💙 💜 ❤️ SnapDOM v2 is out 💙 💜 ❤️ – new capture engine, plugins, and lazy exporters

[tinchox5]

SnapDOM v2 is now live.

This is not a minor bump over 1.x. The core has been rewritten into a DOM capture engine with a cleaner architecture, better performance, and a proper plugin system, while keeping the API familiar for existing users.

What’s new in v2

1. New capture pipeline

• More robust handling of complex trees: Web Components, Shadow DOM, slots, SVGs with <use> and external <defs>, url(#id) references, masks, filters, and pseudo-elements.
• Less layout thrashing: the capture pipeline minimizes layout reads and work per node.
• Internal caching across the pipeline to avoid recomputing styles, fonts, and assets when it’s not necessary.

2. Plugins and custom exporters

SnapDOM is now a platform, not just a collection of helpers.

• Hooks: beforeExport, afterExport, afterSnap, defineExports.

• Plugins can:

  • Add new exporters (PDF, ASCII, custom data structures, etc.).
  • Transform or post-process captured output.
  • Integrate SnapDOM into larger pipelines.

Global plugins and per-capture plugins are both supported, so you can keep defaults for your app and override behavior for specific snapshots.

3. Context-driven API

All options flow through a single createContext() internally.

• Exporters, plugins, and core capture share the same normalized context.
• Makes behavior more predictable and easier to extend without breaking changes.
• Helps keep the core small while allowing advanced usage through plugins.

4. Lazy exporters

All exporters are lazy-loaded:

• toPng, toJpg, toWebp, toSvg, toCanvas, toBlob, toImg, download are only imported when you actually call them.
• This keeps the initial bundle lean for applications that only need a subset of export targets.

Public API (unchanged where it matters)

The high-level API stays familiar:

import { snapdom } from '@zumer/snapdom'

const snap = await snapdom(element)

const png    = await snap.toPng()
const jpeg   = await snap.toJpg()
const webp   = await snap.toWebp()
const svg    = await snap.toSvg()
const img    = await snap.toImg()
const canvas = await snap.toCanvas()
const blob   = await snap.toBlob()

You can still use the convenience wrappers:

const pngImg = await snapdom.toPng(element)
const svgImg = await snapdom.toSvg(element)
const blob   = await snapdom.toBlob(element)

And plugins:

snapdom.plugins(myPluginA, myPluginB)

Plugins can define new exports via defineExports, which then show up as extra toPdf() helpers on the result object.

Bundling and distribution changes

This is important if you use CDN or rely on specific filenames.

• npm and CDN builds are now minified by default.

• There is no separate snapdom.min.js vs snapdom.js / snapdom.mjs distinction anymore.

• The main entry points are:

  • npm (ESM): @zumer/snapdom
  • CDN, UMD: dist/snapdom.js (already minified)

If you previously hardcoded snapdom.min.js, update to the unified artifact path.

Example (CDN):

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@zumer/snapdom/dist/snapdom.js"></script>

Installation

npm install @zumer/snapdom

Or via CDN as shown above.

Short roadmap

Some things planned right after v2:

• Documentation refresh focused on v2 concepts (context, plugins, exporters).

• SnapDOM Labs: interactive demos for real-world UIs (dashboards, editors, math, icon fonts, etc.).

• Official plugins:

  • PDF with selectable text
  • Crop / framing tools
  • ASCII / “fun” exporters
  • Badges / ID-card generators
  • WebGL / shader-based post-processing

[Airkro]

Slower than v1, don't know why

[tinchox5]

I ran benchmark tests against v1 and it was faster. But please open an issue with your code to investigate it

[qiufuxing]

Hello, may I ask when the official PDF plugin is expected to be launched? I'm really looking forward to this feature. I use pagd.js pagination and snapdom to take screenshots. The pagination has never been handled well. There are a lot of mathematical formulas on my page. Please

[tinchox5]

I can't said when, but I'm aware that it would be very useful for the community. I'm trying to polish the current release first by solving some issues. But after that I will focus on the pdf plugin