correttojs / typescript-plugin-styled-components

TypeScript transformer for improving the debugging experience of styled-components

typescript-plugin-styled-components

This is a TypeScript transformer that improves development experience of styled-components.

The main purpose is to provide compile-time information of creates styled components, such as names of these components, for the run-time, allowing to operate with proper names of such the components.

The plugin was mostly inspired by great Babel's plugin babel-plugin-styled-components and partially provides similar functionality for TypeScript users.

If you like it, consider

Installation

The following command adds the packages to the project as a development-time dependency:

yarn add typescript-plugin-styled-components --dev

Integration with Webpack

This section describes how to integrate the plugin into the build/bundling process driven by Webpack and its TypeScript loaders.

There are two popular TypeScript loaders that support specifying custom transformers:

• awesome-typescript-loader, supports custom transformers since v3.1.3
• ts-loader, supports custom transformers since v2.2.0

Both loaders use the same setting getCustomTransformers which is an optional function that returns { before?: Transformer[], after?: Transformer[] }. In order to inject the transformer into compilation, add it to before transformers array, like: { before: [styledComponentsTransformer] }.

awesome-typescript-loader

In the webpack.config.js file in the section where awesome-typescript-loader is configured as a loader:

// 1. import default from the plugin module
const createStyledComponentsTransformer = require('typescript-plugin-styled-components').default;

// 2. create a transformer;
// the factory additionally accepts an options object which described below
const styledComponentsTransformer = createStyledComponentsTransformer();

// 3. add getCustomTransformer method to the loader config
var config = {
    ...
    module: {
        rules: [
            {
                test: /\.tsx?$/,
                loader: 'awesome-typescript-loader',
                options: {
                    ... // other loader's options
                    getCustomTransformers: () => ({ before: [styledComponentsTransformer] })
                }
            }
        ]
    }
    ...
};

Please note, that in the development mode, awesome-typescript-loader uses multiple separate processes to speed up compilation. In that mode the above configuration cannot work because functions, which getCustomTransformers is, are not transferrable between processes. To solve this please refer to Forked process configuration section.

ts-loader

In the webpack.config.js file in the section where ts-loader is configured as a loader:

// 1. import default from the plugin module
const createStyledComponentsTransformer = require('typescript-plugin-styled-components').default;

// 2. create a transformer;
// the factory additionally accepts an options object which described below
const styledComponentsTransformer = createStyledComponentsTransformer();

// 3. add getCustomTransformer method to the loader config
var config = {
    ...
    module: {
        rules: [
            {
                test: /\.tsx?$/,
                loader: 'ts-loader',
                options: {
                    ... // other loader's options
                    getCustomTransformers: () => ({ before: [styledComponentsTransformer] })
                }
            }
        ]
    }
    ...
};

Please note, when awesome-typescript-loader is used with HappyPack or thread-loader, they use multiple separate processes to speed up compilation. In that mode the above configuration cannot work because functions, which getCustomTransformers is, are not transferrable between processes. To solve this please refer to Forked process configuration section.

Forked process configuration

To configure the transformer for development mode in awesome-typescript-loader or ts-loader with HappyPack or thread-loader, you need to make getCustomTransformers a resolvoble module name instead of the function. Since the configuration is very similar, here's an example:

1. Move styledComponentsTransformer into a separate file

Let's assume it is in the same folder as your webpack.config and has name webpack.ts-transformers.js:

// 1. import default from the plugin module
const createStyledComponentsTransformer = require('typescript-plugin-styled-components').default;

// 2. create a transformer;
// the factory additionally accepts an options object which described below
const styledComponentsTransformer = createStyledComponentsTransformer();

// 3. create getCustomTransformer function
const getCustomTransformers = () => ({ before: [styledComponentsTransformer] });

// 4. export getCustomTransformers
module.exports = getCustomTransformers;

2. Change the loader's options to point to that file instead of explicit function

-const createStyledComponentsTransformer = require('typescript-plugin-styled-components').default;
-const styledComponentsTransformer = createStyledComponentsTransformer();

options: {
    ... // other loader's options
-    getCustomTransformers: () => ({ before: [styledComponentsTransformer] })
+    getCustomTransformers: path.join(__dirname, './webpack.ts-transformers.js')
}

API

createTransformer

function createTransformer(options?: Partial<Options>): TransformerFactory<SourceFile>;

A factory that creates an instance of a TypeScript transformer (which is a factory itself).

It allows to optionally pass options that allow to tweak transformer's behavior. See Options for details.

Options

interface Options {
    getDisplayName(filename: string, bindingName: string | undefined): string | undefined;
}

getDisplayName

This method is used to determine component display name from filename and its binding name.

filename is the file name, relative to the project base directory, of the file where the styled component defined.

bindingName is the name that is used in the source code to bind the component. It can be null if the component was not bound or assigned.

Default strategy is to use bindingName if it's defined and use inference algorithm from filename otherwise.

Sample:

function getStyledComponentDisplay(filename, bindingName) {
    return bindingName || makePascalCase(filename);
}

Notes

Technically, typescript-plugin-styled-components is not a TypeScript plugin, since it is only exposed as a TypeScript transformer.