- Installation
- JSX
- Hyperx
- Hyperscript
- Functional Components
- Mount, Render and Unmount
- Components
- State
- Lifecycle Methods
- Events
- Styles
- Unmount
- State Management with DataStore
- Third Party Libraries
- Deployment
- Differrences with React
The component architecture is based on classes. If you favor functional programing over OOP, you might prefer to use functional components. Functional Components are always stateless, so you will want to use them with some kind of state management, such as Redux, Mobx, etc.
When you create components with the Component class, you have a reference for the component's properties, methods, etc. This also provides a point of reference for the virtual DOM. In contrast, functional components do not have this reference for their virtual DOM. Instead, with functional components, the scope in which the function is invoked becomes the scope for the virtual DOM. This means as your project grows and code gets out over many files, the scope of a functional component can be spread across several files. For components this is not a problem. For functional components this means the first time it gets invoked in a new scope, the previous virtual DOM will be replaced by a new one. Unless you are creating a list with 10,000 or more items, you won't notice any inefficencies. However, it does result in more layout thrashing than when creating class-based components.
Functional components use JSX to create markup, but technically you could also use Hyperx with ES6 template literals. Here we're going to look at using JSX.
To create a functional component, you start with a function, surprise! The function could accept some data, or not. It depends on what the function needs to return. If it is returning static content, no need for a parameter of data. If you want the function component to consume some data, then pass it in as a parameter. And of course you'll need to return some markup. In the example below we have a simple, function component that creates a header:
// title.js:
// We need to import the "h" function:
import {h} from 'composi'
// Define function that takes props for data:
export function Title(props) {
// Return the header with name from props:
return (
<nav>
<h1>Hello, {props.name}!</h1>
</nav>
)
}If we were to do this with the Composi h function, it would look like this:
// app.js:
import {h} from 'composi'
// Define function that takes props for data:
export function Title(name) {
return h(
'nav', {}, h(
'h1', {}, name
)
)
}Both examples above create virtual nodes, so we will need a way to get them into the DOM. Composi provides the mount function for that purpose. It works similar to React's ReactDOM.render function, but is specifically for mounting a functional component. It takes two arguments: a tag/vnode and a selector/element in which to insert the markup.
In our app.js file we import h and render and then the Title functional component and render it to the DOM:
// app.js:
import {h, mount} from 'composi'
import {Title} from './components/title'
// Define data for component:
const name = 'World'
// Render the component into header tag:
mount(<Title {...{name}}/>, 'header')This will convert the functional component into a virtual node (vnode) and then convert that into actual nodes inside the header tag. Because a virtual node was created, we can re-render this later with new data and Composi will patch the DOM efficiently for us. In this case that would involve patching the text node of the h1 tag.
The mount function returns a reference to the DOM tree that was created. This is useful for when you need to update a component. You can capture that value in a variable and then pass it to Composi's render funcion to update a functional component. Notice in the following example how we use mount to get a reference to the component and then pass it to the render function in a setTimeout to update it:
// Remember to import both Mount, Render and Unmount:
import {h, mount, render} from 'composi'
function Clock({date}) {
return (
<div>
<h3>The Current Time</h3>
<p>It is {date.toLocaleTimeString()}.</p>
</div>
)
}
const clock = mount(<Clock date={new Date()} />, 'section')
setInterval(
() => {
// Pass the clock reference to render function to update it:
render(clock, <Clock date={new Date()}/>, 'section')
},
1000
)The render function expects three arguments:
- A reference to the already mounted component.
- The tag to use for rendering.
- The container in which the component was mounted.
Now lets create a functional component that takes an array and outputs a list of items. Notice that we are using BEM notation for class names to make styling easier.
// list.js:
import {h} from 'composi'
export function List(props) {
return (
<div class='container--list'>
<ul class='list--fruits'>
{props.items.map(item => <li class='list--fruits__item'>{props.item}</li>)}
</ul>
</div>
)
}This list is consuming an items array:
// items.js:
export const items = ['Apples', 'Oranges', 'Bananas']In our app.js file we put this all together:
// app.js:
import {h, mount} from 'composi'
import {Title} from './components/title'
import {List} from './components/list'
import {items} from './items'
// Define data for Title component:
const name = 'World'
// Mount component into header:
mount(<Title {...{name}}/>, 'header')
// Mount list component into section with items data:
mount(<List {...{items}}/>, 'section')We can break this list down a bit using a custom tag for the list item. We will need to pass the data down to the child component through its props:
// list.js:
import {h} from 'composi'
function ListItem(props) {
return (
<li class='list--fruits__item'>{props.item}</li>
)
}
export function List(props) {
return (
<div class='container--list'>
<ul class='list--fruits'>
{props.items.map(item => <ListItem {...{item}}/>)}
</ul>
</div>
)
}When using custom tags inside a functional component, the data flows down, from the parent to the children. There is no two-way data binding. This makes it easy to reason about. If you need a child component to communicate some kind of data change to its parent, you can use events or any pubsub solution from NPM. We have a tiny and efficient pubsub module on NPM called pubber that is perfect for these situations.
