <script> and <textarea>, you must always include the full closing tag.

<!-- Don't do this -->
<wa-input />

<!-- Always do this -->
<wa-input></wa-input>

        

Differences from Native Elements Jump to heading #

You might expect similarly named elements to share the same API as native HTML elements, but this is not always the case. Web Awesome components are not designed to be one-to-one replacements for their HTML counterparts. While they usually share the same API, there may be subtle differences.

For example, <button> and <wa-button> both have a type attribute, but the native one defaults to submit while the Web Awesome one defaults to button since this is a better default for most users.

Component Rendering and Updating Jump to heading #

Web Awesome components are built with Lit, a tiny library that makes authoring custom elements easier, more maintainable, and a lot of fun! As a Web Awesome user, here is some helpful information about rendering and updating you should probably be aware of.

To optimize performance and reduce re-renders, Lit batches component updates. This means changing multiple attributes or properties at the same time will result in just a single re-render. In most cases, this isn't an issue, but there may be times you'll need to wait for the component to update before continuing.

Consider this example. We're going to change the checked property of the checkbox and observe its corresponding checked attribute, which happens to reflect.

const checkbox = document.querySelector('wa-checkbox');
checkbox.checked = true;

console.log(checkbox.hasAttribute('checked')); // false

        

Most developers will expect this to be true instead of false, but the component hasn't had a chance to re-render yet so the attribute doesn't exist when hasAttribute() is called. Since changes are batched, we need to wait for the update before proceeding. This can be done using the updateComplete property, which is available on all Lit-based components.

const checkbox = document.querySelector('wa-checkbox');
checkbox.checked = true;

checkbox.updateComplete.then(() => {
  console.log(checkbox.hasAttribute('checked')); // true
});

        

This time we see an empty string, which means the boolean attribute is now present!