My journey with Microsoft Semantic Kernel marked the beginning of a new adventure: stepping out of my comfort zone as a backend developer to create applications with user interfaces, rather than just building apps for unit and integration testing.
I naturally chose Blazor as my UI framework, and I’ll be sharing my frontend development experiences here. Sometimes it can be frustratingly difficult to accomplish seemingly simple tasks (like centering a div!), but AI assistants like GitHub Copilot have been incredibly helpful in reducing those pain points.
One of my recent challenges involved programmatically including JavaScript and CSS in Blazor applications. I prefer an automated approach rather than manually adding tags to HTML. Back in the .NET 5 era, I wrote an article about using tag helpers for this purpose, which you can find here
However, I recently discovered that my original approach no longer works. I’ve been developing several prototypes using the new DevExpress Chat component, and many of these prototypes include custom components that require JavaScript and CSS. Despite my attempts, I couldn’t get these components to work with the tag helpers, and the reason wasn’t immediately obvious. During the Thanksgiving break, I decided to investigate this issue, and I’d like to share what I found.
With the release of .NET 8, Blazor introduced a new web app template that unifies Blazor Server and WebAssembly into a single project structure. This change affects how we inject content into the document’s head section, particularly when working with Tag Helpers or components.
Understanding the Changes
In previous versions of Blazor, we typically worked with _Host.cshtml for server-side rendering, where traditional ASP.NET Core Tag Helpers could target the <head> element directly. The new .NET 8 Blazor Web App template uses App.razor as the root component and introduces the <HeadOutlet> component for managing head content.
Approach 1: Adapting Tag Helpers
If you’re migrating existing Tag Helpers or creating new ones for head content injection, you’ll need to modify them to target HeadOutlet instead of the head element:
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Razor.TagHelpers;
namespace YourNamespace
{
[HtmlTargetElement("HeadOutlet")]
public class CustomScriptTagHelper : TagHelper
{
public override void Process(TagHelperContext context, TagHelperOutput output)
{
output.PostContent.AppendHtml(
"<script src=\"_content/YourLibrary/js/script.js\"></script>"
);
}
}
}
Remember to register your Tag Helper in _Imports.razor:
@addTagHelper *, YourLibraryApproach 2: Using Blazor Components (Recommended)
While adapting Tag Helpers works, Blazor offers a more idiomatic approach using components and the HeadContent component. This approach aligns better with Blazor’s component-based architecture:
@namespace YourNamespace
@implements IComponentRenderMode
<HeadContent>
<script src="_content/YourLibrary/js/script.js"></script>
</HeadContent>
To use this component in your App.razor:
<head>
<!-- Other head elements -->
<HeadOutlet @rendermode="RenderModeForPage" />
<YourScriptComponent @rendermode="RenderModeForPage" />
</head>
Benefits of the Component Approach
- Better Integration: Components work seamlessly with Blazor’s rendering model
- Render Mode Support: Easy to control rendering based on the current render mode (Interactive Server, WebAssembly, or Auto)
- Dynamic Content: Can leverage Blazor’s full component lifecycle and state management
- Type Safety: Provides compile-time checking and better tooling support
Best Practices
- Prefer the component-based approach for new development
- Use Tag Helpers only when migrating existing code or when you need specific ASP.NET Core pipeline integration
- Always specify the
@rendermodeattribute to ensure proper rendering in different scenarios - Place custom head content components after HeadOutlet to ensure proper ordering
Conclusion
While both approaches work in .NET 8 Blazor Web Apps, the component-based approach using HeadContent provides a more natural fit with Blazor’s architecture and offers better maintainability and flexibility. When building new applications, consider using components unless you have a specific need for Tag Helper functionality.