Preact 8

https://github.com/preactjs/preact

  • Change Preact v8 "browser" field to "umd:main" (#1963, thanks @andrewiggins)

This release is a maintenance release and all users of the 8.x release line are encouraged to upgrade to it.

  • Fix devtools bridge not working with react devtools v4 (#1876)

This is a maintenance release and fixes a minor issue with the packaging of the devtools import. All users on the 8.x release line are encouraged to upgrade.

  • Fix a bug in 8.4 where nested preact.render() calls would cause an infinite loop when flushing the mount queue. (#1269, thanks @pl12133!)

The cat is out of the bag 🙌 We finally revealed on what we have in store
for the next major version of preact which will be called Preact X 🎉 To give
you a sneak peak of what will be included check out this talk over at this.javascript
video, slides.
It's hard to make an estimate right now on when it will be released, but rest
assured we are nearly done and are working on upgrading the ecosystem
(cli, router,...) to ensure a smooth release.

That said we very excited about recent community contributions. This release
contains some awesome performance enhancements brought to you by @lowaa and
@rpetrich. On top of that there are some minor bug fixes and a lots of
improvements to our typings.

Thank you so much for everyone involved 👍

  • Perf: Improve adding and removing large trees 🎉 (#1211, thanks @lowaa)
  • Drain render queue in a single micro task 🎉 (#1135, thanks @rpetrich)
  • Fix missing build when installing from git (#1251, thanks @garybernhardt)
  • Fix invalid ref invocation (#1235, thanks @developit)
  • Fix cloneElement test (#982, thanks @decadef20)
  • Reorganize and improve render unit tests (#1199, thanks @andrewiggins)
  • Improve componentDidUpdate tests (#1198, thanks @andrewiggins)

TypeScript Improvements!

  • Add onInvalid form event (#1221, thanks @namankheterpal)
  • Fix h() overloads (#1246, #1214, thanks @gpoit, @garybernhardt)
  • Fix AnyCompoent type (#1249, thanks @scurker)
  • Use proper type for key (#1248, thanks @wojtczal)
  • Add boolean as a component child (#1219, thanks @KasparEtter)
  • Add onError image event (#1209, thanks @jackmoore)
  • Add support for defaultProps (#1181, thanks @Alexendoo)
  • Fix cloneElement definition (#1197, thanks @hiddedejong)

Flow improvements!

  • Fix typings for [email protected] (#1230, thanks @ngyikp)
  • Refine options flow type (#1204, thanks @reyronald)

README Improvements!

  • Add Ultimate-Guitar (#1244, thanks @JiLiZART)
  • Add logo to README (#1243, thanks @reviewher)
  • Add section for babel@7 (#1212, thanks @38elements)
  • Remove duplicate project (#1192, thanks @stephenmathieson)
  • Fixes an issue in 8.3.0 where prevState (as passed to componentDidUpdate) pointed to the wrong interim state value when batching (#1186, thanks @carlhopf!)
  • TypeScript: Added ShadowRoot and DocumentFragment as parent option to render (thanks @cromefire!)

New Features!

🙌 We've added support for the new getDerivedStateFromProps() and getSnapshotBeforeUpdate() lifecycle hooks. (#1094 & #1112). A huge thank-you to @andrewiggins and @marvinhagemeister for their amazing work on this!

Improvements

  • We're shipping .mjs now! (#1165, thanks @mathiasbynens for the nudge)
  • Fix an issue where setState() could mutate state in-place (#1170, thanks @Mitranim for the fix and @dandv for digging into the Apollo issue!)
  • spellcheck={false} is now set as an attribute (#1110, thanks @marvinhagemeister!)
  • Some code golfing to offset the new lifecycle methods (#1122, thanks @andrewiggins, @marvinhagemeister)
  • A little perf/size tweak for render callbacks (#1113, thanks @valotas)
  • Someone found dead code in Preact! awesome. (#890, thanks @MrErHu & @clarkdo)
  • We've dropped IE9 and IE10 from our SauceLabs tests (thanks @mkxml!)

