CustomElementRegistry

The CustomElementRegistry interface provides methods for registering custom elements and querying registered elements. To get an instance of it, use the window.customElements property.

Instance methods

CustomElementRegistry.define(): Defines a new custom element.
CustomElementRegistry.get(): Returns the constructor for the named custom element, or undefined if the custom element is not defined.
CustomElementRegistry.getName(): Returns the name for the already-defined custom element, or null if the custom element is not defined.
CustomElementRegistry.upgrade(): Upgrades a custom element directly, even before it is connected to its shadow root.
CustomElementRegistry.whenDefined(): Returns an empty Promise that resolves when a custom element becomes defined with the given name. If such a custom element is already defined, the returned promise is immediately fulfilled.

Examples

The following code is taken from our word-count-web-component example (see it live also). Note how we use the CustomElementRegistry.define() method to define the custom element after creating its class.

// Create a class for the element
class WordCount extends HTMLParagraphElement {
  constructor() {
    // Always call super first in constructor
    super();

    // count words in element's parent element
    const wcParent = this.parentNode;

    function countWords(node) {
      const text = node.innerText || node.textContent;
      return text
        .trim()
        .split(/\s+/g)
        .filter((a) => a.trim().length > 0).length;
    }

    const count = `Words: ${countWords(wcParent)}`;

    // Create a shadow root
    const shadow = this.attachShadow({ mode: "open" });

    // Create text node and add word count to it
    const text = document.createElement("span");
    text.textContent = count;

    // Append it to the shadow root
    shadow.appendChild(text);

    // Update count when element content changes
    setInterval(() => {
      const count = `Words: ${countWords(wcParent)}`;
      text.textContent = count;
    }, 200);
  }
}

// Define the new element
customElements.define("word-count", WordCount, { extends: "p" });

Note: The CustomElementRegistry is available through the Window.customElements property.

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard # custom-elements-api

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser