react-on-rails
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Given that Webpacker already provides React integration, why would you add React on Rails? Additional features of React on Rails include:
First be sure to run rails -v and check that you are using Rails 5.1.3 or above. If you are using an older version of Rails, you'll need to install webpacker with React per the instructions here.
See below for steps on an existing Rails app
rails new my-app --webpack=react. cd into the directory.gem 'react_on_rails', '~> 9.0.1'rails generate react_on_rails:installrails sThe rails/wepbacker default setup does not work with hot or live reloading, yet, per Webpacker issue #842. If you want the combination of both server rendering and hot reloading during development, you will need to a custom webpack setup as shown here
app/views/hello_world/index.html.erb and set prerender to true.This is the line where you turn server rendering on by setting prerender to true:
<%%= react_component("HelloWorld", props: @hello_world_props, prerender: false) %>
Thank you for considering using React on Rails.
We at ShakaCode are a small, boutique, remote-first application development company. We fund this project by:
My article "Why Hire ShakaCode?" provides additional details about our projects.
If any of this resonates with you, please email me, justin@shakacode.com. I offer a free half-hour project consultation, on anything from React on Rails to any aspect of web or mobile application development for both consumer and enterprise products.
We are currently looking to hire like-minded developers that wish to work on our projects, including Friends and Guests.
I appreciate your attention and sharing of these offerings with anybody that we can help. Your support allows me to bring you and your team front-end happiness in the Rails world.
Aloha and best wishes from the ShakaCode team!
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master refer to 9.x including support for rails/webpacker.
Use the 7.0.4 docs to refer to the older asset pipeline way.Project Objective: To provide an opinionated and optimal framework for integrating Ruby on Rails with React via the Webpacker gem.
React on Rails integrates Facebook's React front-end framework with Rails. React v0.14.x and greater is supported, with server rendering. Redux and React-Router are supported as well, also with server rendering, using execJS.
Like the react-rails gem, React on Rails is capable of server-side rendering with fragment caching and is compatible with turbolinks. While the initial setup is slightly more involved, it allows for advanced functionality such as:
See the react-webpack-rails-tutorial for an example of a live implementation and code.
Webpack is used to generate JavaScript and CSS "bundles" directly to your /public directory. webpacker provides view helpers to access the Webpack generated (and fingerprinted) JS and CSS. These files totally skip the Rails asset pipeline. You are responsible for properly processing your Webpack output via the Webpack config files.
This usage of webpack fits neatly and simply into existing Rails apps. You can include React components on a Rails view with a simple helper.
Compare this to some alternative approaches for SPAs (Single Page Apps) that utilize Webpack and Rails. They will use a separate node server to distribute web pages, JavaScript assets, CSS, etc., and will still use Rails as an API server. A good example of this is our ShakaCode team member Alex's article Universal React with Rails: Part I.
To upgrade existing apps to React on Rails 8 see the Installation Overview
For more detailed instructions on a fresh Rails app, see the React on Rails Basic Tutorial.
bundle install. We recommend fixing the version of React on Rails, as you will need to keep the exact version in sync with the version in your client/package.json file.gem "react_on_rails", "9.0.0"
gem "webpacker", "~> 3.0"
Run the following 2 commands to install Webpacker with React:
bundle exec rails webpacker:install
bundle exec rails webpacker:install:react
Commit this to git (or else you cannot run the generator unless you pass the option --ignore-warnings).
See help for the generator:
rails generate react_on_rails:install --help
rails generate react_on_rails:install
Ensure that you have foreman installed: gem install foreman.
Start your Rails server:
foreman start -f Procfile.dev
foreman defaults to PORT 5000 unless you set the value of PORT in your environment. For example, you can export PORT=3000 to use the Rails default port of 3000. For the hello_world example this is already set.See the Installation Overview for a concise set summary of what's in a React on Rails installation.
