Desklamp

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Desklamp is a React library which provides a state container and easy creation of routes.

• No external dependencies
• Provides <Container /> that creates routes from child components
• Passes state to all children of <Container />
• Passes developer-defined functions to all children of <Container />
• Robust Desklamp API

Navigation

• Contribute
• Getting Started
• Creating Routes
  • Creating Nested Routes
• Initializing Your Application
  • Creating Initial State
  • Creating Custom Functions
  • Creating Custom Navigation
  • Initializing App with Desklamp.on
• Built In Functions
• Built In Components
• Extra Features

Quick Start

To get started, npm install --save desklamp.

import { Desklamp, Container } from 'desklamp';
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
 
// Normal React components
import Home from './components/Home'; 
import CreatePost from './components/CreatePost';
import Nav from './components/Nav'; // custom Nav component that you create (See Nav documentation below)
 
// Create an initial state object
const initState = {
  posts: [],
};
 
// Create an object with your custom functions as its methods.
const funcs = {}
 
ReactDOM.render((
  // Child components here become your routable urls
  <Container>
    <Home name="home" /> // optional name property for custom route/url name
    <CreatePost /> // by default, Desklamp will name your route after your component
  </Container>
), document.getElementById('app'));
 
funcs.createPost = (post) => {
    alert(post);
  }
 
// Initialize Desklamp below your ReactDOM.render
// Pass in your initial state object, funcs object, and your imported Nav
Desklamp.on(initState, funcs, Nav);

Contribute:

This module is in active development! We will release a few more iterations in the upcoming weeks. Please submit any issues and/or feature requests and we will try to incorporate them. Or reach out to our team on Gitter

Getting Started

Import What you Need

To set up your own application, start with your index.js file and import Desklamp and Container from the desklamp module.

import { Desklamp, Container } from 'desklamp'; 
import React from 'react'; 
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';

Desklamp gives you access to our helper methods. Container gives you the container component with all the application state.

Creating Routes

Routing in Desklamp is meant to get you up and running with client-side page navigation and url updates, as well as browser history, as soon as possible. To create basic navigation, simply nest your components inside the Container component Desklamp provides. For example, if you want to create routes for components Home and CreatePost, first define these components as you normally would. Then import them into your index.js file, and then nest them inside the Container component like so:

import Home from './components/Home';
import CreatePost from './components/CreatePost';
 
ReactDOM.render((
  <Container>
    <Home /> //creates route /home
    <CreatePost />
  </Container>
), document.getElementById('app'));

Nested Routes

To create a nested route (like /home/homey), simply nest the <Homey /> component inside of the <Home /> component within <Container/> and your route will be created accordingly.

ReactDOM.render((
  <Container>
    <Home> // open tag for `/home`
      <Homey /> // this is the child of Home and creates the route `/home/homey`
    </Home> //closing tag for `/home`
    <CreatePost />
  </Container>
), document.getElementById('app'));

Initializing Your Application

Desklamp allows you to keep your state in a single state object. Desklamp gives you many options for state control. The state is automatically available to all of your routes. This functionality is enabled by the Desklamp.on() function.

Create initial state

Create an object representing your initial state. This object represents all data that will be passed down to each route upon render as props.state.

const initState = {
  username: '',
  posts: [],
  userInfo: {},
};

Declaring custom functions

Declare an object to hold your functions. Any functions added as methods to this object will be automatically bound and passed down to all views upon render as props.powers.

const funcs = {};
funcs.hello = () => {
    console.log("Hello World")
  }

Creating a Custom Navigation Component

Create a Navigation React component using our custom <Link/> component or simple anchor tags. You can mix and match these two approaches, if you wish to link to an external site or a server route on your navigation, simply use a standard anchor tag.

