Trying to limit library file size by loading only some directives

[iignatov]

@marekkalnik

I’m trying to find a workarond for the huge Ionic2 library size (3.0 MB uncompressed) by loading only the directives I use, but even loading a button triggers the whole framework: …

This doesn’t make any difference, as you already discovered, because all directives are loaded by default (and this is currently the expected behavior):

https://github.com/driftyco/ionic/issues/6092

@marekkalnik

Is there any better way to do this, or is my idea just plain wrong?

AFAIK currently there’s no way to achieve this. But your idea is very valid, especially for the mobile web. I’m also looking forward for such a possibility because it will make the use of the Ionic framework in (mobile) web applications reasonable (and justifiable).

Check out the following post for more details about the Ionic’s PWA efforts:

Web version in ionic 2

It might be possible (haven’t tested it myself) but AFAIK it’s not officially supported. However in one of the recent blog posts there are a lot of hints that the support for mobile web apps is currently in the works: As we start to add more PWA support to Ionic, you can expect an App Shell approach to come out-of-the-box for all Ionic apps that are deployed as mobile web apps, with pre-made Service Worker recipes for caching, offline support, and background content refreshing. At Ionic, …