Configure the config/initializers/react_on_rails.rb. You can adjust some necessary settings and defaults. See file spec/dummy/config/initializers/react_on_rails.rb for a detailed example of configuration, including comments on the different values to configure.
Normal Mode (React component will be rendered on client):
<%= react_component("HelloWorld", props: @some_props) %>
Server-Side Rendering (React component is first rendered into HTML on the server):
<%= react_component("HelloWorld", props: @some_props, prerender: true) %>
The component_name parameter is a string matching the name you used to expose your React component globally. So, in the above examples, if you had a React component named "HelloWorld", you would register it with the following lines:
import ReactOnRails from 'react-on-rails';
import HelloWorld from './HelloWorld';
ReactOnRails.register({ HelloWorld });
Exposing your component in this way is how React on Rails is able to reference your component from a Rails view. You can expose as many components as you like, as long as their names do not collide. See below for the details of how you expose your components via the react_on_rails webpack configuration.
@some_props can be either a hash or JSON string. This is an optional argument assuming you do not need to pass any options (if you want to pass options, such as prerender: true, but you do not want to pass any properties, simply pass an empty hash {}). This will make the data available in your component:
# Rails View
<%= react_component("HelloWorld", props: { name: "Stranger" }) %>
// inside your React component
this.props.name // "Stranger"
You can enable the i18n functionality with react-intl.
React on Rails provides an option for automatic conversions of Rails *.yml locale files into *.js files for react-intl.
See the How to add I18n for a summary of adding I18n.
All JavaScript in React On Rails is loaded from npm: react-on-rails. To manually install this (you did not use the generator), assuming you have a standard configuration, run this command (assuming you are in the directory where you have your node_modules):
yarn add react-on-rails
That will install the latest version and update your package.json.
React on Rails users should set configuration value compile to false, as React on Rails handles compilation for test and production environments.
The generator installs your webpack files in the client folder. Foreman uses webpack to compile your code and output the bundled results to app/assets/webpack, which are then loaded by sprockets. These generated bundle files have been added to your .gitignore for your convenience.
Inside your Rails views, you can now use the react_component helper method provided by React on Rails. You can pass props directly to the react component helper. You can also initialize a Redux store with view or controller helper redux_store so that the store can be shared amongst multiple React components. See the docs for redux_store below and scan the code inside of the /spec/dummy sample app.
In most cases, you should use the prerender: false (default behavior) with the provided helper method to render the React component from your Rails views. In some cases, such as when SEO is vital, or many users will not have JavaScript enabled, you can enable server-rendering by passing prerender: true to your helper, or you can simply change the default in config/initializers/react_on_rails.
Now the server will interpret your JavaScript using ExecJS and pass the resulting HTML to the client. We recommend using mini_racer as ExecJS's runtime. The generator will automatically add it to your Gemfile for you (once we complete #501).
In the following screenshot you can see the 3 parts of React on Rails rendering:
<div id="HelloWorld-react-component-0"> specifies the div where to place the React rendering. It encloses the server-rendered HTML for the React componentNote:
<div id="HelloWorld-react-component-0"/>. The first specification of the React component is just the same.<script> tag for the props. Instead of a hidden div, we have the props inside of the <script> tag.
Each time you change your client code, you will need to re-generate the bundles (the webpack-created JavaScript files included in application.js). The included Foreman Procfile.dev will take care of this for you by watching your JavaScript code files for changes. Simply run foreman start -f Procfile.dev.
On production deployments that use asset precompilation, such as Heroku deployments, React on Rails, by default, will automatically run webpack to build your JavaScript bundles. You can see the source code for what gets added to your precompilation here. For more information on this topic, see the doc on Heroku deployment.
If you have used the provided generator, these bundles will automatically be added to your .gitignore to prevent extraneous noise from re-generated code in your pull requests. You will want to do this manually if you do not use the provided generator.
Why would you create a function that returns a React component rather than simply an Object that is a React class?
railsContext. See documentation for the railsContext in terms of why you might need it. You need a generator function to access the railsContext.ReactOnRails will automatically detect a registered generator function. Thus, there is no difference between registering a React Component versus a "generator function."
