<is-land> Web Component

This web component originally shipped May 2022 but was conspicuously missing from my web site.

<is-land> enables Islands Architecture* on any web site. It’s an HTML web component. It has zero dependencies. It doesn’t require any server-side or build integration.

*with credit to Katie Sylor-Miller.

I use this web component everywhere—it’s a good one. Astro’s has popularized Islands Architecture (great!) and this component serves as a build-independent decoupled alternative.

If you aren’t yet familiar, Islands Architecture (apologies for this oversimplification) is turbo-charged lazy loading. It’s a way to initialize components and resources for sections (islands) of your web site when certain conditions are met: the island becomes visible, the page is idle, the viewport is a certain size, on events (click, mouseover, etc), and respecting user preferences (save data, reduce motion, etc).

• An overwhelming number of Demos
• Source code
• Documentation on 11ty.dev

You can use this with JavaScript component frameworks but it’s primarily intended for use with Web Components.

Usage #

Say you have a my-component.js web component definition file with the following content:

// my-component.js
customElements.define("my-component", class extends HTMLElement {
	// …
});

You can reference it on your web site like this:

<!-- Make sure is-land.js is first -->
<script type="module" src="is-land.js"></script>
<script type="module" src="my-component.js"></script>

<is-land on:visible on:idle>
	<my-component>Fallback content.</my-component>
</is-land>

Now any web components inside the <is-land> (that were not yet :defined when is-land.js loaded) will delay their initialization until the loading conditions are met.

Even lazier loading #

If you want to lazily load the component definition when the island initializes, you can do that too.

<script type="module" src="is-land.js"></script>

<is-land on:visible on:idle>
	<my-component>Fallback content.</my-component>
	<template data-island>
		<script type="module" src="my-component.js"></script>
	</template>
</is-land>

• You could add a <link rel="stylesheet" href="my-component.css"> in there too, if your component has separate styles too (any valid markup works).
• Use data-island="replace" to replace the Island’s content with the new template content.

Loading conditions #

When using multiple loading conditions, all of the loading conditions for an island must be true before the island initializes.

• on:visible
• on:idle
  • using requestIdleCallback
• on:interaction
  • defaults to touchstart,click, but you can change this to any event with on:interaction="mouseenter,focusin"
• on:media
  • on:media="(min-width: 64em)" for Viewport size.
  • on:media="(prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference)" to only initialize when the user has no motion preference.
• on:save-data="false" to only initialize when the user has not requested to Save Data.

Related #

Read the documentation on 11ty.dev or check out a few introductory videos below: