README

Laravel package which will download your html templates as built by webpack-html-loader for use in your projects.

Intended for use with vue-cli.

Installation

Require this package with composer.

composer require m-porter/vue-template-loader

Package Discovery

If you don't use auto-discovery, add the ServiceProvider to the providers array in config/app.php.

MPorter\VueTemplateLoader::class,

Configuration

Copy the package config to your local config with artisan's vendor:publish command:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="MPorter\VueTemplateLoader\ServiceProvider"

Usage

This package is very opinionated and requires changes to your default vue.config.js file. Vue-template-loader is intended to be used with vue-cli's multi-page mode.

You can assume the following laravel project structure for this usage tutorial. (Modified directory structure after running vue create frontend).

<laravel project root>/frontend
├── package-lock.json
├── package.json
├── src
│   ├── example-app
│   │   ├── App.vue
│   │   ├── assets
│   │   │   └── logo.png
│   │   ├── components
│   │   │   └── HelloWorld.vue
│   │   ├── index.blade.php
│   │   └── main.js
└── vue.config.js

• Remove the default app entry with chainWebpack.

  // vue.config.js
  
  module.exports = {
  
  +    chainWebpack: (config) => {
  +        config.entryPoints.delete('app');
  +    },
  
  };

• Update outputDir to point at laravel's public directory.

  // vue.config.js
  
  module.exports = {
  
  +    outputDir: '../public/assets',
  
      chainWebpack: (config) => {
          config.entryPoints.delete('app');
      },
  
  };

• Update publicPath for both local development and prod. This will allow you to use both hmr and built files locally.

  NODE_ENV will already exist on process.env but WEBPACK_HOST and WEBPACK_PORT will not. You will need to either add it to your npm scripts (e.g. WEBPACK_HOST=0.0.0.0 vue-cli-service serve) or use a npm package like dotenv to read your laravel .env file.

  // vue.config.js
  
  + const isProd = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production';
  + const host = process.env.WEBPACK_HOST || '0.0.0.0';
  + const port = process.env.WEBPACK_PORT || 8080;
  
  module.exports = {
  
  +    publicPath: isProd ? '/assets' : `http://${host}:${port}/`,
  
      outputDir: '../public/assets',
  
      chainWebpack: (config) => {
          config.entryPoints.delete('app');
      },
  
  };

• Update pages to include your frontend app. For this example, you can assume the following app structure.

  NOTE: Your folder CANNOT be named app. This is a reserved folder name in vue-cli.

  // vue.config.js
  
  const isProd = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production';
  const host = process.env.WEBPACK_HOST || '0.0.0.0';
  const port = process.env.WEBPACK_PORT || 8080;
  
  + const resourcePath = (n) => path.join('../../resources/views/vue', `${n}.blade.php`);
  + const filenameForEnv = (n) => (isProd ? resourcePath(n) : `${n}.html`);
  
  module.exports = {
  
  +    pages: {
  +        'example-app': {
  +            title: 'Example App',
  +            entry: 'src/example-app/main.js',
  +            template: 'src/example-app/index.blade.php',
  +            filename: filenameForEnv('example-app'),
  +        },
  +    },
  
      publicPath: isProd ? '/assets' : `http://${host}:${port}/`,
  
      outputDir: '../public/assets',
  
      chainWebpack: (config) => {
          config.entryPoints.delete('app');
      },
  
  };

  Two helper functions, resourcePath and filenameForEnv, were added to the config to help manage output file naming based on the current environment.

  resourcePath handles sending the built html template to the vue-template-loader expected resource_path('views/vue') directory it reads from on the PHP side.

• Test it out! Run npm run serve from your frontend directory and modify your routes/web.php.

  // routes/web.php
  
  use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
  use MPorter\VueTemplateLoader\Loader;
  
  Route::get('/', function () {
      return view(Loader::getTemplate('example-app'));
  });

  You should now be able to see the default vue page!

• Update your .gitignore to avoid checking in built templates and files.

  public/assets/
  resources/views/vue/