    Note: Preact will continue to support these browsers (that is to say, continue to avoid relying on features they don't support), but recent updates to Mocha mean our tests don't run there. Special thanks to @mkxml, @andrewiggins, @k1r0s and @marvinhagemeister for working to improve the test suite in this release!

TypeScript Improvements!

  • Add support for specifying the types of a component's children (#1116, thanks @Alexendoo)
  • Add on*Capture event handler attributes and PointerEvents to the TS definitions (#1101 #1102, thanks @jakearchibald)
  • Improve render()'s return type (#1085, thanks @valotas)
  • Add controlsList attribute for media elements (#1134, thanks @wayou)

This release fixes an issue with our minification pipeline, which incorrectly mangled export declarations.

  • Don't mangle module exports #1077, thanks @marvinhagemeister
  • [ts] Add missing ref and key attribute #1051, thanks @andrewiggins
  • [ts] Add default parameter for Generic argument of VNode #1082, thanks @andrewiggins
  • [ts] Remove devtools module declaraction #1083, thanks @andrewiggins

We're happy to cut a new release and are excited about the much improved TypeScript defintions.

We love how much the community around preact has grown in the past months (18k stars!) and we'd like to thank everyone who was involved. Wether you've helped finding bugs, made code contributions or improved our documentation, this release wouldn't be possible without you. :tada:

Changes:

  • [ts] Rewrite TypeScript defninitions and add support for strict mode
    • #1071, thanks @levrik
    • #1044 #1033 #1026, thanks @marvinhagemeister
    • #1037, thanks @k1r0s
    • #1027, thanks @wuweiweiwu
    • #869, thanks @niedzielski
    • #737, thanks @valotas
    • #695, thanks @jmrog
    • #1015, thanks @ovr
    • #1005, thanks @jrf0110
    • #1003, thanks @programbo
    • #990, thanks @timurista
    • #933, thanks @scurker
    • #943, thanks @andybons
  • Fix HMR sometimes throwing with preact-router #988, thanks @developit
  • Fix preact/debug failing to load in Webpack 3 + ES Modules (#924 #935, thanks @whitetrefoil)
  • Added null to paren union type of render (#937, thanks @nickytonline)
  • [debug]: Warn when passing incorrect arguments to render() (#885, thanks @markselby9)
  • [ts]: stateful component should be assignable to AnyComponent (#905, thanks @mike-north)
  • [ts]: add link preload "as" to HTMLAttributes type definition (#907, thanks @niedzielski)
  • [flow]: Fix flow types and render method issue (#868, thanks @sgrowe)
  • A more durable fix for the Babel preset recursion issue (thanks @rmacklin)

This release makes some tweaks to the newly released preact/debug.

  • Enhanced errors for preact/debug
  • Fixed issue where key warnings could be shown for components without keys
  • Fix missing donation message 🙈 (#834)

8.2.2 fixes a bunch of little issues encountered by those upgrading to 8.2.1 👍

  • Use explicit import paths in src for ES Modules compatibility (#792, thanks @slaskis)
  • Fix CLI donation message failing if npm is unavailable (#804, thanks @andrejsm)
  • Fix Babel attempting to use Preact's configuration (#825, thanks @rubenmoya)
  • Fix invalid sourcemap by updating Rollup (#800)
  • preact/debug: Support for attributes with no .toString() (#754, thanks @plusCubed)
  • preact/debug: Allow string refs when preact-compat is present (#807)
  • preact/debug: Fix error when preact-compat was not present
  • Bugfix: revert flushMounts() change to fix incorrect timing (#750)
  • We're now shipping an ES Modules build and are using Babel 6! (thanks @btd, @matthewp, @gpoitch)
  • preact/debug by @NekR: import it and get lovely warnings, errors & devtools integration!
  • Switch back to microtasks (via Promise#then) for async! (#708)
  • Fix unnecessary child reordering for certain cases (#717 - thanks @windyGex & @e1ectronic)
  • Fix attributes not being removed when diffing against SSR'd DOM (#677, @dmail)
  • Fixed Boolean and Number component render return values rendering <undefined> (#671, @dharFr)
  • Typescript Definition Improvements (#634, #641, #669, #730, #740)
  • Optimizations (#672, #696, #697)

As of 8.1.0, we're officially out of beta! If you were waiting to upgrade to Preact 8, now's the time.

