Every Owl application has a root element, a set of templates, an environment and
possibly a few other settings. The App
class is a simple class that represents
all of these elements. Here is an example:
const {Component, App } = owl;
class MyComponent extends Component { ... }
const app = new App(MyComponent, { props: {...}, templates: "..."});
app.mount(document.body);
The basic workflow is: create an App
instance configured with the root
component, the templates, and possibly other settings. Then, we mount that
instance somewhere in the DOM.
-
constructor(Root[, config])
: first argument should be a component class (not an instance), and the optional second argument is a configuration object (see below). -
mount(target, options)
: first argument is an html element, and the optional second argument is an object with mounting options (see below). Mount the app to a target in the DOM. Note that this is an asynchronous operation: themount
method returns a promise that resolves to the component instance whenever it is complete.The
option
object is an object with the following keys:position (string)
: eitherfirst-child
orlast-child
. This option determines the position of the application in the target: either first or last child.
-
destroy()
: destroys the application
The config
object is an object with some of the following keys:
env (object)
: if given, this will be the sharedenv
given to each componentprops (object)
: the props given to the root componentdev (boolean, default=false)
: iftrue
, the application is rendered indev
mode;test (boolean, default=false)
:test
mode is the same asdev
mode, except that Owl will not log a message to warn that Owl is indev
mode.translatableAttributes (string[])
: a list of additional attributes that should be translated (see translations)translateFn (function)
: a function that will be called by owl to translate templates (see translations)templates (string | xml document)
: all the templates that will be used by the components created by the application.warnIfNoStaticProps (boolean, default=false)
: if true, Owl will log a warning whenever it encounters a component that does not provide a static props description.
Note that there is a mount
helper to do that in just a line:
const { mount, Component } = owl;
class MyComponent extends Component {
...
}
mount(MyComponent, document.body, { props: {...}, templates: "..."});
Here is the mount
function signature:
mount(Component, target, config)
with the following arguments:
Component
: a component class (Root component of the app)target
: an html element, where the component will be mounted as last childconfig (optional)
: a config object (the same as the App config object)
Most of the time, the mount
helper is more convenient, but whenever one needs
a reference to the actual Owl App, then using the App
class directly is
possible.
Most applications will need to load templates whenever they start. Here is what it could look like in practice:
// in the main js file:
const { loadFile, mount } = owl;
// async, so we can use async/await
(async function setup() {
const templates = await loadFile(`/some/endpoint/that/return/templates`);
const env = {
_t: someTranslateFn,
templates,
// possibly other stuff
};
mount(Root, document.body, { env });
})();
Dev mode activates some additional checks and developer amenities:
- Props validation is performed
- t-foreach loops check for key unicity
- Lifecycle hooks are wrapped to report their errors in a more developer-friendly way
- onWillStart and onWillUpdateProps will emit a warning in the console when they take longer than 3 seconds in an effort to ease debugging the presence of deadlocks