Add panels as npm packages

[ztolley]

I've been working on a project that uses Dockview.

One of the first things I did was extend it was capture layouts on change and save the layout json to a server based keyvalue store. I also added a simple menu to list available panels and let the user add the ones they need. When the user laods the page their layout json is fetched and the screen restored.

But I've recent come up with a new feature and hav a working proof of concept.

Dockview seems to be a good way to let users build their own screens and integrate lots of different panels, but as this type of application grows it becomes hard to manage integrating panels from lots of different sources. So I've created a mechanism that works hand in hand with Vite JS that lets developers author panels as npm packages.

Panel developers follow these steps:

1. Build the panel/s in a small stand alone application setup with dockview
2. Add some properties to the package.json to describe the panels within the project
3. Run an npm script that builds a package using an an alternate entry point src/panels/index.ts
4. Publish the panel

The consuming application adds the npm dependency. A vite plugin scans packages for the dockview meta data and creates a dynamic import to include them in the build. When the application runs it looks up the directory of panels generated at build time and uses them to recreate the users layout and also displays them as a list of menu options so they can add new panels.

So the question is, is this a niche thing that generally isn't needed or is this something that could potentially be folded into dockview itself?

[hllshiro]

I really needed it, and I implemented a much simpler version. 👍👍👍