alpinejs-ray

Debug Alpine.js code with Ray to fix problems faster

Install this package into any project using Alpine.js to send messages to the Ray app.

Note: use version ^1.4 of this package for Alpine v2 and ^2.0 for Alpine v3.

Installation

Installation via CDN (recommended)

The preferred way to use this package is to load it via CDN, which must be done before loading Alpine.

The axios library must be loaded prior to loading alpinejs-ray and Alpine:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/axios@latest/dist/axios.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/alpinejs-ray@2/dist/standalone.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/alpinejs@3/dist/cdn.min.js" defer>

Installation via Module Import

First, install alpinejs-ray with npm (or your preferred package manager):

npm install alpinejs-ray

Although not the recommended way, the package can be imported as an ESM module along with alpinejs and axios:

import Alpine from 'alpinejs';
import AlpineRayPlugin from 'alpinejs-ray';

window.axios = require('axios');
window.axios.defaults.headers.common['X-Requested-With'] = 'XMLHttpRequest';

window.Alpine = Alpine;

Alpine.plugin(AlpineRayPlugin);
Alpine.start();

Configuration

To configure alpinejs-ray, you must create an alpineRayConfig property on the window object before loading alpinejs-ray:

<script>
    window.alpineRayConfig = {
        logComponentsInit: true,
        logErrors: true,
        logEvents: ['abc'],
    };
</script>

<!-- load axios and alpinejs-ray -->

Name	Type(s)	Default	Description
logComponentsInit	boolean	false	Send info on component initializations to Ray
logErrors	boolean	false	Send javascript errors to Ray instead of the console
logEvents	boolean, array	false	Send specified custom events to Ray, or false to disable

Usage

After installing the plugin, access the $ray() magic method within your components:

<button @click="$ray().text('hello world')">Say Hello</button>

See the node-ray reference for a complete list of available methods.

Directives

Use the x-ray directive within your HTML markup to easily send data to Ray. The value of the directive must be a valid javascript expression.

<div x-data>
    <!-- sends 'hello world' and the value of the 'mystore.somevalue' Alpine store to Ray -->
    <div x-ray="'hello world'"></div>
    <div x-ray="$store.mystore.somevalue"></div>
</div>

The x-ray directive values are reactive; if the value changes, the new data will be sent to and displayed in Ray in-place. The changed value will be momentarily highlighted in Ray to indicate that it was updated.

Example Components

<button @click="$ray('hello from alpine')">Send to Ray</button>

<div x-data="onClickData()">
    <div x-show="show">Hi There Ray!</div>

    <button x-on:click="toggle()">Show/Hide (Ray)</button>
</div>

<script>        
function onClickData() {
    return {
        init() {
            this.$ray().html('<strong>init on-click-ray data</strong>');
        },
        toggle() {
            this.show = !this.show;
            this.$ray('toggled show value to ' + (this.show ? 'true' : 'false'));
        },
        show: false,
    };
}
</script>

Displaying errors

Errors can be displayed in Ray automatically, with the portion of the code that caused the error highlighted.

Tracking Data Stores

Alpine stores can be automatically sent to Ray whenever the store data is mutated. Consider the following:

window.Alpine.store('mydata', {
    showing: false,
});
 
setInterval( () => {
    window.Alpine.store('mydata').showing = !window.Alpine.store('mydata').showing;
}, 3000);

To watch the store and display changes in Ray, use the $ray().watchStore('name') method:

<div x-data="componentData()">
    <div x-show="$store.mydata.showing">Hi There Ray!</div>
    <button x-on:click="toggle()">Show/Hide (Ray)</button>
</div>

<script>      
window.Alpine.store('mydata', {
    showing: false,
});
  
function componentData() {
    return {
        init() {
            this.$ray().watchStore('mydata');
        },
        toggle() {
            this.$store.mydata.showing = !this.$store.mydata.showing;
        },
    };
}
</script>

Development Setup

For the development of alpinejs-ray, clone the repository and install dependencies via npm:

npm install

Finally, build all library files; they will be output to the dist directory.

npm run build:all

Testing

alpinejs-ray uses Jest for unit tests. To run the test suite:

npm run test

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Security Vulnerabilities

Please review our security policy on how to report security vulnerabilities.

Credits

• Patrick Organ
• All Contributors

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.