CODEWITHSUNDEEP
angularsassangular-cli
jjenzz
jjenzz

Reputation: 1559

Lazy load application theme styles with Angular CLI

I am trying to switch the href of a <link /> for theming purposes and the SCSS themes live in a packages folder of my monorepo that are symlinked in node_modules. I need to be able to compile and reference these.

I came across the following fixed issue: angular/angular-cli#3401 and have been trying to implement something similar:

"styles": [
    "styles.scss",
    {
        "input": "../node_modules/@org/themes/dark.scss",
        "output": "dark",
        "lazy": true
    }
],

My understanding (perhaps incorrect) was that this would compile the dark.scss file into dist/dark.bundle.css and that I would be able to load it via http://localhost:4200/dist/dark.bundle.css but it is not working as expected. Am I misunderstanding something or doing this completely wrong?

How do I compile an SCSS file from node_modules that I can then lazy load in the app? Is there another/better approach I could try instead?

Additional notes:

I have looked into the way that the Angular Material docs website approaches this problem and it seems they have a custom build script that compiles the SCSS files to CSS files in the assets directory before serving the application. I thought the fixed issue above removed the need for this step but perhaps not. Is this the only way it can be done?

SOLVED

Thanks to @Kuncevic. I was missing the --extract-css flag.

Working config:

"styles": [
    "styles.scss",
    {
        "input": "../node_modules/@org/themes/src/dark.scss",
        "output": "themes/dark",
        "lazy": true
    }
],

And with the following serve script, I can access it via http://localhost:4200/themes/dark.bundle.css:

ng serve --extract-css --preserve-symlinks

Upvotes: 24

Views: 13355

Answers (4)

RazvanParautiu
RazvanParautiu

Reputation: 2938

I know this is an old post, but I have not found a full example just fragments to implement lazy loading in Angular for CSS files or js files. This is a solution with Angular 7.1.4 version and lazy loading of font-awesome 4.7 and bootstrap 4

  1. Install bootstrap and font-awesome 
    npm install --save font-awesome bootstrap

  1. Edit your angular.json file to make sure that the compiler will generate separated files into the dist folder

       "styles": [
      "src/styles.css",
      {
        "input": "./node_modules/font-awesome/css/font-awesome.css",
        "lazy": true,
        "bundleName": "font-awesome"
      },
      {
        "input": "./node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css",
        "lazy": true,
        "bundleName": "bootstrap"
      }
    ],

    Parameter explanations:

"input" : "the location where the command from the 1st step will download bootstrap and font-awesome"

"lazy" : "the value of true will make sure that the compiler will not embed the bootstrap.min.css and font-awesome.css files into the compiled files which are send to browser"

"bundleName" : "is the name which you will find into dist folder"

  1. According to this answer you have to add into index.html the following script inside the header tag under the <base href="/">
          <script>
             window.onload = function () {
              function loadScript(scriptUrl) {
                const script = document.createElement('script');
                script.src = scriptUrl;
                document.body.appendChild(script);
              }

              loadScript('font-awesome.js');
              loadScript('bootstrap.js');
            }

         </script>

NOTE: window.onload = function () used to make sure that the page is loaded (this because our files into the dist are in .js format; this is the quick way for Angular to compile)

  1. Run this command, to compile the application 
    ng build --extract-css=false --prod

NOTE: on build we use --extract-css=false to generate .js files

Testing

  • Go into the browser and change it to dev (F12 or right click and inspect element)
  • Select Network tab
  • Press Ctrl+Shift+R for hard reload

You must be able to see that the bootstrap.js and font-awesome.js are loaded separately like in the photo and also you be able to see for a moment the page without style => this is the moment when the style is loaded well after the DOM is loaded

enter image description here

Upvotes: 10

Halfist
Halfist

Reputation: 540

Since I can't comment the accepted answer, I'll provide an important note to it as a separate one. Please move it there and delete from here if needed. So, the accepted answer is based on separate CSS file. Since Angular 6 you can't use neither --extract-css or -ec flags in package.json for ng serve, nor extractCss: true in angular.json for serve config section. Though, you can use this approach to make it work. Then you can load your lazy style by using this approach with promise on APP_INITIALIZER.

Upvotes: 4

riemerio
riemerio

Reputation: 101

For anyone who want to use global css scipts in .angular-cli.json lazy loaded without hash I wrote following script (e.g. patch-ng-cli.js)

const fs = require('fs');

const stylesFileToPatch = "node_modules/@angular/cli/models/webpack-configs/styles.js";

const regex = /extraPlugins\.push\(.*\}\)\)\;/;
const patchContent = `
        // PATCHED CONTENT START
        const globalStyles = utils_1.extraEntryParser(appConfig.styles, appRoot, 'styles');
        extraPlugins.push(new ExtractTextPlugin({ filename: getPath => {
            const generatedFileName = getPath(\`[name]\${hashFormat.extract}.bundle.css\`);
            const name = generatedFileName.split(".")[0];
            const globalAppStylesConfigEntry = globalStyles.find(path => path.output === name);
            if (globalAppStylesConfigEntry && globalAppStylesConfigEntry.lazy){
                console.log(\`\${name} will not be hashed due to lazy loading\`);
                return \`\${name}.bundle.css\`
            }
            console.log(generatedFileName);
            return generatedFileName;
        }}));
        // PATCHED CONTENT END
`;


fs.readFile(stylesFileToPatch, (err, data) => {
    if (err) { throw err; }

    const text = data.toString();

    const isAlreadyPatched = !!text.match("PATCHED CONTENT");

    if (isAlreadyPatched) return console.warn("-- already patched --", stylesFileToPatch);

    console.log('-- Patching ng-cli: ', stylesFileToPatch);
    const patchedContent = text.replace(regex, patchContent);

    const file = fs.openSync(stylesFileToPatch, 'r+');
    fs.writeFile(file, patchedContent, () => console.log("-- Patching -- OK"));
    fs.close(file);
});

Then run this script after npm install via npm scripts in package.json

"postinstall": "node ./patch-ng-cli.js",

Upvotes: 2

angularconsulting.au
angularconsulting.au

Reputation: 28259

By setting "lazy": true means it won't appear in index.html but there is no mechanism that will lazy load that bundle for you, check that comment:

The lazy option doesn't actually lazy load anything. It just prevents it from being executed on application startup.

I agree "lazy": true is a bit confusing at first.

If you run ng build you can actually see what's gets outputed in your build and analyze all the files produced by cli.

When you do:

{
    "input": "../node_modules/@org/themes/dark.scss",
    "output": "dark",
    "lazy": true
}

You should be able to access your file directly at http://localhost:4200/dark.bundle.js but it wont appear in index.html as you set "lazy": true

If you want to get dark.bundle.css bundle instead of dark.bundle.js in dev mode you can use --extract-css flag.

The reason why cli generating styles in to js bundle in dev mode is because this way is much quicker. Bud when you do prod build like ng buld --prod it will output in to .css by default anyway.

Upvotes: 15

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