c-minor

Infinitesimally small package for creating HTML elements

c-minor is an extremely small and lightweight JavaScript package that enables the creation and modification of HTML elements with a concise and simple syntax.

It supports the addition of event listeners, attributes, properties, and children all while having a production size of under 300 bytes before compression! You can view an editable live demo at JSFiddle.

Documentation

Signatures

c(element, attrs, ...children)

c(element, ...children)

element

Type: string | HTMLElement

An existing HTMLElement or string to use as the tag name of a newly created element. If tag name is provided, an XML namespace can be specified using the syntax 'TAG@NAMESPACE'. For example, 'svg@http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'.

attrs

Type: { [key: string]: any } | undefined | null

An object containing key-value pairs of attributes, properties, and event listeners to add to the element.

Properties are prefixed with $. For example, $date: new Date() will set the date prop of the element to a newly created Date object.

Event listeners are prefixed with _. For example, _click: e => console.log(e) will add a click event listener that logs the event object to the console.

Keys without prefixes are used for attributes. For example, class: 'foo' sets the class attribute of the element to foo.

...children

Type: ( string | HTMLElement )[]

The remaining arguments are for children to append to the element. A child may be either a string or an HTMLElement. If the child is a string, it is converted to a Text node before being appended. This means strings containing HTML syntax can be safely appended to the element. Passing no children is permitted.

Return value

Type: HTMLElement

Returns value of element if it was a HTMLElement or the HTMLElement created by the function if element was a string.

Unsafely setting HTML from a string

If you want to set the HTML value of the element using a string, you can add a $innerHTML: '<h1>Unsafe HTML</h1>' entry to the attrs argument. Only do this for trusted HTML as this opens up possibilities for XSS attacks.

Example

c(
  document.body, // Existing element
  {
    style: 'color: red' // Attribute
  },
  c( // Child element
    'div', // New DIV element
    {
      _click: e => alert(e.target.prop), // Event listener
      $prop: 7 // Property
    },
    'Foo', // Child string
    c('span', 'Bar') // Attributeless element
  )
);

No-Transpilation Support

c-minor supports browsers that implement the append function on Element without transpilation. That is:

• Chrome: >= 54
• Edge: >= 17
• Firefox: >= 49
• Internet Explorer: None
• Opera: >= 41
• Safari: >= 10

Development Commands

• npm run build - Generate publishable version of c-minor in the dist directory.
• npm run test - Run both code tests and c.d.ts type tests.
• npm run size - Determine the size of the files produced by the build script.