vue-ray

vue-ray

Debug Vue code with Ray to fix problems faster

Install this package in any Vue 3 project to send messages to the Ray app.

Installation

Install with npm:

npm install vue-ray

or bun:

bun add vue-ray

Installing

When using in a Vue 3 project, you may optionally install the plugin globally in your main.js or app.js file. This is primarily useful if you want to cusomize the connection settings for the package.

import { RayPlugin } from 'vue-ray';
import { createApp } from 'vue';
import App from './App.vue';

const app = createApp(App);

app.use(RayPlugin, { 
    port: 23500,
    host: 'localhost',
    interceptErrors: true,
    nodeRaySettings: { 
        interceptConsoleLog: true,
    },
});

Installation options

Name	Type	Default	Description
host	string	localhost	host to connect to the Ray app on
scheme	string	http	URI scheme to use to connect to host
interceptErrors	boolean	false	send Vue errors to Ray
port	number	23517	port to connect to the Ray app on
nodeRaySettings	object	{}	pass additional settings for node-ray (reference)

Usage

To access the ray() function, import raySetup() from the vue-ray library:

<script setup>
import { raySetup } from 'vue-ray'
const ray = raySetup(); // `ray` is a ref, so you must use `ray.value` within the script tags
</script>

The raySetup() function accepts an optional options object, defined as:

interface RaySetupOptions {
    connection?: {
        host?: string;
        port?: number;
    }
    lifecycleEvents?: {
        beforeCreate?: boolean;
        beforeMount?: boolean;
        created?: boolean;
        mounted?: boolean;
        unmounted?: boolean;
        updated?: boolean;
        all?: boolean;
    }
}

The lifecycleEvents object can be used to enable or disable sending of the component's lifecycle events to Ray. Use the all property to enable all lifecycle events.

The following example will send the created and mounted events to Ray for the component:

<script setup>
import { raySetup } from 'vue-ray'
const ray = raySetup({
    lifecycleEvents: {
        created: true,
        mounted: true,
    },
});
</script>

The connection object can be used to specify the host and port to connect to the Ray app. The default values are localhost and 23517, respectively.

Sending data to Ray

Once you have called raySetup(), you may use the ray function in the Vue SFC as normal (see node-ray) to send data to Ray:

<template>
    <div>
        <button @click="ray('Hello from Vue!')">Send message to Ray</button>
        <button @click="() => ray().html('<strong>hello with html!</strong>')">Send html message to Ray</button>
    </div>
</template>

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

Vue-specific methods

Name	Description
ray().data()	show the component data
ray().props()	show the component props
ray().element(refName: string)	render the HTML of an element with a ref of refName
ray().track(name: string)	display changes to a component's data variable (best used when not using script setup)
ray().untrack(name: string)	stop displaying changes to a component's data variable
ray().watch(name: string, ref: Ref)	watch a ref's value and send changes to Ray (best used in script setup)
ray().unwatch(name: string)	stop watching a ref's value and stop sending changes to Ray

Watching refs

When using the script setup syntax, you can use the ray().watch(name, ref) method to watch a ref's value and send changes to Ray. Here's an example SFC using the script setup syntax:

<script setup>
import { ref } from 'vue';
import { raySetup } from 'vue-ray';

const one = ref(100);
const two = ref(22);
const ray = raySetup().value;

ray().watch('one', one);
ray().watch('two', two);
</script>

<template>
    <div>
        <div>{{ one }}</div>
        <div>{{ two }}</div>
        <button @click="one += 3">Increment one</button>
        <button @click="two += 3">Increment two</button>
    </div>
</template>

Tracking component data

When not using the script setup syntax, you can use the ray().track(name) method to track changes to a component's data variable. Here's an example SFC:

<script>
import { raySetup } from 'vue-ray';
let ray;

export default {
    props: ['title'],
    data() {
        return {
            one: 100,
            two: 22,
        };
    },
    created() {
        // must call raySetup() in the created() lifecycle hook so it can access the current component
        ray = raySetup().value;
        ray().track('one');
    },
    methods: {
        sendToRay() {
            ray().element('div1');
        },
        increment() {
            this.one += 3;
            this.two += 5;
        }
    }
};
</script>

<template>
    <div class="flex-col border-r border-gray-200 bg-white overflow-y-auto w-100">
        <div ref="div1" class="w-full flex flex-wrap">
            <div ref="div1a" class="w-4/12 inline-flex">{{ one }}</div>
            <div ref="div1b" class="w-4/12 inline-flex">{{ two }}</divr>
        </div>
        <div class="about">
            <h1>{{ title }}</h1>
            <a @click="sendToRay()">send ref to ray</a><br>
            <a @click="increment()">increment data var</a><br>
        </div>
    </div>
</template>

When either tracking data or watching a ref, you will notice that the entry in Ray updates in real-time as the data changes, instead of creating a new entry each time the >data changes.

Intercepting errors

Use the interceptErrors option to intercept errors and send them to Ray:

app.use(RayPlugin, { interceptErrors: true });

Development setup

npm install
npm run test

Development Builds

npm run build:dev

This will build the package in development mode, and writes to the dist-temp directory.

Production Builds

npm run build:dist

This will build the package in production mode, and writes to the dist directory.

Code Coverage Details

Testing

vue-ray uses Vitest for unit tests. To run the test suite, run the following command:

npm run test

...or run with coverage:

npm run test:coverage

---

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.