A full version history of the html-webpack-plugin package with size, number of distributed files and dependency evolution.
The html-webpack-plugin has undergone significant evolution since its initial release in 2014. The first versions, 0.1.0 to 1.3.0, established the core functionality of simplifying HTML creation for webpack bundles, relying on blueimp-tmpl. Version 1.4.0 in mid-2015 marked a turning point with the introduction of dependencies like lodash, bluebird, and html-minifier, signaling a move towards more robust templating and HTML optimization capabilities.
The 2.x series, starting in late 2015, brought enhanced features, like pretty-error for better error messages, and introduced loaders for various templating languages such as Jade/Pug. This phase also saw increased refinement with point releases addressing bug fixes and dependency updates.
The 3.x versions, released in early 2018, marked a refactoring utilizing libraries like tapable and util.promisify, aiming to improve the plugin's internal architecture and promise-based workflows.
The 4.x and 5.x series, starting in 2020 and beyond, reflect modern JavaScript development practices, with type definitions, better error messages, webpack v5 compatibility and a shift to html-minifier-terser. The plugin dependencies has been kept updated. Newer releases in 2023 and 2024 demonstrate ongoing maintenance, dependency upgrades, and adaptation to rspack core. There are features for generating dynamic HTML files in webpack builds with optimizations.