Polymer Logo Home Start Get started Try Polymer Install Polymer 2.x Build an element 1. Get set up 2. Add local DOM 3. Data binding & properties 4. React to input 5. Theming with custom properties Build an app 1. Get set up 2. Create a new page 3. Add some elements 4. Deploy Polymer Feature overview About this release What's new in 2.0 Upgrade guide Hybrid elements Release notes Custom elements Custom element concepts Define an element Declare properties Shadow DOM & styling Shadow DOM concepts DOM templating Style shadow DOM Custom CSS properties Events Handle and fire events Gesture events Data system Data system concepts Work with object and array data Observers and computed properties Data binding Helper elements Browser support Overview Polyfills ES6 Tools Tools overview Polymer CLI CLI commands Create an element project Create an application project Document your elements Test your elements Publish your elements Web services polymer.json specification Node support Resources Glossary API Reference API Reference Global settings App Toolbox What's in the box? Using the Toolbox App templates Responsive app layout Routing Localization App storage Service worker Deploy Build for production Serve your app The PRPL pattern Case study Shop News Blog Community
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See Polymer Analyzer.

In a progressive web app, the app shell contains the CSS, HTML and JavaScript that implements the UI framework common to the whole app. This can include headers, footers, menus and routing logic. It excludes any functionality that is specific to a route. As such, the app shell contains the code that surrounds the rest of the content.

The Polymer CLI is designed to work with apps that use an app shell architecture. See Instant Loading Web Apps with an Application Shell Architecture for more information.

Bower is a package manager for web projects. Bower automates the installation of packages like custom elements and JavaScript libraries. Polymer distributes its core library and elements via Bower. See bower.io for more information.

bower.json is a manifest used by Bower for configuring packages for use as dependencies. See the bower.json specification for more information.

crisper extracts inline scripts from an HTML file. crisper is useful for separating JavaScript from HTML in order to deploy in an environment that uses CSP (Content Security Policy).

dependency may refer to:

  • A package dependency, such as a Bower or npm package that your project uses.
  • A specific resource that is required by another, such as HTML files or JavaScript libraries. See also: dynamic dependency, static dependency, transitive dependency.
  • A data dependency in the context of the Polymer data system: a piece of data that an observer, computed property or computed binding depends on.

Dependency variants are named sets of Bower package dependencies at specific versions which are different (usually more specific) than the default dependencies. Variants are specified in bower.json.

Dependency variants are useful for testing elements against different versions of Polymer and other elements, where bower.json would normally only let you install and test against one version.

If you run polymer install --variants, the polymer install tool creates separate builds for your element using the versions of Polymer you specify. You can use the Polymer development server to test these variants.

A dynamic dependency is a dependency that is imported at runtime, using a mechanism such as importHref. Compare static dependency.

Eager loading refers to the process of loading dependencies statically, rather than on demand. Compare lazy loading.

entry point

The HTML actually loaded by the browser to start the application. Usually index.html. In an application built with an app shell architecture, the entrypoint is loaded for many different URLs.

Fragments are used to define bundles and are often associated with routes or non-critical resources. A fragment is a lazily-loaded HTML file.

A distributed version control system. Bower depends on git to install components from their GitHub repositories.

A streamed JavaScript task runner that can be used to set up a custom build process using the polymer-build library.

This tool has been replaced by Polymer Analyzer. It is a static analysis framework for Web Components.

Lazy loading takes advantage of routing to load elements only when they are required for render. Used correctly, lazy loading can improve performance.

For an example implementation of lazily-loaded elements, see the Shop app. In the Shop app, views are elements which are instantiated only when they are routed to.

A linter is a piece of software that analyzes code for suspicious-looking constructions that can potentially cause errors; for example, for example, registering an element without specifying its tag name, or using invalid data-binding syntax. The Polymer tools include Polymer Linter, which does this for Polymer apps and elements.

A monolithic app is one that loads all of its code statically and does not use an app shell architecture or dynamic code loading.

An event-driven JavaScript runtime environment. The Polymer CLI and bower are both built on Node. For more information, visit nodejs.org.

Package management system for Node.js.

A metadata file used by npm to manage project dependencies.

A command line tool for Polymer projects. The Polymer CLI has a number of tools for working with Polymer and Web Components. For more information, see the Polymer CLI documentation.

This command builds your project with a preconfigured build pipeline. It calls polymer-build with options configured for a build suitable for an app shell app.

To customize your build pipeline, you can use polymer-build itself in conjunction with other build tools.

Initializes a Polymer project. Contains a set of starter templates for elements and apps.

Install command for Polymer apps. Installs Bower dependencies, equivalent to running bower install. With the option --variants, also installs any dependency variants specified in the variants property of bower.json.

Invokes polymer-linter to lint a polymer project.

This command starts polyserve, a simple development server for Web Components.

Runs tests for your Polymer app with web-component-tester.

polymer-build is a library for building Polymer projects. polymer-build allows you to completely customize your build and combine additional streams and build tasks in any order.

Compare the polymer build command, which calls polymer-build with preconfigured options.

Polymer build tool that follows HTML Imports and <script> tags to concatenate resources into a single page for production. Can improve performance by reducing network trips.

Linter invoked by polymer lint command. Lints a Polymer project.

A static analysis framework for web applications.

polymer.json is the Polymer build configuration file. It lets you configure your app’s entrypoint and app shell files, instead of passing these as parameters to polymer build.

polymer.json also lets you specify the locations of source files, HTML fragments and additional dependencies, and configure the Polymer linter.

polyserve is a locally-installable web server for developing Bower components.

Routing is the process an app uses to determine how to respond to a client request for a particular endpoint. A default route is the endpoint the app directs the user to when no route is specified. In a PWA, the app shell performs routing.

A service worker is a script that your browser runs in the background, separate from a web page, opening the door to features that don't need a web page or user interaction. Today, they already include features like push notifications and background sync.

For progressive web applications, a service worker can help to make an application usable offline in a meaningful way. For example, on first accessing a particular site, a service worker could fetch a defined set of resources and cache them. Then, the service worker could act as a client-side proxy, intercepting network requests for resources. Where possible, the service worker could supply those resources from the browser cache.

A dependency that is required by a given file, and whose import is hard-coded using syntax like <link rel="import"> or <script src="...">. This dependency will always be loaded when the given file is loaded.

A transitive dependency is an indirect dependency - that is, a resource that is depended on by another dependency.

For example, if file A depends on file B, and file B depends on file C, then file C is a transitive dependency of file A.

The transitive dependencies of a resource are all the dependencies, direct and indirect, that a resource depends on.

See dependency variant.

This tool has been replaced by Polymer Bundler.

A browser-based testing environment for web components. Runs your tests in local browsers or remotely via Sauce.