Static typing can be a powerful tool for improving code quality, catching errors at compile time, and enhancing developer productivity. While JavaScript is a dynamically typed language, there are tools available that allow us to add static typing to our JavaScript code. One popular tool is TypeScript, a superset of JavaScript that adds static typing and other features to the language.

In this blog post, we will explore how to use static typing with JavaScript Storybook, a popular UI development tool that allows us to build, test, and showcase our UI components in isolation.

Why use static typing with Storybook?

Storybook provides a great environment for developing UI components in isolation. It allows us to build components in an isolated way, which makes it easier to test and iterate on them. By adding static typing to Storybook, we can further enhance the development experience. Here are a few benefits of using static typing with Storybook:

1. Catch errors early: By defining types for our components and props, static typing allows us to catch potential errors early in the development phase. This helps us avoid runtime errors and improves the stability of our components.

2. Improved development experience: Static typing provides autocompletion, type inference, and refactoring tools, which can greatly improve developer productivity and reduce manual debugging efforts.

3. Better collaboration: Static typing makes the codebase more self-documented and easier to understand for other developers on the team. It helps reduce misunderstandings and improves collaboration when working on shared UI components.

Using TypeScript with Storybook

To use static typing with Storybook, we can simply convert our JavaScript codebase to TypeScript. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, which means that any valid JavaScript code is also valid TypeScript code.

Step 1: Initialize TypeScript

First, we need to initialize TypeScript in our project. We can do this by running the following command in our project directory:

npm init -y

This creates a package.json file in our project.

Step 2: Install TypeScript

Next, we need to install TypeScript as a development dependency in our project. We can do this by running the following command:

npm install typescript --save-dev

Step 3: Configure TypeScript

We need to create a tsconfig.json file in the root of our project to configure TypeScript. This file tells TypeScript how to compile our JavaScript codebase to TypeScript.

Here is an example tsconfig.json file:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "outDir": "dist",
    "allowJs": true,
    "checkJs": true,
    "jsx": "react",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "target": "es6",
    "esModuleInterop": true
  },
  "include": [
    "src"
  ]
}

This configuration is suitable for a basic JavaScript project.

Step 4: Convert JavaScript to TypeScript

Now that we have TypeScript set up, we can start converting our JavaScript code to TypeScript. We can rename our JavaScript files with a .ts or .tsx extension, depending on whether we are working with React components.

Step 5: Add typing to Storybook stories

To add static typing to our Storybook stories, we can use TypeScript’s type annotations. We can define and use types for our component props and use them in our stories.

Here’s an example of a Storybook story with static typing:

import React from "react";
import { Story, Meta } from "@storybook/react";

import Button, { ButtonProps } from "./Button";

export default {
  title: "Components/Button",
  component: Button,
} as Meta;

const Template: Story<ButtonProps> = (args) => <Button {...args} />;

export const Primary = Template.bind({});
Primary.args = {
  label: "Primary",
  color: "primary",
};

In this example, we are using the ButtonProps type to define the props for our Button component. This provides type safety and autocompletion when working with our story.

Conclusion

By using static typing with JavaScript Storybook, we can improve code quality, catch errors early, and enhance the development experience for building UI components. TypeScript is a powerful tool for adding static typing to JavaScript, and integrating it with Storybook can lead to more stable and maintainable UI components.

Using TypeScript with Storybook may require a bit of initial setup and conversion of JavaScript code, but the benefits it brings in terms of error detection, autocompletion, and collaboration make it well worth the effort. So if you are looking to level up your UI component development process, consider adding static typing with TypeScript to your JavaScript Storybook project.

#Tech #JavaScript