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html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin

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Converts SVG files referenced by <img> elements into inlined <svg> elements within the output HTML of templates used by html-webpack-plugin.

html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin does not support yet webpack v5.

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Installation
  3. Usage
    1. Paths to SVG files
      1. Relative to OUTPUT
      2. Relative to ROOT
      3. Relative to SOURCE
    2. Incorrect paths or URLs
    3. Duplicated attributes
    4. webpack-dev-server
  4. Configuration
    1. runPreEmit
    2. inlineAll
    3. allowFromUrl
    4. svgoConfig
  5. Versions
  6. Contributors

Overview

When SVGs files are inlined into HTML the embedded SVGs can be customised with CSS and the fill rule, and they can also be combined in sprites. Check the css-tricks.com article Icon System with SVG Sprites for an extended explanation.

html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin implements the below features:

Installation

Add and install the html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin dependency to package.json. At this point you should already have installed in your project other required dependencies like webpack and html-webpack-plugin:

npm i -D html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin

or with Yarn:

yarn add -D html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin

Usage

Given the below reference folder structure:

my-project
├─ package.json
├─ webpack.config.js
├─ node_modules
├─ src
│  ├─ entry.html
│  └─ imagesSource
│     ├─ icon1.svg
│     └─ image1.png
├─ assets
│  └─ bar.svg
└─ output
   ├─ index.html
   └─ imagesOutput
      ├─ icon2.svg
      └─ image2.png

On your webpack config file add:

// webpack.config.js

const HtmlWebpackInlineSVGPlugin = require('html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin');

// ...

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackInlineSVGPlugin(
    { /* ... */ } // ...Object with config options, if any. Pass nothing otherwise (not even empty object)
  )
]

Then, add <img> elements with the inline attribute to the templates that html-webpack-plugin will be processing. Check Paths to SVG files to know what is the correct path to SVG files in <img> elements.

<!-- ✅ Inlined: SVG file relative to OUTPUT -->
<img inline src="imagesOutput/icon2.svg">

<!-- ✅ Inlined: SVG file relative to SOURCE. webpack alias used. Loaders are required -->
<img inline src="~a/bar.svg">

<!-- ✅ Inlined: online URL. 'allowFromUrl' config option must be set to true -->
<img inline src="https://someserver.com/images/icon.svg">

<!-- ⭕ Ignored: the <img> element does not have the 'inline' attribute -->
<img src="imagesOutput/icon2.svg">

<!-- ✅ Inlined: the 'inlineAll' config option has been set to true -->
<img src="imagesOutput/icon2.svg">

<!-- ⭕ Ignored: it is not a SVG image -->
<img inline src="imagesOutput/image2.png">

Paths to SVG files

There are three ways of referencing SVG files from <img> elements in your templates:

Relative to OUTPUT

If loaders for the entry template are not used SVG file paths must be relative to the HTML template that is referencing the SVG files within the webpack output folder:

<!-- src/entry.html -->

<img inline src="imagesOutput/icon2.svg">
<img inline src="../src/imagesSource/icon1.svg">
<img inline src="../assets/bar.svg">
<img inline src="~a/bar.svg"> <!-- Will give an error because aliases are not supported without loaders -->

You have to make sure SVG files have been moved to the output directory by some mean.

In this way SVG files are inlined after all template and image files have been written to the output directory, that is it, on html-webpack-plugin's afterEmit event.

Relative to ROOT

If loaders for the entry template are still not used, the runPreEmit config option can be used. Then, SVG file paths must be relative to the project root (where package.json is):

<!-- src/entry.html -->

<img inline src="src/imagesSource/icon1.svg">
<img inline src="output/imagesOutput/icon2.svg">
<img inline src="assets/bar.svg">
<img inline src="~a/bar.svg"> <!-- Will give an error because aliases are not supported without loaders -->

In this way the plugin run prior to the output of templates, that is it, on html-webpack-plugin's beforeEmit event. This allows to reference image files from the project root which can help with getting to certain files, like for example within the node_modules directory.

Relative to SOURCE

If loaders are used SVG file paths in <img> elements must be relative to the source entry template (the template config option in html-webpack-plugin).

The usual loader's combo is the html-loader with the file-loader (html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin does not support yet webpack v5 asset modules). By default html-webpack-plugin uses an ejs loader if no loader is provided for the entry template. This default loader does not handle file imports. That is why we need the html-loader to parse the entry HTML template, loader that will fire an import event every time it parses a JavaScript, CSS or image import. Then, the file-loader will handle SVG image imports, webpack aliases, and finally copy the SVG files to the output folder.

