react-media-query-hoc

react-media-query-hoc

A dead simple React Higher Order Component (HOC) that uses context for matching media queries.

Why use this?

• A simple API which doesnt require you to put MediaQuery components all over your code base
• More performant (you only need 1 parent MediaQueryProvider that listens to media events you wish to configure)
• Easier to test than other react media query libraries
• Uses css-mediaquery which parses and determines if a given CSS Media Query matches a set of values (used for server side rendering).
• Abstracts away the context API, we use the legacy context API internally so we can support React 15 and 16. But as a consumer you don't need to worry.

Why not use this?

We always recommend using vanilla CSS media queries to build responsive websites, this is simpler and provides a smoother UX, also it mitigates having to guess the screen width during server side rendering. At Domain we needed to use this component for legacy ad tech and stat reasons and advise against it's use for general responsive website design.

Install

Via NPM:

npm install react-media-query-hoc --save

Via Yarn:

yarn add react-media-query-hoc

Usage

This library is designed so that you have 1 MediaQueryProvider parent and 1-many child components wrapped with withMedia HOC

MediaQueryProvider

This component will listen to media events you want to configure, it should be used once as a parent component.

Usage:

import { MediaQueryProvider } from 'react-media-query-hoc';

const App = (props) => {
  return (
    <MediaQueryProvider>
      <TheRestOfMyApp />
    </MediaQueryProvider>
  );
};

export default App;

By providing no queries prop to the MediaQueryProvider component, it will default to these media queries

But you can provide different media queries for your use case using the queries prop, eg:

const App = (props) => {
  const customQueries = {
    verySmall: 'screen and (max-width: 300px)',
    someOtherMediaQuery: 'screen and (min-width: 301px)',
  };

  return (
    <MediaQueryProvider queries={customQueries}>
      <TheRestOfMyApp />
    </MediaQueryProvider>
  );
};

withMedia

This is a HOC to provide media match props to your component.

Usage:

import { withMedia } from 'react-media-query-hoc';

const MyComponent = ({ media, ...props}) => (
  if(media.tablet || media.mobile) {
    ..
    return (
      <div>
        Mobile and Tablet View
      </div>
    )
  }

  return (
    <div>
      Other View
    </div>
  )
);

export const BaseMyComponent = MyComponent;
export default withMedia(MyComponent);

Components wrapped by withMedia() won't work with React's usual ref mechanism, because the ref supplied will be for withMedia rather than the wrapped component. Therefore a prop, wrappedRef provides the same function. Note: this means the wrapped component can not be a stateless function.

Server Side Rendering

You can pass in media features from your server, all supported values can be found here.

Usage (matches mobile screen during SSR):

const App = (props) => {
  const values = {
    width: 300,
    type: 'screen',
  };

  return (
    <MediaQueryProvider values={values}>
      <TheRestOfMyApp />
    </MediaQueryProvider>
  );
};

React 16 ReactDOM.hydrate

It's very important to realise a server client mismatch is dangerous when using hydrate in React 16, ReactDOM.hydrate can cause very strange html on the client if there is a mismatch. To mitigate this we use the two-pass rendering technique mentioned in the React docs. We render on the client in the first pass using values with css-mediaquery used on the server, then we use the browsers native window.matchMedia to get it's actual dimensions and render again if it causes different query results. This means there should be no React server/client mismatch warning in your console and you can safely use hydrate. As a result of above, if you are server side rendering and using ReactDOM.hydrate you must supply MediaQueryProvider a values prop.

Browser Support

The oldest browser we support is IE11, if you want to support even older browsers please make sure you are using a polyfill for Map such as babel-polyfill.

Testing Components

Because the media queries and context are abstracted out you can easily test components with or without the withMedia HOC, just ensure you export your component base without the HOC as well, eg:

export const BaseMyComponent = MyComponent;
export default withMedia(MyComponent);

Then in your React tests you can import like:

import { BaseMyComponent } from 'location_of_my_component';

And unit test the component without having to worry about context

Thanks

Big thanks to the maintainers of these repos

• https://github.com/jxnblk/react-media-context
• https://github.com/contra/react-responsive

Both libraries are a bit similar, but my original use case required the extra advantages listed in Why use this?