nette/frontend-development

Frontend Development

Frontend built with modern tooling and seamlessly integrated with Nette backend through Nette Assets.

See the Nette Assets reference for asset management. See the Vite integration guide for build configuration.

Technology Stack

• Build system: Vite with TypeScript support
• JavaScript: ES Modules (ESM) with "type": "module" in package.json
• Styling: SCSS with modular component architecture
• Asset integration: Nette Assets for PHP-frontend bridge
• Admin framework: Bootstrap for rapid interface development
• Code quality: ESLint with @nette/eslint-plugin
• Forms: Nette Forms with progressive enhancement

Asset Architecture Strategy

Source vs Built Assets separation:

• Development assets: assets/ directory with source files (SCSS, TypeScript, images)
• Production assets: www/assets/ with optimized, versioned files for browsers

Coding Standards

• Use single quotes for strings unless containing apostrophes (CSS, SCSS, JavaScript)

Entry Point Decision Matrix

Use separate entry points when:

• Different user contexts with distinct dependencies (frontend vs admin)
• Bundle size optimization is critical

Example strategy:

// assets/front.js - Public website (custom design)
import './css/front.scss';
import './js/components/product-gallery.js';

// assets/admin.js - Administration (Bootstrap-based)
import 'bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.css';
import './css/admin.scss';

Organization Patterns

File-per-component approach:

assets/js/
├── components/
│   ├── product-form.js     ← Reusable form component
│   ├── image-gallery.js    ← Product image viewer
├── pages/
│   ├── blog.css            ← Page-specific enhancements
│   └── checkout.css        ← Multi-step checkout flow
└── utils/
    ├── ajax.js            ← AJAX utilities
    └── validation.js      ← Form validation helpers

Nette Assets Integration Patterns

Basic asset loading

{* Loads complete bundle with all dependencies *}
{asset 'front.js'}

Configuration

assets:
	mapping:
		default:
			type: vite
			devServer: true    # Enable HMR in debug mode

Data Flow from Backend to Frontend

Passing data to JavaScript:

{* In template *}
<script>
window.appConfig = {
	apiUrl: {$baseUrl . '/api'},
	userId: {$user->isLoggedIn() ? $user->getId() : null},
	locale: {$locale},
	csrfToken: {$csrfToken}
};
</script>
{asset 'front.js'}

Latte automatically applies context-sensitive escaping – values inside <script> are JSON-encoded, so strings get quoted and null stays null.

// In JavaScript component
const { apiUrl, userId, csrfToken } = window.appConfig;

fetch(`${apiUrl}/user-data`, {
	headers: { 'X-CSRF-Token': csrfToken }
});

Naja (AJAX Library)

Naja is the standard AJAX library for Nette – it handles snippet redrawing, form submissions, and history integration:

npm install naja

import naja from 'naja';

// Initialize after DOM is ready
naja.initialize();

Naja automatically intercepts links and forms with the ajax CSS class and handles snippet updates from the server. See Naja documentation for configuration and extensions.

Nette Forms Integration

Requires nette-forms npm package:

npm install nette-forms

Standard enhancement pattern:

import netteForms from 'nette-forms';

// Initialize Nette Forms validation
netteForms.initOnLoad();

ESLint Configuration

npm install --save-dev @nette/eslint-plugin eslint

Basic configuration with recommended rules:

// eslint.config.js
import nette from '@nette/eslint-plugin';
import { defineConfig } from 'eslint/config';

export default defineConfig([
	{
		extends: [nette.configs.recommended],
	},
]);

Linting JavaScript in Latte templates:

npm install --save-dev eslint-plugin-html

// eslint.config.js
import nette from '@nette/eslint-plugin';
import pluginHtml from 'eslint-plugin-html';
import { defineConfig } from 'eslint/config';

export default defineConfig([
	{
		extends: [nette.configs.recommended],
	},
	{
		files: ['app/**/*.latte'],
		plugins: {
			html: pluginHtml,
		},
		processor: '@nette/latte',  // Handles Latte tags in JS
	},
]);

This allows ESLint to check JavaScript inside <script> tags with Latte variables:

<script>
let name = {$name};
</script>

TypeScript support:

npm install --save-dev typescript typescript-eslint

import nette from '@nette/eslint-plugin/typescript';

export default defineConfig([
	{
		extends: [nette.configs.typescript],
	},
]);

Custom rules:

• @nette/no-this-in-arrow-except - Prevents this binding issues in arrow functions
• @nette/prefer-line-comments - Enforces // over /* */ for single-line comments

Tailwind CSS Integration

When using Tailwind CSS, configure it to scan Latte templates for class names:

/* assets/css/app.css */
@import 'tailwindcss';
@source '../app/**/*.latte';

Essential Commands

# Start the development server with HMR
npm run dev

# Build assets for production
npm run build

# Build assets for development
npm run build:dev

# Run ESLint checks
npm run lint

# Run ESLint and fix issues
npm run lint:fix

Online Documentation

For detailed information, use WebFetch on these URLs:

• Assets – Nette Assets documentation
• Naja – AJAX library for Nette