// example using Desklamp's provided <Link/> tags
const Nav = () => {
  return (
    <nav className="nav">
      <ul>
        <li><Link view={'/home'} tag={'home'} /></li>
        <li><Link view={'/createpost'} tag={'add post'} /></li> <!-- view is the name you gave the route in ReactDom.render(), tag is the display text of the link -->
        <li><a href="https://github.com/desklamp-js/desklamp">Desklamp Github</a></li>
      </ul>
    </nav>
  );
};
 
// example using normal anchor tags
const Nav = () => (
    <nav className="nav">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="#/home">home</a></li> <!-- Desklamp routes should begin with `#` -->
        <li><a href="#/createposts">add post</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://github.com/desklamp-js/desklamp">Desklamp Github</a></li>
      </ul>
    </nav>
  );

Initializing your App with Desklamp.on()

Desklamp.on is the main function you will use to tell Desklamp about your application. This method takes three arguments: the initial state and functions objects we created above, and your Nav component. This will declare your initial state, bind your customized functions to the state and display your custom Navbar across all views.

The custom functions declared to Desklamp.on will be passed down to your routes as props.powers. You can then pass them as props down to child components as selectively as you would like. The initial state will become your props.state, also available to all the routes you have set up in your Container.

Desklamp.on() will look like this:

Desklamp.on(initState, funcs, Nav);

Example of a component, CreatePost, using its default passed in props and powers:

import React from 'react';
 
const CreatePost = ({ state, powers }) => (
    <div>
      <h1>Add a Post</h1>
      <button onClick={() =>  powers.createPost(state.posts[0])}>Alert</button>
    </div>
  );

Built in Functions

Desklamp provides some helper methods to make changing views easy.

Desklamp.changeView()

Desklamp.changeView() is a function that takes as the first parameter the string name of the route you wish to switch to. The optional second parameter is an object representing the state change you wish to make. This object will be automatically passed to Desklamp.updateState() to update the state of your application before routing. This function allows the developer to make asynchronous calls and change the view only after data is returned.

createPost: (post) => {
    $.post('http://localhost:3000/newPost', { post }, (data) => {
      Desklamp.changeView('posts', { posts: data.posts }); // call Desklamp.changeView() on successful response
    });
  }

Desklamp.onLoad()

Desklamp.onLoad() takes any number of functions and runs them in the componentWillMount section of the Container component. This allows you, the developer to run functions on the initial loading of the application at the highest level.

Desklamp.updateState()

Desklamp.updateState() is a function that allows you to update the state of your application from within your custom functions. Desklamp.updateState() takes in an object of the values you would like to change in your state. By default Desklamp.updateState maintains immutability and creates an new object with all of the changes before calling the default React.js setState function.

const initState = {
  username: '',
  posts: [],
  userInfo: {},
}
Desklamp.updateState({ username:"Harry" }); // maintains immutability by creating a new state object with username "Harry"

Desklamp.getState()

Desklamp.getState() is a simple function that can be called anywhere in your application to show the current state. It can be very useful for debugging and logging what your state looks like if you are experiencing issues with your state data not looking how you think it should. The function call returns the current state object.

Built in Components

Desklamp provides <Link/> components to link to your routes. These components take a view property referring to the route (without the #) and tag refers to the displayed text of the link.

<Link view={'/home'} tag={'home'} />

If you load data in your state or make other asynchronous calls before changing views, use <AsyncLink/> rather than <Link/>. This works well for 'get' requests. This component takes the same view and tag props as the <Link /> component, as well as an additional prop called func. The func prop will be the function to be executed prior to the view rendering.

 
// you can define this function as part of your `powers` which will be passed in as a prop to the Navigation component. 
// declaring it in the `<Nav />` file will also work.
function getPosts() {
    $.get('http://localhost:3000/posts', (postsData) => {
      Desklamp.updateState({
        posts: postsData,
      });
    });
  }
 
<AsyncLink view={'/login'} tag={'login'} func={getPosts} /> 

Upcoming Features

Desklamp automatically keeps track of a history of application state. Currently developing useful rollback of state and exposure of history object to the developer.

Debugging

We are continually adding and improving error handling messages to help with debugging. Please submit any suggestions or requests to help us improve our error messages.

Misc

A floor lamp is a desk lamp if you put it on your desk.