Delegate events with on:* 🎉

• 💡 Easy to use
• ⚡️ No performance impact
• 🔑 No type errors with svelte-check

Try it on Stackblitz 🚀.

Overview

Since 2019, one popular issue on the Svelte GitHub repository has been delegating all events. https://github.com/sveltejs/svelte/issues/2837

This repository aims to solve this issue.

Example

Component.svelte

<!-- Delegate all events with `on:*` 🎉 -->
<input on:* />

App.svelte

<script>
  import Component from './Component.svelte';
</script>

<!-- Handle events as desired -->
<Component
  on:input="{(e) => console.log(e.target.value)}"
  on:blur="{() => console.log('blur')}"
/>

Prerequisites

This library needs Svelte 3 or Svelte 4.

Installation

npm install -D svelte-preprocess-delegate-events

Usage

After installation, add this as a Svelte preprocessor.

// svelte.config.js
import delegateEvents from "svelte-preprocess-delegate-events/preprocess";

const config = {
  // Add this preprocessor at the end of the array.
  preprocess: [delegateEvents()],
};

export default config;

Integration with svelte-check

If you want to use svelte-check, create svelte-jsx.d.ts at the project root and update [tj]sconfig.json.

svelte-jsx.d.ts

declare namespace svelteHTML {
  /**
   * base: https://github.com/sveltejs/language-tools/blob/651db67858d18ace44d000d263ac57ed5590ea05/packages/svelte2tsx/svelte-jsx.d.ts#L42
   */
  type HTMLProps<Property extends string, Override> =
    Omit<
      Omit<import('svelte/elements').SvelteHTMLElements[Property], keyof EventsWithColon<Omit<svelte.JSX.IntrinsicElements[Property & string], svelte.JSX.AttributeNames>>> & EventsWithColon<Omit<svelte.JSX.IntrinsicElements[Property & string], svelte.JSX.AttributeNames>>,
      keyof Override
    > & Override & (Record<'on:*', (event: Event & { currentTarget: EventTarget & EventTarget }) => any | never> | object);
}

[tj]sconfig.json

{
+ "include": ["./svelte-jsx.d.ts"]
}

How the Preprocessor Works?

This chapter explains how the preprocessor functions. The preprocessor operates differently for Elements and Components.

Element

Consider the following simple example:

<!-- Parant.svelte -->
<script>
  import Child from './Child.svelte';
</script>
<Child on:click={() => console.log('clicked!')} />

<!-- Child.svelte -->
<button on:*>Click Me</button>

Svelte executes events registered in component.$$.callbacks when an event is triggered in a child component. In the example above, component.$$.callbacks is as follows:

component.$$.callbacks = {
  click: () => console.log('clicked!')
}

This preprocessor adds a process to listen for events registered in component.$$.callbacks for elements with on:*. After preprocessing, Child.svelte looks like this:

<!-- Child.svelte -->
<script>
  import { boundElements, registerDelegatedEvents } from 'svelte-preprocess-delegate-events/runtime';
  import { get_current_component } from 'svelte/internal';
  let button = boundElements();
  const component = get_current_component();
  $: registerDelegatedEvents(button.bounds, component, (handler) => handler, {});
</script>

<button bind:this={button.bounds}>Click Me</button>

NOTE: The reason for binding <button> to button.bounds instead of binding it to the button variable is to support cases where multiple elements exist, such as <button> in a {#each} block.

In this way, only events that are being listened to by the parent component are listened to, thus providing a mechanism with no performance overhead.

Component

Component uses a different mechanism than Element. Consider the following simple example:

<!-- Parant.svelte -->
<script>
  import Child from './Child.svelte';
</script>
<Child on:click={() => console.log('clicked!')} />

<!-- Child.svelte -->
<script>
  import GrandChild from './GrandChild.svelte';
</script>
<GrandChild on:* />

<!-- GrandChild.svelte -->
<button on:click on:blur>Click Me</button>

If you are using on:* in Child.svelte, you need to forward all events from GrandChild to Parent. However, Child does not know what events are coming from GrandChild, so you need to do something. Specifically, when GrandChild triggers an event, it will refer to component.$$.callbacks to run its event handlers. By proxying component.$$.callbacks, you will know which events have been forwarded. Forwarded events can be communicated to the parent component so that the Parent component can handle the event.

After preprocessing, it looks like this:

<!-- Child.svelte -->
<script>
  import { boundComponents, proxyCallbacks } from 'svelte-preprocess-delegate-events/runtime';
  import { get_current_component } from 'svelte/internal';
  import GrandChild from './GrandChild.svelte';

  const GrandChild = boundComponents();
  const component = get_current_component();
  $: proxyCallbacks(component, GrandChild.bounds, false);
  </script>

<GrandChild bind:this={GrandChild.bounds} />

Note

on:* does not support specifying event handlers directly because a useful use case could not be found. If you have a useful use case, please create a new issue.

<script>
  import Component from './Component.svelte';
  const handleEvent = (e) => {
    console.log(e);
  }
</script>

<!-- Specifying event handler directly is not supported -->
<input on:*="{handleEvent}" />

<!-- Specifying event handler directly is not supported -->
<Component on:*="{handleEvent}" />

For Svelte 5 Users

For Svelte 5, event forwarding is natively supported.🎉

https://svelte-5-preview.vercel.app/docs/event-handlers#bubbling-events