Although SVG file paths are relative to the source template the files still need to be copied/emitted to the output folder (which will be done automatically by the file-loader):

// webpack.config.js

const path = require('path')

resolve: {
  alias: {
    a: path.join(__dirname, 'assets') // With paths relative to SOURCE aliases can be used
  }
},
module: {
  rules: [
    {
      test: /\.svg$/,
      loader: 'file-loader',
      options: {
        name: 'itCanBeWhatever/[name].[ext]' // It does not have to follow same path or file name than files in 'src'
      },
    },
    {
      test: /\.html$/,
      loader: 'html-loader'
    }
  ]
},
<!-- src/entry.html -->

<img inline src="imagesSource/icon1.svg">
<img inline src="../output/imagesOutput/icon2.svg">
<img inline src="../assets/bar.svg">
<img inline src="~a/bar.svg">

Incorrect paths or URLs

If for any reason the path to a local SVG file is incorrect, or the file fails to be read, or an image retrieved with an URL fails to download, the webpack build process will fail with an ENOENT error.

Duplicated attributes

All the attributes of a <img/> element excepting src and inline will be copied to the inlined <svg/> element. Attributes like id or class will be copied to the resulting root of the <svg/> element and if the original SVG file already had these attributes they will be duplicated (and not replaced) on the resulting <svg/> element, though the attributes coming from the <img/> will appear first and any subsequent duplicated attribute from the original SVG will be ignored by the browser.

For example:

<!-- src/entry.html -->
<img inline src="imagesSource/icon1.svg" id="myImageIMG" class="square">
<!-- src/imagesSource/icon1.svg -->
<svg id="myImageSVG">...</svg>

will result in:

<!-- output/index.html -->
<svg id="myImageIMG" class="square" id="myImageSVG">...</svg>

The broswer will use id="myImageIMG" and not id="myImageSVG". It's however a better approach if you avoid having any duplicated attribute at all and only putting the required ones on the <img> element.

webpack-dev-server

Paths relative to SOURCE is the simpler method for webpack-dev-server to work with html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin because source files, files that are not in the output folder, are the ones referenced. Still, the file-loader's emitFile option cannot ever be false.

Paths relative to OUTPUT or Paths relative to ROOT can also be used for webpack-dev-server as long as they point to SVG files that already exist without the need of a webpack run, that is it, files that are outside the output folder. However using long relative paths to point to such files –since aliases are only available with paths relative to SOURCE– could be a bit tedious.

Check this issue in case you do not get the webpack-dev-server working.

Configuration

The plugin accepts the below options:

runPreEmit

Defaults to false.

If loaders are not used to resolve file locations, and you would prefer to reference SVG file paths relative to the project root (where package.json is) then set runPreEmit config option to true:

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackInlineSVGPlugin({
    runPreEmit: true,
  })
]

The plugin will now run prior to html-webpack-plugin saving templates to the output directory. Therefore, inlining SVG files would look like:

<!-- src/entry.html -->

<img inline src="src/imagesSource/icon1.svg">

inlineAll

Defaults to false.

It will inline all SVG images on the template without the need of the inline attribute on every image:

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackInlineSVGPlugin({
    inlineAll: true
  })
]

If inlineAll option is enabled you can use the inline-exclude attribute to exclude a particular image from being inlined:

<!-- src/entry.html -->

<div>
  <img src="src/images/icon1.svg"> <!-- it will be inlined -->
  <img inline-exclude src="src/images/icon2.svg"> <!-- it won't be inlined -->
</div>

allowFromUrl

Defaults to false.

It allows to use SVG images coming from an URL in addition to local files:

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackInlineSVGPlugin({
    allowFromUrl: true
  })
]

For example:

<!-- src/entry.html -->

<div>
  <img inline src="https://badge.fury.io/js/html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin.svg"> <!-- it will be inlined from the online SVG -->
</div>

svgoConfig

Defaults to [].

SVGO is used to optimise the SVGs inlined. You can configure SVGO by setting this svgoConfig array with the SVGO plugins you need in the same way it's done in this SVGO official Node.js example.

Note svgoConfig is an array of Objects that will be assigned to the .plugins SVGO config variable by html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin. You don't need to pass an Object with a plugins property assigned an array of SVGO plugins, just pass the array:

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin(),
  new HtmlWebpackInlineSVGPlugin({
    svgoConfig: [
      {
        removeViewBox: false
      },
      {
        inlineStyles: {
          onlyMatchedOnce: false
        }
      }
    ]
  })
]

html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin modifies one SVGO default: cleanupIDs, from true to false, since IDs allow to reference individual symbols. You can still override this or any other SVGO plugin default configuration with this svgoConfig option.

Versions

The latest version of this package supports webpack 4. All versions marked v2.x.x will target webpack 4 and html-webpack-plugin v4.

For webpack 3 and html-webpack-plugin v3 support use v1.3.0 of this package.

v2.x.x

v1.3.0

Contributors

You're free to contribute to this project by submitting issues and/or pull requests. This project is test-driven, so keep in mind that every change and new feature must be covered by tests.

I'm happy for someone to take over the project as I don't find myself using it any longer due to changes in workflow. Therefore others are likely to be in a better position to support this project and roll out the right enhancements.

<a href="https://github.com/theGC/html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin/graphs/contributors"> <img src="https://contrib.rocks/image?repo=theGC/html-webpack-inline-svg-plugin" /> </a>