Introduction

Storybook is a powerful tool for developing and testing UI components in Javascript. It provides a convenient way to preview and interact with different states and variations of your components. However, out of the box, Storybook may not always provide the ideal preview experience for your components. In this blog post, we will explore how to customize component previews in Javascript Storybook to better suit our needs.

Why Customize Component Previews?

When working on a UI component library or application, it’s important to have a clear and visually appealing preview of the components. A well-designed preview can help developers and designers better understand how the component functions and its various states. By customizing component previews, we can enhance the usability and aesthetics of our UI component library or application.

Customizing Component Previews in Storybook

Storybook allows us to customize component previews using decorators or global decorators. Decorators are functions that wrap components and modify their behavior or appearance. Global decorators are decorators that are applied to all stories in Storybook.

To customize component previews, follow these steps:

Step 1: Create a Decorator

First, create a decorator function in your .storybook/preview.js or .storybook/preview.jsx file. This file is responsible for configuring the preview environment for Storybook.

// .storybook/preview.js

import React from 'react';

export const withCustomPreview = (Story) => {
  return <div style=>
    <Story/>
  </div>;
};

In this example, we create a withCustomPreview decorator that wraps the component with a <div> element with custom styling. You can modify the styling or add any other custom logic based on your requirements.

Step 2: Apply the Decorator to Stories

After creating the decorator, we need to apply it to our stories. We can do this on a per-story basis or globally for all stories.

Per-Story Basis

To apply the decorator to a specific story, use the decorators option in your component’s story file.

// Button.stories.js

import React from 'react';
import { Button } from './Button';

export default {
  title: 'Button',
  component: Button,
  decorators: [withCustomPreview],
};

export const Primary = () => <Button primary>Primary Button</Button>;
export const Secondary = () => <Button secondary>Secondary Button</Button>;

In this example, the withCustomPreview decorator is applied to both the Primary and Secondary button stories.

Global Decorator

To apply the decorator globally, modify your .storybook/preview.js or .storybook/preview.jsx file.

// .storybook/preview.js

import { addDecorator } from '@storybook/react';
import { withCustomPreview } from './decorators';

addDecorator(withCustomPreview);

With this configuration, the withCustomPreview decorator will be applied to all stories in your Storybook.

Step 3: Preview Customized Components

Now, when you run Storybook, you will see your components wrapped with the custom preview styling defined in the decorator.

Conclusion

Customizing component previews in Storybook allows us to create visually appealing and informative previews for our UI components. By following the steps outlined in this blog post, you can customize the previews of your components to better suit your needs and enhance the overall developer experience.

Give it a try and let us know how customizing component previews in Storybook has helped you! #Storybook #ComponentPreviews