Piral.Blazor.Core 6.0.5-pre.20230117.2

Piral.Blazor ·

All .NET things to make <a href="https://blazor.net" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/aspnet/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2019/04/BrandBlazor_nohalo_1000x.png" height="10"> Blazor</a> work seamlessly in microfrontends using <a href="https://piral.io" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://piral.io/logo-simple.f8667084.png" height="10">  Piral</a>.

This is the branch for Blazor 6.0 with .NET 6.0. If you want to switch to Blazor with the older .NET Core 3.2, please refer to the blazor-3.2 or blazor-5.0 branch. For the more recent .NET version see the blazor-7.0 branch.

Getting Started

You'll also find some information in the piral-blazor package.

Creating a Blazor Pilet

We recommend that you watch the video on scaffolding from the standard VS template before you go over the details below.

In general, to create a Blazor pilet using Piral.Blazor, two approaches can be used:

1. From Scratch

In this case, it is highly recommended to use our template. More information and installation instructions can be found in Piral.Blazor.Template.

2. Transforming an Existing Application

In this case, follow these steps:

1. Add a PiralInstance property to your .csproj file (The Piral instance name should be the name of the Piral instance you want to use, as it is published on npm.)

   <PropertyGroup>
       <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
       <PiralInstance>my-piral-instance</PiralInstance>
   </PropertyGroup>
   

   (You can optionally also specify an NpmRegistry property. The default for this is set to https://registry.npmjs.org/)

2. Install the Piral.Blazor.Tools and Piral.Blazor.Utils packages, make sure they both have a version number of format 6.0.x

3. Remove the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.WebAssembly.DevServer package and install the Piral.Blazor.DevServer package (using the same version as the packages from (2))

4. Rename Program.cs to Module.cs, and make sure to make the Main method an empty method.

5. Build the project. The first time you do this, this can take some time as it will fully scaffold the pilet.

If you run the solution using F5 the Piral.Blazor.DevServer will start the Piral CLI under the hood. This allows you to not only use .NET Hot-Reload, but also replace the pilets on demand.

Usage

Build Configuration

The *.csproj file of your pilet offers you some configuration steps to actually tailor the build to your needs.

Here is a minimal example configuration:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.BlazorWebAssembly">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
    <PiralInstance>../../app-shell/dist/emulator/app-shell-1.0.0.tgz</PiralInstance>
  </PropertyGroup>

  
</Project>

This one gets the app shell from a local directory. Realistically, you'd have your app shell on a registry. In case of the default registry it could look like

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.BlazorWebAssembly">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
    <PiralInstance>@mycompany/app-shell</PiralInstance>
  </PropertyGroup>

  
</Project>

but realistically you'd publish the app shell to a private registry on a different URL. In such scenarios you'd also make use of the NpmRegistry setting:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.BlazorWebAssembly">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
    <PiralInstance>@mycompany/app-shell</PiralInstance>
    <NpmRegistry>https://registry.mycompany.com/</NpmRegistry>
  </PropertyGroup>

  
</Project>

Besides these two options (required PiralInstance and optional NpmRegistry) the following settings exist:

• Version: Sets the version of the pilet. This is a/the standard project property.
• PiralInstance: Sets the name (or local path) of the app shell.
• NpmRegistry: Sets the URL of the npm registry to use. Will be used for getting npm dependencies of the app shell (and the app shell itself).
• Bundler: Sets the name of the bundler to use. By default this is esbuild. The list of all available bundlers can be found in the Piral documentation.
• ProjectsWithStaticFiles: Sets the names of the projects that contain static files, which require to be copied to the output directory. Separate the names of these projects by semicolons.
• Monorepo: Sets the behavior of the scaffolding to a monorepo mode. The value must be enable to switch this on.
• PiralCliVersion: Determines the version of the piral-cli tooling to use. By default this is latest.
• PiralBundlerVersion: Determines the version of the piral-cli-<bundler> to use. By default, this is the same as the value of the PiralCliVersion.
• OutputFolder: Sets the temporary output folder for the generated pilet (default: ..\piral~).
• ConfigFolder: Sets the folder where the config files are stored (default: empty, i.e., current project folder).

