Interactive atom template

npm install

Running locally

npm start

Go to http://localhost:8000

Deploying

Fill out config.json:

{
    "title": "Title of your interactive",
    "docData": "Any associated external data",
    "path": "year/month/unique-title"
}

Then run

npm run deploy

Checking the deploy

You can check the deploy log by running

npm run log

NOTE: Updates can take up to 30 seconds to show in the logs

Embedding into Composer

Run the command below, copy the URL into Composer and click embed.

npm run url

Usage guide

We use SASS for better CSS, Babel for next generation JavaScript and Rollup for bundling.

Interactive atoms have three components:

• CSS - src/css/main.scss
• HTML - src/render.js should generate some HTML (by default returns the contents of src/templates/main.html)
• JS - src/js/main.js, by default this simply loads src/js/app.js

Loading resources (e.g. assets)

Resources must be loaded with absolute paths, otherwise they won't work when deployed. Use the template string <%= path %> in any CSS, HTML or JS, it will be replaced with the correct absolute path.

<img src="<%= path %>/assets/image.png" />

.test {
    background-image: url('<%= path %>/assets/image.png');
}

var url = '<%= path %>/assets/image.png';

Atom size

Interactive atoms are baked into the initial page response so you need to be careful about how much weight you are adding. While CSS and HTML are unlikely to ever be that large, you should worry about the size of your JS.

The difference between src/js/main.js and src/js/app.js is that the former is baked into the page and the latter is not. Never load large libraries (such as d3) in src/js/main.js. In most cases, the majority of the work should happen in src/js/app.js and src/js/main.js should be reserved for simple initialisation.

Loading JSON

We have a ready-built component for loading JSON files. It uses the Fetch api and includes the necessary polyfills to work on most browsers. It is only designed to be used client-side.

For example:

import loadJson from '../components/load-json/'

loadJson("https://interactive.guim.co.uk/...)
      .then((data) => {
	  console.log(data);
      })