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React.js Essentials
React.js Essentials

React.js Essentials: A fast-paced guide to designing and building scalable and maintainable web apps with React.js

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Profile Icon Artemij Fedosejev
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4 (32 Ratings)
Paperback Aug 2015 208 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Artemij Fedosejev
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4 (32 Ratings)
Paperback Aug 2015 208 pages 1st Edition
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React.js Essentials

Chapter 2. Create Your First React Element

As many of you know, creating a simple web application today involves writing the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code. The reason we use three different technologies is because we want to separate three different concerns:

  • Content (HTML)
  • Styling (CSS)
  • Logic (JavaScript)

This separation works great for creating a web page because, traditionally, we had different people working on different parts of our web page: one person structured the content using HTML and styled it using CSS, and then another person implemented the dynamic behavior of various elements on that web page using JavaScript. It was a content-centric approach.

Today, we mostly don't think of a website as a collection of web pages anymore. Instead, we build web applications that might have only one web page, and that web page does not represent the layout for our content—it represents a container for our web application. Such a web application with a single web page is...

Understanding the virtual DOM

Why do we need to manipulate the DOM in the first place? Because our web applications are not static. They have a state represented by the user interface (UI) that a web browser renders, and that state can be changed when an event occurs. What kind of events are we talking about? There are two types of events that we're interested in:

  • User events: When a user types, clicks, scrolls, resizes, and so on
  • Server events: When an application receives data or an error from a server, among others

What happens while handling these events? Usually, we update the data that our application depends on, and that data represents a state of our data model. In turn, when a state of our data model changes, we might want to reflect this change by updating a state of our UI. Looks like what we want is a way of syncing two different states: the UI state and the data model state. We want one to react to the changes in the other and vice versa. How can we achieve this?

One of...

Installing React

To start using the React library, we need to first install it. I am going to show you two ways of doing this: the simplest one and the one using the npm install command.

The simplest way is to add the <script> tag to our ~/snapterest/build/index.html file:

  • For the development version of React, add the following command:
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/0.14.0-beta3/react.js"></script>
  • For the production version version of React, add the following command:
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/0.14.0-beta3/react.min.js"></script>

There is a difference between the two that we'll learn about in the later chapters of this book. For our project, we'll be using the development version of React.

At the time of writing, the latest version of React library is 0.14.0-beta3. Over time, React gets updated, so make sure you use the latest version that is available to you, unless it introduces...

Creating React Elements with JavaScript

We'll start by familiarizing ourselves with a fundamental React terminology. It will help us build a clear picture of what the React library is made of. This terminology will most likely update over time, so keep an eye on the official documentation at http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/glossary.html.

Just like the DOM is a tree of nodes, React's virtual DOM is a tree of React nodes. One of the core types in React is called ReactNode. It's a building block for a virtual DOM, and it can be any one of these core types:

  • ReactElement: This is the primary type in React. It's a light, stateless, immutable, virtual representation of a DOM Element.
  • ReactText: This is a string or a number. It represents textual content and it's a virtual representation of a Text Node in the DOM.

ReactElements and ReactTexts are ReactNodes. An array of ReactNodes is called a ReactFragment. You will see examples of all of these in this chapter.

Let&apos...

Rendering React Elements

The ReactDOM.render() method takes three parameters: ReactElement, a regular DOMElement, and a callback function:

ReactDOM.render(ReactElement, DOMElement, callback);

ReactElement is a root element in the tree of ReactNodes that you've created. A regular DOMElement is a container DOM node for that tree. The callback is a function executed after the tree is rendered or updated. It's important to note that if this ReactElement was previously rendered to a parent DOM Element, then ReactDOM.render() will perform an update on the already rendered DOM tree and only mutate the DOM as it is necessary to reflect the latest version of the ReactElement. This is why a virtual DOM requires fewer DOM mutations.

So far, we've assumed that we're always creating our virtual DOM in a web browser. This is understandable because, after all, React is a user interface library, and all the user interfaces are rendered in a web browser. Can you think of a case when rendering...

Creating React Elements with JSX

When we build our virtual DOM by constantly calling the React.createElement() method, it becomes quite hard to visually translate these multiple function calls into a hierarchy of HTML tags. Don't forget that, even though we're working with a virtual DOM, we're still creating a structure layout for our content and user interface. Wouldn't it be great to be able to visualize that layout easily by simply looking at our React code?

JSX is an optional HTML-like syntax that allows us to create a virtual DOM tree without using the React.createElement() method.