A more extensive example:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.BlazorWebAssembly">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
    <Version>1.2.3</Version>
    <PiralInstance>@mycompany/app-shell</PiralInstance>
    <PiralCliVersion>next</PiralCliVersion>
    <PiralBundlerVersion>0.15.0</PiralBundlerVersion>
    <NpmRegistry>https://registry.mycompany.com/</NpmRegistry>
    <Bundler>esbuild</Bundler>
    <Monorepo>disable</Monorepo>
    <ProjectsWithStaticFiles>
      designsystem;
      someotherproject;
      thirdproj
    </ProjectsWithStaticFiles>
  </PropertyGroup>

  
</Project>

Pages

A standard page in Blazor, using the @page directive, will work as expected, and will be automatically registered on the pilet API.

Extensions

To register an extension, the PiralExtension attribute can be used. You will also have to provide the extension slot name that defines where the extension should be rendered. The component can even be registered into multiple slots using multiple attributes.

//counter.razor

@attribute [PiralExtension("my-counter-slot")]
@attribute [PiralExtension("another-extension-slot")]

<h1>Counter</h1>

<p>Current count: @currentCount</p>

<button @onclick="IncrementCount">Click me</button>

@code {
    int currentCount = 0;

    void IncrementCount()
    {
        currentCount++;
    }
}

To use an extension within a Blazor component, the <Extension> component can be used.

<Extension Name="my-counter-slot"></Extension>

Components, Tiles, Menu Items, and Others

To register a Blazor component for use in the pilet API, the PiralComponent attribute can be used in two ways:

1. [PiralComponent], this will register the component using the fully qualified name.
2. [PiralComponent(<name>)] will register the component using the custom name provided.

To register these components onto the pilet API, a setup.tsx file should be created at the root of your Blazor project.

This file may then, for example to register a tile, look like this:

import { PiletApi } from '../piral~/<project_name>/node_modules/<piral_instance>';

type AddScript = (path: string, attrs?: Record<string, string>) => void;

export default (app: PiletApi, addScript: AddScript) => {
	//for a component marked with[PiralComponent("my-tile")]
	app.registerTile(app.fromBlazor('my-tile'));
};

The addScript function can be used to actually add more scripts, e.g.:

export default (app: PiletApi, addScript: AddScript) => {
	addScript("_content/Microsoft.Authentication.WebAssembly.Msal/AuthenticationService.js");
};

The first argument is the (relative) path to the RCL script, while the optional second argument provides additional attributes for the script to be added to the DOM.

Using Parameters

Parameters (or "props") are properly forwarded. Usually, it should be sufficient to declare [Parameter] properties in the Blazor components. Besides, there are more advanced ways.

Generic Approach

For instance, to access the params prop of an extension you can use the PiralParameter attribute. This way, you can "forward" props from JS to the .NET name of your choice (in this case "params" is renamed to "Parameters").

@attribute [PiralExtension("sample-extension")]

<div>@Parameters.Test</div>

@code {
    public class MyParams
    {
        public string Test { get; set; }
    }

    [Parameter]
    [PiralParameter("params")]
    public MyParams Parameters { get; set; }
}

For the serialization you'll need to use either a JsonElement or something that can be serialized into. In this case, we used a class called MyParams.

With the PiralParameter you can also access / forward children to improve object access:

@attribute [PiralExtension("sample-extension")]

<div>@Message</div>

@code {
    [Parameter]
    [PiralParameter("params.Test")]
    public string Message { get; set; }
}

That way, we only have a property Message which reflects the params.Test. So if the extension is called like that:

<app.Extension
    name="sample-extension"
    params={
        {
            Test: "Hello world",
        }
    }
/>

It would just work.

Routes

If you want to match the route parameter you can use the generic approach, too:

@page "/foo/{id}"

<div>@Id</div>

@code {
    [Parameter]
    [PiralParameter("match.params.id")]
    public string Id { get; set; }
}

However, since using match.params is quite verbose and easy to get wrong you can also use the special PiralRouteParameter attribute.

@page "/foo/{id}"

<div>@Id</div>

@code {
    [Parameter]
    [PiralRouteParameter("id")]
    public string Id { get; set; }
}

Note that there is another convenience deriving from the use of PiralRouteParameter. If your route parameter name matches the name of the property then you can also omit the argument:

@page "/foo/{Id}"

<div>@Id</div>

@code {
    [Parameter]
    [PiralRouteParameter]
    public string Id { get; set; }
}

Dependency Injection

You can define services for dependency injection in a Module class. The name of the class is arbitrary, but it shows the difference to the standard Program class, which should not be available, as mentioned before.