What if we wanted to make this list dynamic by allowing the user to add items? For that we need events. We'll add a text input and button so the user can enter an item. Since this doesn't involve any data consuming any data, their function just needs to return the markup for the nodes to be created. We'll call this function component ListForm:
import {h} from 'composi'
function ListForm() {
return (
<p>
<input class='list--fruits__input--add' placeholder='Enter Item...' type="text"/>
<button class='list--fruits__button--add'>Add Item</button>
</p>
)
}
function ListItem(props) {
return (
<li>{props.item}</li>
)
}
export function List(props) {
return (
<div class='container--list'>
<ListForm />
<ul>
{props.items.map(item => <ListItem {...{item}}/>)}
</ul>
</div>
)
}We are going to use the handleEvent interface to wire up events for the component. We'll do this in a separate file and import it into our app.js file. To use handleEvent with a functional component we'll need to create an object with the handleEvent function on it. Then we'll use a standar event listener and pass the that object instead of a callback.
Since we want to be able to add a new fruit to the list, we need to have access to the data and also the function component that mounts the list. Therefore we import them into the events.js file.
// app.js:
import {h, mount, render} from 'composi'
import {items} from './items'
import {List} from './components/list'
// Mount the component and capture reference in "list" variable:
const list = mount(<List {...{items}}/>, 'section')
export const events = {
addItem(e) {
const input = document.querySelector('.list__input--add')
const value = input.value
if (value) {
items.push(value)
// Pass list variable to render function to update component:
list = render(list, <List {...{items}}/>, 'section')
input.value = ''
}
},
handleEvent(e) {
e.target.className === 'list__button--add' && this.addItem(e)
}
}
// Attach event listener for list and pass the events object instead of a callback:
document.querySelector('.container-list').addEventListener('click', events)Notice that we first mount the list. This gives us a reference to the mounted component. We use this reference in our event handler along with the component's container to update the list in place. This allows Composi to use its virtual DOM to efficiently update the DOM nodes with the least layout thrashing as possible.
And that's it. With that we now have an interactive functional component that updates in real time with a virtual DOM.
Functional components have three lifecycle hooks:
- onmount
- onupdate
- onunmount
The are attached to the element where you want to track the lifecycle event. They are added like any other prop.
onmount gets passed the element that it is on as its argument. This lets you do things such as registering delegated events, accessing the DOM of the component, etc.
onupdate gets passed a reference to the element it is attached to, the old props, and the new props. You can check the difference between the two sets of props to see what changed. This lifecyle hook executes every time you call the render function on the functional component. If you have a list of items and you only want onupdate to fire when an item's data changes, you can write the functional component so that it memoizes its items.
onunmount gets passed a done callback and a reference to the element on which it is registered. You can do whatever you want but in the end you need to call done() to allow the unmounting to finish.
//... Define removeItem:
function removeItem(done, el) {
//... Do stuff here, like animating `el` before unmounting.
// Then call `done` to allow unmounting:
done()
}
// Notice how we pass `done` and `el` to the onupdate function.
function ListItem({data}) {
return (
<li key={data.key} onunmount={(done, el) => removeItem(done, el)}>
{data.name}
</li>
)
}Since el is optional, you only need to pass done to the unmount callback:
//... Define removeItem:
function removeItem(done) {
//... Do stuff here.
// Then call `done` to allow unmounting:
done()
}
// Notice how we pass onely `done` to the onupdate function.
function ListItem({data}) {
return (
<li key={data.key} onunmount={(done) => removeItem(done)}>
{data.name}
</li>
)
}Although you can build a complex app using nothing but functional components, there are certain conveniences when using the Component class. First and foremost is the fact that classes allow you to encapsulate functionality using properties and methods defined directly on the component. The second is that the component itself enables more efficient use of the virtual DOM because it keeps track of that internally. When data changes, the component itself initiates its update. No need to call a render function or update method to do that.