A full version history of the css-loader package with size, number of distributed files and dependency evolution.
The css-loader npm package has undergone significant evolution since its initial release, reflecting the changing landscape of web development and build tooling. Beginning with version 0.1.0 in 2012, the package focused on basic webpack integration for CSS loading, relying on csso for CSS optimization.
The 0.x iterations saw incremental improvements, solidifying its core functionality. The inclusion of vows as a dev dependency signified a commitment to testing. Versions 0.5.x and 0.6.x further refined the loader, incorporating dependencies like source-map and loader-utils, enhancing debugging capabilities and resource handling.
The shift to the 0.10.0 introduced clean-css and source-list-map. The 0.15.0 was a pivotal version, embracing PostCSS and related modules for robust CSS processing and modularity, marking a significant upgrade. The 0.20.0 incorporated lodash.camelcase. This evolutionary trend continued through the 0.20s, introducing new dependencies for enhanced functionality, like babel-code-frame and icss-utils and better compatibility.
The 1.0.0 version marked a major release focusing on peer dependency and post css versions. CSS loader version 2.0.0 included significant updates of the Post Css packages as well as dropping Babel.
The shift to 3.0.0 with newer packages with focus on more enhancements, which continued into 4.0.0 including dependencies with "@" and newer standards that where important at the time. Version css-loader 5.0.0 did drop CommonJs support.
Versioning 6,7 and 8 have introduced many PostCss versions to keep up with newest implementations where icss-utils remains an important part of the project. The loader embraced webpack 5 in many aspects.