# ReactPhoenix
[](https://travis-ci.org/geolessel/react-phoenix)
[](https://hex.pm/packages/react_phoenix)
Functions to make rendering React.js components easy in Phoenix.
Combined with the javascript also included in this package, rendering React
components in your Phoenix views is now much easier. Using the Phoenix default
of Webpack, this package can make getting React into your application much
faster than switching over to a different system.
> Note regarding Phoenix versions <= 1.3
>
> Phoenix versions 1.3 and earlier use Brunch by default instead of Webpack for asset compilation.
> The setup for apps using Brunch is different than apps using Webpack. If you'd like to
> read the old guide for 1.3/Brunch, you can read the [Phoenix 1.3 README](README-phoenix-1.3.md).
## Installation in 4 (or 5) EASY STEPS!
This package is meant to be quick and painless to install into your Phoenix application.
It is a thin wrapper to call the React render function from your Phoenix template and
assumes you already have React in your project.
### 1. Declare the dependency
The package can be installed by adding `react_phoenix` to your list of
dependencies in `mix.exs`:
```elixir
def deps do
[
{:react_phoenix, "~> 1.3"}
]
end
```
After adding to your mix file, run:
```
mix deps.get
```
### 2. Add the javascript dependency to package.json
In order to correctly render a React component in your view templates, a
provided javascript file must be included in your `assets/package.json` file in
the dependencies section. It might look like this:
```js
{
...
"dependencies": {
"phoenix": "file:../deps/phoenix",
"phoenix_html": "file:../deps/phoenix_html",
"react": "^16.2.0",
"react-dom": "^16.2.0",
"react-phoenix": "file:../deps/react_phoenix" <-- ADD THIS!
},
...
}
```
Then run (from your `assets` directory)
```
npm install
```
or
```
yarn
```
#### `yarn` users
If you face the following error using `yarn`:
```
Error: "You may need an appropriate loader to handle this file type"
```
You may need to add the below to your `assets/webpack.config.js` file.
```
{ test: /\.jsx$/, use: { loader: 'babel-loader' } }
```
#### `npm` users
`npm` unfortunately needs an extra bit of configuration to make it happy. Add the following block to your
`assets/webpack.config.js` file. If you use `yarn` to manage your dependencies, this extra bit of
configuration should not be necessary.
```js
module.exports = (env, options) => ({
...
// ADD THIS BLOCK ˅˅˅
resolve: {
alias: {
react: path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules/react'),
'react-dom': path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules/react-dom')
}
}
// ADD THIS BLOCK ^^^
...
});
```
### 3. Make sure React and Babel presets are installed
Since we want React and would like to write JSX in our app, we need
to make sure we get the packages brunch needs in order to compile our files.
```
# using npm
npm install react react-dom --save
npm install @babel/preset-env @babel/preset-react --save-dev
```
or
```
# using yarn
yarn add react react-dom
yarn add --dev @babel/preset-env @babel/preset-react
```
We also need to activate those presets from the `assets/.babelrc` file:
```js
// Configure your plugins
{
"presets": [
"@babel/preset-env",
"@babel/preset-react" // <-- ADD THIS!
]
}
```
### 4. Import and initialize the javascript helper
In your main application javascript file (usually `assets/js/app.js`), add the
following line:
```javascript
import "react-phoenix"
```
### 5. (optional) Import the module into your views for less typing
If you'd like to just call `react_component(...)` in your views instead of the full
`ReactPhoenix.ClientSide.react_component(...)`, you can import `ReactPhoenix.ClientSide`
into your `lib/APPNAME_web.ex` views section. It might look like this:
```elixir
def view do
quote do
use Phoenix.View,
root: "web/templates",
namespace: MyPhoenixApp
import Phoenix.Controller, only: [get_flash: 1, get_flash: 2, view_module: 1]
use Phoenix.HTML
import MyPhoenixApp.ErrorHelpers
import MyPhoenixApp.Gettext
alias MyPhoenixApp.Router.Helpers, as: Routes
import ReactPhoenix.ClientSide # <-- ADD THIS!
end
end
```
## Usage
Once installed, you can use `react_component` in your views by:
1. Making sure that the component you'd like rendered is in the global namespace.
You can do that in `app.js` like this (for example):
```javascript
import MyComponent from "./components/my_component"
window.Components = {
MyComponent
}
```
2. In your view template, you can then render it like this:
```elixir
# with no props
<%= ReactPhoenix.ClientSide.react_component("Components.MyComponent") %>
# with props
<%= ReactPhoenix.ClientSide.react_component("Components.MyComponent", %{language: "elixir", awesome: true}) %>
# with props and a target html element id option
<span id="my-react-span"><%= @react_html %></span>
<%= ReactPhoenix.ClientSide.react_component("Components.Characters", %{people: people}, target_id: "my-react-span") %>
```
This will render a special `div` element in your html output that will then be recognized by the
javascript helper as a div that should be turned into a React component. It will then render the
named component in that `div` (or a different element specified by ID via the `target_id` option).
## What about server-side rendering?
I couldn't quite get this working with Brunch, but I hope to have time to look at it again with Webpack.
## Documentation and other stuff
This package is heavily inspired by the [react-rails](https://github.com/reactjs/react-rails) project.
For more detailed documentation, check out the hex docs at
[https://hexdocs.pm/react_phoenix](https://hexdocs.pm/react_phoenix)
