webui

Programmatic Rust API for the WebUI build-time rendering framework. Parse templates, compile protocols, and render HTML — no CLI required.

Install

cargo add webui

Quick Start

use webui::{build, BuildOptions, DomStrategy};

// Build a WebUI application from an app directory
let result = build(BuildOptions {
    app_dir: "my-app/src".into(),
    entry: "index.html".into(),
    dom: DomStrategy::Shadow,
    ..Default::default()
})?;

// result.protocol_bytes — serialized protocol (protobuf binary)
// result.css_files — extracted component CSS files
// result.stats — build timing and fragment counts

API

Build

use webui::{build_to_disk, BuildOptions, CssStrategy, DomStrategy, Plugin};

build_to_disk(
    BuildOptions {
        app_dir: "src".into(),
        entry: "index.html".into(),
        css: CssStrategy::Link,        // or CssStrategy::Style for inline
        dom: DomStrategy::Shadow,      // or DomStrategy::Light for light DOM
        plugin: Some(Plugin::FastV3),    // @microsoft/fast-element 3.x hydration plugin
        components: vec![],             // additional component sources
        ..BuildOptions::default()
    },
    Path::new("dist"),
)?;

For CDN/cache-friendly Link-mode CSS, override only the CSS asset fields:

BuildOptions {
    app_dir: "src".into(),
    css_file_name_template: "[name]-[hash].[ext]".into(),
    css_public_base: Some("https://cdn.example.com/assets".into()),
    ..BuildOptions::default()
}

Render

use webui::{WebUIHandler, WebUIProtocol, ResponseWriter, RenderOptions};

let protocol = WebUIProtocol::from_protobuf(&protocol_bytes)?;
let state: serde_json::Value = serde_json::json!({"name": "WebUI"});

let handler = WebUIHandler::new();
handler.handle(&protocol, &state, &RenderOptions::new("index.html", "/"), &mut writer)?;

With a hydration plugin enabled (the webui plugin shown here; see the WebUI documentation for the available plugin identifiers):

use webui::{WebUIHandler, HandlerPlugin};
use webui_handler::plugin::webui::WebUIHydrationPlugin;

let handler = WebUIHandler::with_plugin(|| Box::new(WebUIHydrationPlugin::new()));

Inspect

use webui::{inspect, inspect_bytes};

// From a file
let json = inspect(Path::new("dist/protocol.bin"))?;

// From bytes
let json = inspect_bytes(&protocol_bytes)?;

Partial Responses (Client Navigation)

For servers handling client-side navigation, produce a complete JSON partial:

use webui_handler::route_handler;

let partial = route_handler::render_partial(
    &protocol, state, "index.html", "/users/42", inventory_hex,
);
// Returns: { state, templates, inventory, path, chain }

Types

License

MIT