javascript - Shadow dom in HTML

Question

I've been hearing about Shadow DOM recently. While watching a video about the release of Angular 2 the presenter repeatedly made mention of Shadow DOM without clear expressions. What does Shadow DOM really mean?

Answer 1

The best explanation I've found is this from What the Heck is Shadow DOM? shown below:

Shadow DOM refers to the ability of the browser to include a subtree of DOM elements into the rendering of a document, but not into the main document DOM tree.

An important use case would be with video controls on a web page. The markup only shows a video tag, with some attributes and source tags. The addtional code for all the video operations to work is hidden in the Shadow DOM and not available to the rest of the page. The actual markup, javascript, and styles for the tag are encapsulated, which hides the implementation details of the video controls that each browser vendor has already written.

So while it's there in the DOM, its hidden from the page that renders it. So, to view the Shadow DOM, you can enable it under Dev Tools in Chrome.

The short answer is that the Shadow DOM is one of four technologies that make up Web Components.

For a definition, Web Components are: A component platform from the W3C that allows Web sites to be constructed from standardized building blocks. Web Components comprise Custom Elements, Shadow DOM and HTML Imports and Templates.

Shadow DOM is a technology of Web Components (although each can be used separately):

1. Custom Elements: is a capability for creating your own custom HTML tags and elements. They can have their own scripted behavior and CSS styling. They are part of Web Components but they can also be used by themselves.
2. HTML Templates: The HTML template element is a mechanism for holding client-side content that is not to be rendered when a page is loaded but may subsequently be instantiated during runtime using JavaScript. Think of a template as a content fragment that is being stored for subsequent use in the document.
3. Shadow DOM: provides encapsulation for the JavaScript, CSS, and templating in a Web Component. Shadow DOM makes it so these things remain separate from the DOM of the main document. You can also use Shadow DOM by itself, outside of a web component.
4. HTML Imports: is intended to be the packaging mechanism for Web Components, but you can also use HTML Imports by itself. You import an HTML file by using a tag in an HTML document.

See Introduction to the Shadow DOM.