To be able to compile successfully, a Main method should be declared, which should remain empty.

public class Module
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        // this entrypoint should remain empty
    }

    public static void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
    {
        // configure dependency injection for the components in the pilet here
        // -> use this for pilet-exclusive deps here
        // -> the method is optional; you can remove it if not needed
    }

    public static void ConfigureShared(IServiceCollection services)
    {
        // configure dependency injection for the whole application here
        // -> use this for third-party libraries or if you want to share deps with other pilets
        // -> the method is optional; you can remove it if not needed
        //
        // IMPORTANT: The Blazor library (dll) is only loaded when a component from the library
        //            is used => the shared dependencies are only available when the library is
        //            loaded. Therefore, only use this to share dependencies when you are sure
        //            that the library is loaded first / before another one.
        //            Recommendation is to use ConfigureServices as much as possible, or bring
        //            the shared dependency definition to all pilets relying on it.
    }
}

The ConfigureServices and ConfigureShared methods are optional. If you want to configure dependency injection in your pilet then use this. Our recommendation is to use ConfigureServices is much as possible, however, for using third-party libraries you might want to use ConfigureShared.

Third-party libraries require globally shared dependencies, as the third-party libraries are also globally shared (i.e., if two pilets depend on the same assembly it would only be loaded once, making it implicitly shared, however, this one only works if the pilet defining the shared dependency is loaded before the other one).

One way to mitigate the sharing issue with ConfigureShared is to use the same initialization on all pilets relying on the shared dependency. This way, independent which pilets are available and loaded first, the dependency sharing always works.

Note: While ConfigureShared applies to all components, ConfigureServices only works for components defined in the scope of a pilet. This has to be the case, as components from shared libraries might be loaded from any pilet first - making it unclear where the component should be assigned to (usually it's either no or all pilets, but at the time of rendering this is completely unclear). To bring a component into the scope of a pilet (even if its in the same library) you need to have it declare as @attribute [PiralComponent], e.g.,

// bring it in scope of the current pilet
@attribute [PiralComponent]
// now you can inject services defined in ConfigureServices
@inject IMyLocalService myLocalService

<div>
  @myLocalService.Title
</div>

Additionally, the two methods support another argument providing the configuration of the pilet, i.e., the IConfiguration object. So, the example above could be rewritten to be:

public class Module
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        // this entrypoint should remain empty
    }

    public static void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services, IConfiguration configuration)
    {
    }

    public static void ConfigureShared(IServiceCollection services, IConfiguration configuration)
    {
    }
}

The configuration uses the meta.config of the Pilet API provided by the pilet.

Standard Pilet Service

Every pilet gets automatically a service called IPiletService injected. This can be used to compute the URL of a resource.

@inject IPiletService Pilet

The only helper there is GetUrl. You can use it like:

@page "/example"
@inject IPiletService Pilet

<img src=@Pilet.GetUrl("images/something.png") alt="Some image" />

In the example above the resource images/something.png would be placed in the wwwroot folder (i.e., wwwroot/images/something). As the content of the wwwroot folder is copied, the image will also be copied. However, the old local URL is not valid in a pilet, which needs to prefix its resources with its base URL. The function above does that. In that case, the URL would maybe be something like http://localhost:1234/$pilet-api/0/images/something.png while debugging, and another fully qualified URL later in production.

Root Component

By default, the Blazor pilets run in a dedicated Blazor application with no root component. If you need a root component, e.g., to provide some common values from a CascadingValue component such as CascadingAuthenticationState from the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Authorization package, you can actually override the default root component:

@attribute [PiralAppRoot]

<CascadingAuthenticationState>
    @ChildContent
</CascadingAuthenticationState>

@code {
    [Parameter]
    public RenderFragment ChildContent { get; set; }
}

You can also provide your own providers here (or nest them as you want):

@attribute [PiralAppRoot]

<CascadingValue Value="@theme">
    <div>
        @ChildContent
    </div>
</CascadingValue>

@code {
    [Parameter]
    public RenderFragment ChildContent { get; set; }
    
    private string theme = "dark";
}

Note, that there is always just one PiralAppRoot component. If you did not supply one then the default PiralAppRoot will be used. If you already provided one, no other PiralAppRoot can be used.

