react-collider

React-collider

Express middleware for isomorphic Express + React apps. Also usable for any NodeJs app without Express.

Check out the example folder for a working example, including data-fetching from the Dailymotion API.

Features

• Handle server and client side rendering
• Takes care of data fetching when needed

Installation

$ npm install --save react-collider

Usage

Server side

Simply add the server middleware in your express app, giving your routes as argument.

var express  = require('express'),
    app      = express(),
    port     = process.env.PORT || 3000,
    collider = require('react-collider').server,
    routes   = require('./routing')

app.use(collider(routes))

app.listen(port, function() {
  console.log('Listening on 127.0.0.1:' + port)
})

Client side

Similar: call the client module with your routes.

var collider = require('react-collider').client,
    routes   = require('./routing')

collider(routes)

Components

If your component must fetch some data before being rendered, use a fetchData static method. It must return a promise.

Example of a simple component:

var Home = React.createClass({
    displayName: 'Home',
    statics: {
        fetchData: function() {
            // returns a promise
            return getHomeData()
        }
    },
    render: function() {
        var videos = getVideoList()

        return (
            <div>
                <h1>Homepage</h1>
                {videos}
            </div>
        )
    }
})

When your component includes another component which needs data too, define a getDependencies static method to return an array of components:

var Sidebar = require('./sidebar'),
    Footer  = require('./footer')

var Home = React.createClass({
    displayName: 'Home',
    statics: {
        getDependencies: function() {
            return [Sidebar, Footer]
        }
    },
    render: function() {
        return (
            <div>
                <Sidebar data={this.props.data.Sidebar} />
                <div>
                    <h1>Homepage</h1>
                </div>
                <Footer data={this.props.data.Footer} />
            </div>
        )
    }
})

Important: If you're not using es6 to write your components, be sure to define the displayName of your components. This is necessary for the module to correctly return the data.

Client side app only

If your servers are down and you can't pre-render the pages server-side, your app will still work client side (assuming your API is okay). All you need is to send a basic html file with your app bundled. Check out the example folder for an example.

Usage without Express

You can use react-collider wihtout express. You can simply use it to get the React component to render and the data to use:

var collider = require('react-collider').collider,
    routes = require('./routing')

var url = '/video'

// simply provide your routes and the url
collider(routes, url, function(Handler, data) {
    var page = React.renderToString(React.createElement(Handler, {data: data}))
})