Writing Breeze-friendly Module

• About
• Directory structure
• Layout updates
• Styles
• Email styles
• JS components
• Knockout templates

About

When it comes to third-party modules, Breeze is highly compatible with blank/luma modules out of the box since we use the same page structure, blocks, layout updates, and templates for almost all of the pages.

The only parts that you may need to change are:

• CSS styles — if you use source/_module.less entry point for your styles.
• Javascript — if you use requirejs in your scripts.
• Html templates — if you use custom knockout tags (<each>, <render>, etc).

Let’s take a look at directory structure of the Breeze-friendly module.

Directory structure

<module>/view/frontend/
├── layout/
│   ├── breeze_catalog_product_view.xml
│   └── breeze_default.xml
├── templates/
└── web/
    ├── css/
    │   └── breeze/
    │       ├── _checkout.less
    │       ├── _email.less
    │       └── _default.less
    ├── js/
    │   └── breeze/
    │       └── component.js
    └── template/
        └── component.html

Let’s review each entry with usage examples.

Layout updates

When writing module for Breeze Frontend you may want to create layout updates that will affect Breeze-based theme only and will not change anything in blank/luma themes. Using breeze_ prefixed filename you guarantee that these instructions will not affect blank/luma based theme:

• breeze_default.xml
• breeze_catalog_category_view.xml
• breeze_catalog_category_layered.xml
• and so on.

The most common use-case for layout update — is a JS component registration. Remember to use breeze_default.xml layout update for this case.

Styles

In order to add your own styles to the Breeze-based theme you need to create <module>/view/frontend/web/css/breeze/_default.less file. This file will be automatically included on all store pages.

You can also create <module>/view/frontend/web/css/breeze/_checkout.less file for the styles that used at checkout page only.

Here is how your _default.less may look like:

& when (@critical) {
    .selector {
        //
    }
}
& when not (@critical) {
    .selector:hover {
        //
    }
}

Using @critical guard is required. Otherwise your styles will be duplicated in both critical and deferred styles.

Email styles

When you want to add custom styles to the email templates, you need to create <module>/view/frontend/web/css/breeze/_email.less file.

• Unlike theme styles, email styles doesn’t support @critical guard.
• Use .email-non-inline() mixin for complex styles that cannot be inlined by Magento.

Example:

.selector {
    //
}

.email-non-inline() {
    @media @media-sm-down {
        .selector {
            //
        }
    }
}

JS components

Please read the JS components page before you proceed further.

JS component lifecycle in Breeze is pretty similar to Luma’s components:

1. DOM parser finds data-mage-init or text/x-magento-init instructions.
2. JS Component is created according to these instructions.

The only difference is that you have to register your component in one of js bundles using breeze_default.xml layout update:

<referenceBlock name="breeze.js">
  <arguments>
    <argument name="bundles" xsi:type="array">
      <item name="default" xsi:type="array">
        <item name="items" xsi:type="array">
          <item name="Vendor_Module/js/component" xsi:type="array">
            <item name="path" xsi:type="string">Vendor_Module/js/breeze/component</item>
          </item>
        </item>
      </item>
    </argument>
  </arguments>
</referenceBlock>

Pay attention to the bundle name in the example above and choose the right one for your component. See the list of available bundles at JS components page.

Now, let’s view a basic example of js/breeze/component.js file:

(function () {
    'use strict';

    $.widget('uniqueComponentName', {
        component: 'Vendor_Module/js/component', // an alias that's used in the `data-mage-init` instructions.
        create: function () {
            // this.element - Cash collection. See https://github.com/fabiospampinato/cash
            // this.options - object
        }
    });

    $.view('uniqueComponentName', {
        component: 'Vendor_Module/js/component', // an alias that's used in the initialization instructions.
        defaults: {
            template: 'Vendor_Module/component' // see "Knockout templates" section below
        },
        create: function () {
            // this.element - Cash collection. See https://github.com/fabiospampinato/cash
            // this.options - object
        }
    });
})();

Please review Widgets and Views pages to get more information about these components.

Knockout templates

Think twice before using knockout templates. We think that they are overused in Luma’s codebase and we will remove their usages from Breeze in the future. Usually _.template is more than enough for the majority of the modules.

If your JS component is using knockout template, you should prerender it at the page. To do that you need to use layout update instructions and our HTML block renderer.

Here is an example that will render knockout or raw html template and will make it visible for view component from the previous example:

<referenceContainer name="before.body.end">
    <block class="Swissup\Breeze\Block\HtmlTemplate" name="breeze.Vendor_Module_component" template="Vendor_Module::component.html"/>
</referenceContainer>