Flask-VueSFC

Flask-VueSFC is a Flask extension that translates and renders Vue.js Single File Components.

In short, it translates code like this

<template>
  <div>Current time is: <b>{{ date }}</b></div>
  </template>
<script>
  Vue.use(vueMoment)

  export default  {
    name: 'App',
    data() {
      return {
        date: null
      }
    },
    created() {
      this.setCurrentTime()
    },
    methods: {
      setCurrentTime() {
        this.date = this.$moment().format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY, h:mm:ss a')
        setTimeout(() => {
          this.setCurrentTime()
        }, 1000)
      }
    }
  }
</script>

into this

<div id="vue-sfc-996dcfa8e795">
  <div>Current time is: <b>[[ date ]]</b>
  </div>
</div>
<script>
  Vue.use(vueMoment);
  new Vue({
    el:'#vue-sfc-996dcfa8e795',
    delimiters:['[[',']]'],
    name:'App',
    data(){
      return{
        date: null
      }
    },
    created() {
      this.setCurrentTime()
    },
    methods: {
      setCurrentTime() {
        this.date = this.$moment().format('dddd, MMMM Do YYYY, h:mm:ss a');
        setTimeout(()=>{
          this.setCurrentTime()
        },1e3)
      }
    }
  })
</script>

which renders something like this:

Current time is: Friday, October 16th 2020, 2:35:27 am

Disclaimer:

This project is not a replacement for webpack in any way. Depending on the complexity of one's project and specific cases, this project might or might not be useful.

Any third party JS library used must be UMD compatible.

All code outside the Vue App must be ES5 compatible.

Usage

Install it with

pip install Flask-VueSFC

Here's an example on how to use the extension

from flask_vue_sfc import VueSFC
from flask_vue_sfc.helpers import render_vue_component, render_vue_page

def create_app():
    app = Flask(__name__)

    VueSFC(app)

    @app.route('/example1')
    def example1():
        component = render_vue_component('index.vue')
        return render_template('example.html', component=component)

    @app.route('/example2')
    def example2():
        return render_vue_page('index.vue')

Since render_vue_component returns html syntax we need to make sure jinja doesn't try to escape it. So be sure to always use the safe filter when rendering the component like so

{{ component|safe }}

Feel free to checkout the examples folder for other examples.

Styling

Sass styling is supported, though this needs to be tested in a complex app to determine the extent.

Escaping

Occasionally, you might need a variable to be parsed by jinja instead of vue. To achieve this, use triple parenthesis i.e {{{ variable }}}.

Checkout examples/app_with_escaping.py for a sample.

Configuration

There are configuration options used by Flask-Vue-SFC.

When VUE_PROD_MODE is set to True, all Vue components are rendered from .sfc.html files. In order to produce these files, run flask vue build before starting your app.

Motivation?

Over the past year or so, I've found myself working on projects which involve Vue.js and Flask/Django. In most scenarios the frontend app was a standalone application so a lot of thought didn't have to be put into how it interacts with the backend besides through API calls. In some scenarios, however, the requirement was usage of Vue.js as library instead of a framework. The latter pattern is becoming more common with the slow demise of jQuery (Yes, yes I said it :) )

Organizing Vue.js code becomes quite problematic due to the fact there's conventional way of organizing code when it's not being used as a framework. Perhaps this is because it's all dependent on the backend framework being used and it's conventions.

Then it dawned unto me. What if devs could work with single file components directly without having to deal with webpack???

Contributions

All contributions are welcome. Feel feel free to raise an issue and open a PR if you want to fix a bug or add a feature.