Let's take a look at the previous example that we created without JSX:

var React = require('react');
var ReactDOM = require('react-dom');

var listItemElement1 = React.DOM.li({ className: 'item-1', key: 'item-1' }, 'Item 1');
var listItemElement2 = React.DOM.li({ className: 'item-2', key: 'item-2' }, 'Item 2...

Understanding the virtual DOM


Why do we need to manipulate the DOM in the first place? Because our web applications are not static. They have a state represented by the user interface (UI) that a web browser renders, and that state can be changed when an event occurs. What kind of events are we talking about? There are two types of events that we're interested in:

  • User events: When a user types, clicks, scrolls, resizes, and so on

  • Server events: When an application receives data or an error from a server, among others

What happens while handling these events? Usually, we update the data that our application depends on, and that data represents a state of our data model. In turn, when a state of our data model changes, we might want to reflect this change by updating a state of our UI. Looks like what we want is a way of syncing two different states: the UI state and the data model state. We want one to react to the changes in the other and vice versa. How can we achieve this?

One of the ways...

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Description

Building web applications with maintainable and performant user interfaces is a challenge that many have faced for more than a decade, but no one has risen to this challenge quite like React.js. Today React.js is used by Facebook, Instagram, Khan Academy, and Imperial College London, to name a few. Many new users recognize the benefits of React.js and adopt it in their own projects, forming a fast-growing community. The speed at which React.js has evolved promises a bright future for those who invest in learning it today. React.js Essentials will take you on a fast-paced journey through building your own maintainable React.js application. Begin by exploring how you can create single and multiple user interface elements. Create stateless and stateful components and make them reactive, learn to interact between your components and lifecycle methods and gauge how to effectively integrate your user interface components with other JavaScript libraries. Delve deep into the core elements of the Flux architecture and learn how to manage your application using stores. Finish by going that extra mile with the Jest test framework, running multiple tests on your application and find solutions to scale it further without complexity.

What you will learn

  • Install powerful React.js tools to make development much more efficient
  • Create React elements with properties and children
  • Get started with stateless and stateful React components
  • Use JSX to speed up your React.js development process
  • Add reactivity to your React components with lifecycle methods
  • Integrate your React components with other JavaScript libraries
  • Utilize the Flux application architecture with your React components
  • Test your React components with Jest test framework
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Table of Contents

11 Chapters
1. Installing Powerful Tools for Your Project Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Create Your First React Element Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Create Your First React Component Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Make Your React Components Reactive Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Use Your React Components with Another Library Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Update Your React Components Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Build Complex React Components Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Test Your React Application with Jest Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Supercharge Your React Architecture with Flux Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Prepare Your React Application for Painless Maintenance with Flux Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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1 star 3.1%
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Onco Sep 19, 2016
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the basics
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Andreas Schön Jan 17, 2016
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The book is a very good introduction into the basics of React.js including unit testing with Jest and the Flux architecture. The used example fits very well.Advanced topics like deploying an isomorphic application or a discussion of persistent immutable data structures with JavaScript (for readers with a background in Clojure or functional programming) to improve performance (through a custom shouldComponentUpdate method) is missing though.
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muhammad Sep 10, 2015
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One of the best technical books I've read so far. It gets to the point and offers additional skills in addition to React. Worth every penny :).
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Giuseppe Rodriguez Oct 07, 2015
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I really enjoyed this book. Artemij is good at explaining the different React concepts and also at emphasizing best practices when it comes to Single Page Applications in general. The pace of the book is just right. Not too fast, not too slow. I would say that intermediate-level web developers will get the most out of this course. You need to have a good understanding of some key JavaScript concepts like scope (and the 'this' keyword), object properties, etc. if you want to get a good grip on React's core concepts and coding structure.The book explains the React concepts very well but teaching basic JavaScript is not the purpose of this course. So, total beginner's should learn basic JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3 before taking this course. In short, I definitely recommend this course to any intermediate-level developer looking for a solid introduction to React, and the Flux architecture philosophy. It gives you a great foundation to start experimenting with your own ideas and explore the development patterns of component-based Single Page Applications.I seriously didn't think that I could have learned React as well as I did from this book, I have read multiple books on React but this one blew me away with how well done and well put together it is. Love the extensive details given explaining everything and I really am super confident now in React and have a solid base to build upon.
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Zac Nov 10, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Overall I was pretty pleased with my purchase and if you are in the right stage of your React journey I believe this book can be extremely valuable to you.You can find my full review on my blog here:[...]
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