💁 8.x included a few important backwards-incompatible changes, so we've put together a 8.0 migration guide to help. The guide includes "polyfills" you can use to restore 7.x functionality so your migration goes smoothly.

If you have any issues upgrading, including anything caused by this release, drop us a line!

This release resolves a few issues people have had when upgrading.

  • Remove object check before setting attributes (fixes custom toString, #401 - thanks @NekR!)
  • Cast boolean children to null for component props (fixes rc-animate, #629 - thanks @hassanbazzi!)
  • Call componentDidMount on children before componentDidUpdate on parent (#440, #506 - thanks @robertknight!)
  • Revert 8.0.0 behavior of throwing when encountering undefined components (#627)
    • preact/debug will be released shortly and does a much better job reporting stack traces!

🌈 Also worth noting, the linkstate module is now available.

Quick follow-up to 8.0.0

  • fixes an issue with preact-router (thanks @lukeed & @kbaxter!)
  • Fixes element removal regression in old IE (#625)

8.0.0 (beta)

It's here! 🌈

This release represents a huge step forward for Preact:

  • Significantly increased performance - in some cases by 30%.
  • Better compatibility - key for PFC's, class integrations, capturing events.
  • Fewer edge cases - goodbye to unnecessary mounts and DOM hierarchy errors.
  • Even smaller - Preact had been 3.9kb for a while - now it's 3.3kb (and headed for 2.9kb!)

💁 If you're looking to upgrade, be sure to read the quick guide.

Breaking Changes

  • Pure Functional Components now have backing instances. This means key now works perfectly on PFC's. It also means you could use state and lifecycle methods in Functional Components... (#163, #517, #536, #586, #474)
  • linkState() has been removed from Preact itself. It is being published as a standalone linkstate module shortly.
  • class and className no longer serialize Object values to Strings. Instead, use classnames (#401)
  • preact/aliases is no longer necessary. createElement() is now an alias of h() right out of the box!
  • DOM element recycling has been removed. It was a source of issues for many, and is no longer necessary for great performance thanks to diff optimizations that reduce the number of cases where elements are removed and re-added. (#544, #351, #461, #459, #503, #535, #562)
  • Undefined components references now throw rather than rendering <undefined> (#574)
  • No more Symbol. Instead of try to use Symbol.for('preactattr'), __preactattr_ is always used.
  • Render debouncing now uses setTimeout(0) instead of Promises. It's smaller, doesn't swallow rendering errors in Safari, and was already the fallback (#357)
  • The non-standard componentDidUnmount() lifecycle method is removed. Use componentWillUnmount().
  • onXxxxCapture is now supported for registering capturing event handlers.
  • Events like focus and blur are no longer automatically capturing by default.

Bugs Fixed

  • Hierarchy errors are a thing of the past (thanks to recycler and PFC rewrites) (#380, #391)
  • Fixed edge case that could cause children to be rendered out of order (#581, #603)
  • Unmount lifecycle is always fired when replacing a Component with an empty element (#538, #534)
  • ref functions attached to DOM nodes are no longer invoked for updates, only for mount/unmount.

Other Notable Changes

  • "holes" in JSX children are now preserved and used intelligently by the diff (#580, #540)
  • Re-rendering a compositional child with a different key prop now triggers a remount (#338)
  • JSX children passed to a Component are preserved rather than normalized (#551)
  • Preact no longer relies on the Text or Array constructors for type checks, instead relying on duck typing (#595, #530)
  • Ignore whitespace-only Text nodes during SSR hydration. SSR boot is now significantly faster than cold boot.

Here's the list of changes itemized by commit:
https://github.com/developit/preact/compare/master...8