Another reason to use a generator function is that sometimes in server rendering, specifically with React Router, you need to return the result of calling ReactDOMServer.renderToString(element). You can do this by returning an object with the following shape: { renderedHtml, redirectLocation, error }.
For server rendering, if you wish to return multiple HTML strings from a generator function, you may return an Object from your generator function with a single top level property of renderedHtml. Inside this Object, place a key called componentHtml, along with any other needed keys. An example scenario of this is when you are using side effects libraries like React Helmet. Your Ruby code will get this Object as a Hash containing keys componentHtml and any other custom keys that you added:
{ renderedHtml: { componentHtml, customKey1, customKey2} }
Note: The functionality in the above paragraph requires the use of our new react_component_hash method. Said functionality in our react_component method is now deprecated.
When you use a "generator function" to create react components (or renderedHtml on the server), or you used shared redux stores, you get two params passed to your function that creates a React component:
props: Props that you pass in the view helper of either react_component or redux_storerailsContext: Rails contextual information, such as the current pathname. You can customize this in your config file. Note: The railsContext is not related to the concept of a "context" for React components.This parameters (props and railsContext) will be the same regardless of either client or server side rendering, except for the key serverSide based on whether or not you are server rendering.
While you could manually configure your Rails code to pass the "railsContext information" with the rest of your "props", the railsContext is a convenience because it's passed consistently to all invocations of generator functions.
For example, suppose you create a "generator function" called MyAppComponent.
import React from 'react';
const MyAppComponent = (props, railsContext) => (
<div>
<p>props are: {JSON.stringify(props)}</p>
<p>railsContext is: {JSON.stringify(railsContext)}
</p>
</div>
);
export default MyAppComponent;
Note: you will get a React browser console warning if you try to serverRender this since the value of serverSide will be different for server rendering.
So if you register your generator function MyAppComponent, it will get called like:
reactComponent = MyAppComponent(props, railsContext);
and, similarly, any redux store always initialized with 2 parameters:
reduxStore = MyReduxStore(props, railsContext);
Note: you never make these calls. React on Rails makes these calls when it does either client or server rendering. You will define functions that take these 2 params and return a React component or a Redux Store. Naturally, you do not have to use second parameter of the railsContext if you do not need it.
(Note: see below section on how to setup redux stores that allow multiple components to talk to the same store.)
The railsContext has: (see implementation in file react_on_rails_helper.rb, method rails_context for the definitive list).
{
# URL settings
href: request.original_url,
location: "#{uri.path}#{uri.query.present? ? "?#{uri.query}": ""}",
scheme: uri.scheme, # http
host: uri.host, # foo.com
port: uri.port,
pathname: uri.path, # /posts
search: uri.query, # id=30&limit=5
# Other
serverSide: boolean # Are we being called on the server or client? Note: if you conditionally
# render something different on the server than the client, then React will only show the
# server version!
}
There's no reason that the railsContext would ever get passed to your React component unless the value is explicitly put into the props used for rendering. If you create a react component, rather than a generator function, for use by React on Rails, then you get whatever props are passed in from the view helper, which does not include the Rails Context. It's trivial to wrap your component in a "generator function" to return a new component that takes both:
import React from 'react';
import AppComponent from './AppComponent';
const AppComponentWithRailsContext = (props, railsContext) => (
<AppComponent {...{...props, railsContext}}/>
)
export default AppComponentWithRailsContext;
Consider this line in depth:
<AppComponent {...{ ...props, railsContext }}/>
The outer {... is for the JSX spread operator for attributes and the innner {... is for the Spread in object literals.
Suppose you want to display a nav bar with the current navigation link highlighted by the URL. When you server-render the code, your code will need to know the current URL/path. The new railsContext has this information. Your application will apply something like an "active" class on the server rendering.
