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MobX Quick Start Guide
MobX Quick Start Guide

MobX Quick Start Guide: Supercharge the client state in your React apps with MobX

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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.6 (7 Ratings)
Paperback Jul 2018 236 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
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Paperback Jul 2018 236 pages 1st Edition
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MobX Quick Start Guide

Observables, Actions, and Reactions

Describing the structure of the client state is the first step in UI development. With MobX, you do this by creating your tree of observables. As the user interacts with the app, actions are invoked on your observable state, which in turn can cause reactions (aka side-effects). Continuing from Chapter 1Introduction to State Management, we will now take a deeper look at the core concepts of MobX.

The topics covered in this chapter include:

  • Creating the various kinds of observables
  • Setting up the actions that mutate the observables
  • Using reactions to handle external changes

Technical requirements

Observables

Data is the lifeblood of your UI. Going back to the equation that defines the relationship between data and UI, we know that the following is true:

So, it makes sense to focus on defining the structure of data that will drive the UI. In MobX, we do this with the observables. Take a look at this diagram:

Observables, as the name suggests, are entities that can be observed. They keep track of changes happening to their values and notify all the observers. This seemingly simple behavior has powerful implications when you start designing the structure of your client-state. In the preceding diagram, every circle represents an Observable, and every diamond is an Observer. An observer can observe one or more observables and get notified when any of them change value.

Creating...

Actions

Although you can change an observable directly, it is highly recommended that you use actions to do it. If you remember, in the previous chapter, we saw that actions are the ones that cause a state-change. The UI simply fires the actions and expects some observables to be mutated. Actions hide the details of how the mutation should happen or what observables should be affected.

The diagram below is a reminder that UI can modify the State only via an Action:

Actions introduce vocabulary into the UI and give declarative names to the operations that mutate the state. MobX embraces this idea completely and makes actions a first-class concept. To create an action, we simply wrap the mutating function inside the action() API. This gives us back a function that can be invoked just like the original passed-in function. Take a look at this code block:

import { observable, action...

Reactions

Reactions can really change the world for your app. They are the side-effect causing behaviors that react to the changes in observables. Reactions complete the core triad of MobX and act as the observers of the observables. Take a look at this diagram:

MobX gives you three different ways to express your reactions or side-effects. These are autorun(), reaction(), and when(). Let's see each of these in turn.

autorun()

autorun() is a long-running side-effect that takes in a function (effect-function) as its argument. The effect-function function is where you apply all your side-effects. Now, these side-effects may depend on one or more observables. MobX will automatically keep track of any change happening to...

Summary

The story of MobX revolves around observables. Actions mutate these observables. Derivations and Reactions observe and react to changes to these observables. Observables, actions, and reactions form the core triad.

We have seen several ways to shape your observables with objects, arrays, maps, and boxed observables. Actions are the recommended way to modify observables. They add to the vocabulary of operations and boost performance by minimizing change notifications. Reactions are the observers that react to changes in observables. They are the ones causing side-effects in the app.

Reactions come in three flavors, autorun(), reaction(), and when(), and distinguish themselves as being long-running or one-time. when(), the only one-time effector, comes in a simpler form, where it can return a promise, given a predicate function.

...
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Key benefits

  • The easiest way to learn MobX to enhance your client-side state-management
  • Understand how the concepts and components fit together
  • Work through different state management scenarios with MobX

Description

MobX is a simple and highly scalable state management library in JavaScript. Its abstractions can help you manage state in small to extremely large applications. However, if you are just starting out, it is essential to have a guide that can help you take the first steps. This book aims to be that guide that will equip you with the skills needed to use MobX and effectively handle the state management aspects of your application. You will first learn about observables, actions, and reactions: the core concepts of MobX. To see how MobX really shines and simplifies state management, you'll work through some real-world use cases. Building on these core concepts and use cases, you will learn about advanced MobX, its APIs, and libraries that extend MobX. By the end of this book, you will not only have a solid conceptual understanding of MobX, but also practical experience. You will gain the confidence to tackle many of the common state management problems in your own projects.

Who is this book for?

This book is for web developers who want to implement easy and scalable state management for their apps. Knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is assumed

What you will learn

  • • Explore the fundamental concepts of MobX, such as observables, actions, and reactions
  • • Use observables to track state and react to its changes with validations and visual feedback (via React Components)
  • • Create a MobX observable from different data types
  • • Define form data as an observable state and tackle sync and async form validations
  • • Use the special APIs to directly manipulate observables, tracking its changes, and discovering the reasons behind a change
  • • Tackle any state management issue you may have in your app by combining mobx-utils and mobx-state-tree
  • • Explore the internals of the MobX reactive system by diving into its inner workings

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Jul 26, 2018
Length: 236 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789344837
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Product Details

Publication date : Jul 26, 2018
Length: 236 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789344837
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

10 Chapters
Introduction to State Management Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Observables, Actions, and Reactions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A React App with MobX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Crafting the Observable Tree Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Derivations, Actions, and Reactions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Handling Real-World Use Cases Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Special API for Special Cases Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Exploring mobx-utils and mobx-state-tree Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Mobx Internals Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.6
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2 star 14.3%
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Jerome Lanteri Mar 29, 2021
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
c'est bien rangé, c'est propre, le code est clair, c'est didactique, ni trop long, ni trop court.il y en a qui devraient s'en inspirer...
Amazon Verified review Amazon
James Onedin Feb 15, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Absolute five star book, refreshing new ideas on state management after the boring reign of a super complicated Redux... If you want to understand the ins and outs, and the core concepts behind MobX, this is a must-have.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Matt Ruby Aug 19, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Great book about both mobx and state management in general. And don't let the title fool you. While the book begins with a quick start, it will take you deep into mobx.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
DC Aug 19, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This is a fantastic book about not only Mobx, but also a strong, general approach to building User Interfaces. Definitely check it. Best tech book I’ve read in quite some time.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amazon Customer Jun 03, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Great book- very easy to follow and learn.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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