Creating custom Highcharts packages

Thanks to ES modules you can create your own custom Highcharts package. A benefit of using a custom file can be optimization of browser load speed due to lower file size and less files to request.

Follow the steps below to get started.

Install Highcharts

Go to the highcharts/highcharts repository and click on "Code" and select "Download ZIP". Once the zip file is downloaded, unpack it to a desired location.

The following steps require Node.js, which you can download and install from the Node.js website. Highcharts supports the LTS variant.

When Node.js is installed, open you command line, shell, or terminal, and go to the unpacked folder highcharts-master. There you have to run npm install to install the required dependencies for building custom Highcharts files.

Create a custom master file

In your editor, go to the unpacked folder highcharts-master/ts/masters/ and create a new file, named for example custom.src.ts. In this example we want a basic line chart. To achieve this we will need a setup that lists all the needed ES modules like this:

/**
 * @license Highcharts JS [email protected]@ (@product.date@)
 * @module highcharts/highcharts
 *
 * (c) 2009-2024 Highcharts AS
 *
 * License: www.highcharts.com/license
 */
'use strict';
import Highcharts from '../Core/Globals.js';
import SVGRenderer from '../Core/Renderer/SVG/SVGRenderer.js';
import Chart from '../Core/Chart/Chart.js';
import LineSeries from '../Series/Line/LineSeries.js';
const exports: Record<string, any> = Highcharts;
exports.Renderer = SVGRenderer;
exports.SVGRenderer = SVGRenderer;
exports.Chart = Chart;
exports.chart = Chart.chart;
exports.LineSeries = LineSeries;
export default Highcharts;

Modify the setup according to your needs, then proceed with the next step. Please note that the order of the imported ES modules sometimes have to match the dependencies of each file. Optional additions therefore should come last. See other masters for order information.

For similar examples take a look at the existing master files.

Create the custom package file

Run npx gulp scripts --force to build all package files out of the master files. Optional run npx gulp scripts-compile in addition to get minified versions.

In our example the new file ts/masters/custom.src.ts becomes the new package file code/custom.src.js. The minified version can be found as code/custom.js. You can pick these package files from the code/ folder and use it in your project.

For ESM-compatible files you have to copy the code/es-modules/ folder. Feel free to rename the folder for your needs. This folder might have a large size, but ESM will pick only necessary files from it for your project. A bundler like parcel or webpack can help in the final stage of your project to optimize the loading time further.

If you like to have declarations in addition to the new package file code/custom.src.js, run npx gulp jsdoc-dts --custom.

Use your custom package file

According to our installation guide you can reference your custom package file either as an ES6 module...

<html>
    <body>
        <div id="container"></div>
        <script type="module">
            import Highcharts from './es-modules/masters/custom.src.js';
            Highcharts.chart('container', {
                series: [{
                    type: 'line',
                    data: [1, 32, 42]
                }]
            });
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

... or in classic manner with a script tag:

<html>
    <head>
        <script src="custom.src.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="container"></div>
        <script>
            Highcharts.chart('container', {
                series: [{
                    type: 'line',
                    data: [1, 32, 42]
                }]
            });
        </script>
    </body>
</html>
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