Running and Debugging the Pilet 🚀

From your Blazor project folder, run your pilet via the Piral CLI:

cd ../piral~/<project-name>
npm start

In addition to this, if you want to debug your Blazor pilet using for example Visual Studio, these requirements should be considered:

• keep the Piral CLI running
• debug your Blazor pilet using IISExpress

⚠️ if you want to run your pilet and directly visit it in the browser without debugging via IISExpress, you will have to disable a kras script injector before visiting the pilet. To do this, go to http://localhost:1234/manage-mock-server/#/injectors, disable the debug.js script, and save your changes. Afterwards, you can visit http://localhost:1234.

Special Files

There are some special files that you can add in your project (adjacent to the .csproj file):

• .piralconfig/setup.tsx
• .piralconfig/teardown.tsx
• .piralconfig/package-overwrites.json
• .piralconfig/meta-overwrites.json
• .piralconfig/js-imports.json

Let's see what they do and how they can be used.

Extending the Pilet's Setup

The setup.tsx file can be used to define more things that should be done in a pilet's setup function. By default, the content of the setup function is auto generated. Things such as @page /path-to-use components or components with @attribute [PiralExtension("name-of-slot")] would be automatically registered. However, already in case of @attribute [PiralComponent] we have a problem. What should this component do? Where is it used?

The solution is to use the setup.tsx file. An example:

export default (app) => {
  app.registerMenu(app.fromBlazor('counter-menu'));

  app.registerExtension("ListToggle", app.fromBlazor('counter-preview'));
};

This example registers a pilet's component named "counter-menu" as a menu entry. Furthermore, it also adds the "counter-preview" component as an extension to the "ListToggle" slot.

Anything that is available on the Pilet API provided via the app argument is available in the function. The only import part of setup.tsx is that has a default export - which is actually a function.

Overwriting the Package Manifest

The generated / used pilet is a standard npm package. Therefore, it will have a package.json. The content of this package.json is mostly pre-determined. Things such as piral-cli or the pilet's app shell package are in there. In some cases, additional JS dependencies for runtime or development aspects are necessary or useful. In such cases the package-overwrites.json comes in handy.

For instance, to actually extend the devDependencies you could write:

{
  "devDependencies": {
    "axios": "^0.20.0"
  }
}

This would add a development dependency to the axios package. Likewise, other details, such as a publish config or a description could also be added / overwritten:

{
  "description": "This is my pilet description.",
  "publishConfig": {
    "access": "public"
  }
}

The rules for the merge follow the Json.NET approach.

Overwriting the Debug Meta Data

The generated / used pilet is served from the local file system instead of a feed service. Therefore, it will not have things like a configuration store. However, you might want to use one - or at least test against one. For this, usually a meta.json file can be used. The content of this meta.json is then merged into the metadata of a served pilet. For Piral.Blazor this file is premade, however, its content can still be overwritten using a meta-overwrites.json file.

For instance, to include a custom config field (with one config called backendUrl) in the pilet's metadata you can use the following content:

{
  "config": {
    "backendUrl": "http://localhost:7345"
  }
}

The rules for the merge follow the Json.NET approach.

Extending the Pilet's Teardown

The teardown.tsx file can be used to define more things that should be done in a pilet's teardown function. By default, the content of the teardown function is auto generated. Things such as pages and extensions would be automatically unregistered. However, in some cases you will need to unregister things manually. You can do this here.

Defining Additional JavaScript Imports

Some Blazor dependencies require additional JavaScript packages in order to work correctly. The js-imports.json file can be to declare all these. The files will then be added via a generated import statement in the pilet's root module.

The content of the js-imports.json file is a JSON array. For example:

[
  "axios",
  "global-date-functions"
]

Includes the two dependencies via the respective import statements.

DevServer Settings

The Piral.Blazor.DevServer can be configured, too. Much like the standard / official Blazor DevServer you can introduce a blazor-devserversettings.json file that describes more options. Right now the contained options are the same as the one for the official Blazor DevServer.

In addition, the options for the DevServer also touch the configured options for the Piral.Blazor.Tools, such as OutputFolder which is used to define where the scaffolded pilet is stored.

License

Piral.Blazor is released using the MIT license. For more information see the license file.