angular

Storybook Docs for Angular

migration guide: This page documents the method to configure storybook introduced recently in 5.3.0, consult the migration guide if you want to migrate to this format of configuring storybook.

Storybook Docs transforms your Storybook stories into world-class component documentation. Storybook Docs for Angular supports DocsPage for auto-generated docs, and MDX for rich long-form docs.

To learn more about Storybook Docs, read the general documentation. To learn the Angular specifics, read on!

• Installation
• DocsPage
• Props tables
• MDX
• IFrame height
• More resources

Installation

First add the package. Make sure that the versions for your @storybook/* packages match:

yarn add -D @storybook/addon-docs@next

Then add the following to your .storybook/main.js exports:

module.exports = {
  addons: ['@storybook/addon-docs'],
};

DocsPage

When you install docs you should get basic DocsPage documentation automagically for all your stories, available in the Docs tab of the Storybook UI.

Props tables

Getting Props tables for your components requires a few more steps. Docs for Angular relies on Compodoc, the excellent API documentation tool. It supports inputs, outputs, properties, methods, view/content child/children as first class prop types.

To get this, you'll first need to install Compodoc:

yarn add -D @compodoc/compodoc

Then you'll need to configure Compodoc to generate a documentation.json file. Adding the following snippet to your package.json creates a metadata file ./documentation.json each time you run storybook:

{
  ...
  "scripts": {
    "docs:json": "compodoc -p ./tsconfig.json -e json -d .",
    "storybook": "npm run docs:json && start-storybook -p 6006 -s src/assets",
    ...
  },
}

Unfortunately, it's not currently possible to update this dynamically as you edit your components, but there's an open issue to support this with improvements to Compodoc.

Next, add the following to .storybook/preview.ts to load the Compodoc-generated file:

import { setCompodocJson } from '@storybook/addon-docs/angular';
import docJson from '../documentation.json';
setCompodocJson(docJson);

Finally, be sure to fill in the component field in your story metadata:

import { AppComponent } from './app.component';

export default {
  title: 'App Component',
  component: AppComponent,
};

If you haven't upgraded from storiesOf, you can use a parameter to do the same thing:

import { storiesOf } from '@storybook/angular';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';

storiesOf('App Component', module)
  .addParameters({ component: AppComponent })
  .add( ... );

MDX

MDX is a convenient way to document your components in Markdown and embed documentation components, such as stories and props tables, inline.

Docs has peer dependencies on react, react-is, and babel-loader. If you want to write stories in MDX, you'll need to add these dependencies as well:

yarn add -D react react-is babel-loader

Then update your .storybook/main.js to make sure you load MDX files:

module.exports = {
  stories: ['../src/stories/**/*.stories.@(js|ts|mdx)'],
};

Finally, you can create MDX files like this:

import { Meta, Story, ArgsTable } from '@storybook/addon-docs/blocks';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';

<Meta title='App Component' component={AppComponent} />

# App Component

Some **markdown** description, or whatever you want.

<Story name='basic' height='400px'>{{
  component: AppComponent,
  props: {},
}}</Story>

## ArgsTable

<ArgsTable of={AppComponent} />

Yes, it's redundant to declare component twice. Coming soon.

Also, to use the Props doc block, you need to set up Compodoc, as described above.

When you are using template, moduleMetadata and/or addDecorators with storiesOf then you can easily translate your story to MDX, too:

import { Meta, Story, ArgsTable } from '@storybook/addon-docs/blocks';
import { CheckboxComponent, RadioButtonComponent } from './my-components';
import { moduleMetadata } from '@storybook/angular';

<Meta title='Checkbox' decorators={[
  moduleMetadata({
    declarations: [CheckboxComponent]
  })
]} />

# Basic Checkbox

<Story name='basic check' height='400px'>{{
  template: `
    <div class="some-wrapper-with-padding">
      <my-checkbox [checked]="checked">Some Checkbox</my-checkbox>
    </div>
  `,
  props: {
    checked: true
  }
}}</Story>

# Basic Radiobutton

<Story name='basic radio' height='400px'>{{
  moduleMetadata: {
    declarations: [RadioButtonComponent]
  }
  template: `
    <div class="some-wrapper-with-padding">
      <my-radio-btn [checked]="checked">Some Checkbox</my-radio-btn>
    </div>
  `,
  props: {
    checked: true
  }
}}</Story>

IFrame height

Storybook Docs renders all Angular stories inside IFrames, with a default height of 60px. You can update this default globally, or modify the IFrame height locally per story in DocsPage and MDX.

To update the global default, modify .storybook/preview.ts:

import { addParameters } from '@storybook/angular';

addParameters({ docs: { iframeHeight: 400 } });

For DocsPage, you need to update the parameter locally in a story:

export const basic = () => ...
basic.parameters = {
  docs: { iframeHeight: 400 }
}

And for MDX you can modify it as an attribute on the Story element:

<Story name='basic' height='400px'>{...}</Story>

More resources

Want to learn more? Here are some more articles on Storybook Docs:

• References: DocsPage / MDX / FAQ / Recipes / Theming / Props
• Announcements: Vision / DocsPage / MDX / Framework support
• Example: Storybook Design System