Linaria 1.0 roadmap

[satya164]

The next rewrite is at: https://github.com/callstack/linaria/tree/next

Summary

• Different architecture - Previously the Babel plugin used to write CSS files to the disk, this caused many issues:
  • We have to deal with environment variables to prevent writing files
  • We have to use separate options for testing and SSR to prevent these files from getting written
  • Files keep getting written multiple times when rebuilding in webpack, which in turn triggers multiple rebuilds
  • single: true with babel-cli doesn't work properly as it operates on each file in a separate process which can cause issues like Missing classes in output - depending on filename #204
  • Tests are very complex and debugging is harder due to we having to read output from stdout
    Now the Babel plugin writes the CSS as a comment in the file and the webpack loader write the actual files, which avoids all these issues, makes tests significantly simpler.
• Sourcemap support - Users can jump to the JS file where the style was declared from devtools
• Proper dependency tracking - The babel plugin can output the dependency list so that the webpack loader can properly mark the dependencies for the file
• A simplified module system - Previously the module system tried to implement all the methods supported in Node. Now we just support the minimum required API (module.exports, exports, require, require.resolve, __filename and __dirname), which makes the codebase simpler, more maintainable are consistent with webpack
• Restricted sandbox when evaluating code - We prevent access to node's native modules when evaluating because you wouldn't be able to do it with webpack, people should use something like babel-plugin-preval to do those
• React bindings with styled helper ala styled-components which uses CSS custom properties for dynamic properties

This will be a breaking change and will require using both the Babel plugin and Webpack loader. It'll also address many outstanding issues: #169, #198, #204, #206, #208, #209

TODO

• Handle dynamic imports when evaluating (should replace them with noop using a Babel plugin)
• Add back support for include in css tag (maybe not)
• Verify that the css and styled tags are from linaria when processing them (@zamotany)
• Add stylelint preprocessor back ( feat: add stylelint preprocessor #221)
• Add back now.json config for the website and fix deploy (@thymikee)
• Add missing tests to get the coverage to 100%
• Fix [next] 🐞 collect() fails on a particular CSS snippet from bootstrap 4 #217
• Fix integration tests (@thymikee)
• Review and update documentation
• Update the content of the website (@zamotany)
• Write a CLI to extract the CSS comments into files, useful for libraries (@zamotany)
• Update https://github.com/thymikee/linaria-jest (@thymikee)

[chrisbateman]

So I guess Linaria will no longer be able to be used with libraries or other projects that don't use Webpack?

Just confirming. I definitely understand it's tricky to do with Babel alone

[satya164]

@chrisbateman for the next release, we'll only have a webpack loader. but eventually we'll write integrations for more bundlers. we're also working on a CLI (#227) for libraries.