Proposal: Use Tailwind CLI instead of play CDN

[joncrangle]

The Tailwind Play CDN isn't recommended for production since it includes the whole Tailwind class library (large bundle). Proposal is to use the Tailwind CLI instead so that there is a css build step resulting in minified css of only the classes that are used (small bundle).

https://tailwindcss.com/docs/installation

[deoxykev]

I think it would be a good idea to make the build step in a separate directory, and compile the form into a single html file including tailwind. This way it can still be embedded into the binary. Also commit a default html into the repo, so that one could build the binary using just go, and without npm.

[joncrangle]

I played around with the concept a bit in a branch for demo purposes.

There is a build script that can be run with pnpm build. It uses the Tailwind CLI to build the css and then minifies it into the /assets directory. I used the Go Fiber Static method to serve the /assets directory, so this stylesheet can be used within the html as <link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/styles.css">.

Perhaps a Github action could run the build script whenever the form.html page is changed to ensure that the stylesheet is updated with any Tailwind utlity classes that are required.

[deoxykev]

I think it’ll be better to serve the ‘assets/styles.css’ via a custom get handler in Go Fiber that serves a go:embed version of it. This way, the built tailwind styles are baked into the binary itself, rather than reaching into a directory (as the Static method does)

this would make deployment on edge systems simpler (IE: lambda, CF workers, etc) and be much more portable.

[joncrangle]

Thanks for the feedback. I've updated the branch to use go:embed and a get handler rather that the static method.

[mms-gianni]

I needed some tweaks to let it run, but it works now.