Suppose you want to turn off animation when doing server side rendering. The serverSide value is just what you need.
You can customize the values passed in the railsContext in your config/initializers/react_on_rails.rb. Here's how.
Set the config value for the rendering_extension:
config.rendering_extension = RenderingExtension
Implement it like this above in the same file. Create a class method on the module called custom_context that takes the view_context for a param.
See spec/dummy/config/initializers/react_on_rails.rb for a detailed example.
module RenderingExtension
# Return a Hash that contains custom values from the view context that will get merged with
# the standard rails_context values and passed to all calls to generator functions used by the
# react_component and redux_store view helpers
def self.custom_context(view_context)
{
somethingUseful: view_context.session[:something_useful]
}
end
end
In this case, a prop and value for somethingUseful will go into the railsContext passed to all react_component and redux_store calls. You may set any values available in the view rendering context.
Place your JavaScript code inside of the default app/javascript folder. Use modules just as you would when using webpack alone. The difference here is that instead of mounting React components directly to an element using React.render, you register your components to ReactOnRails and then mount them with helpers inside of your Rails views.
This is how to expose a component to the react_component view helper.
// app/javascript/packs/hello-world-bundle.js
import HelloWorld from '../components/HelloWorld';
import ReactOnRails from 'react-on-rails';
ReactOnRails.register({ HelloWorld });
You may want different initialization for your server-rendered components. For example, if you have an animation that runs when a component is displayed, you might need to turn that off when server rendering. However, the railsContext will tell you if your JavaScript code is running client side or server side. So code that required a different server bundle previously may no longer require this!
If you want different code to run, you'd set up a separate webpack compilation file and you'd specify a different, server side entry file. ex. 'serverHelloWorld.jsx'. Note: you might be initializing HelloWorld with version specialized for server rendering.
A renderer function is a generator function that accepts three arguments: (props, railsContext, domNodeId) => { ... }. Instead of returning a React component, a renderer is responsible for calling ReactDOM.render to render a React component into the dom. Why would you want to call ReactDOM.render yourself? One possible use case is code splitting.
Renderer functions are not meant to be used on the server since there's no DOM on the server. Instead, use a generator function. Attempting to server render with a renderer function will cause an error.
Once the bundled files have been generated in your app/assets/webpack folder and you have registered your components, you will want to render these components on your Rails views using the included helper method, react_component.
react_component(component_name,
props: {},
prerender: nil,
trace: nil,
replay_console: nil,
raise_on_prerender_error: nil,
id: nil,
html_options: {})
display:inline-block.railsContext and your props. On the server, you only see the railsContext being logged.logging_on_server set to true, you'll still see the errors on the server.Include the module ReactOnRails::Controller in your controller, probably in ApplicationController. This will provide the following controller method, which you can call in your controller actions:
redux_store(store_name, props: {})
ReactOnRails.registerStore({storeName}) in the same place that you register your components.ReactOnRails.getStore('storeName') to get the hydrated Redux store to attach to your components.props. ReactOnRails takes care of setting up the hydration of your store with props from the view.For an example, see spec/dummy/app/controllers/pages_controller.rb. Note: this is preferable to using the equivalent view_helper redux_store in that you can be assured that the store is initialized before your components.
redux_store(store_name, props: {})
This method has the same API as the controller extension. HOWEVER, we recommend the controller extension instead because the Rails executes the template code in the controller action's view file (erb, haml, slim, etc.) before the layout. So long as you call redux_store at the beginning of your action's view file, this will work. However, it's an easy mistake to put this call in the wrong place. Calling redux_store in the controller action ensures proper load order, regardless of where you call this in the controller action. Note: you won't know of this subtle ordering issue until you server render and you find that your store is not hydrated properly.
redux_store_hydration_data
Place this view helper (no parameters) at the end of your shared layout so ReactOnRails will render the redux store hydration data. Since we're going to be setting up the stores in the controllers, we need to know where on the view to put the client-side rendering of this hydration data, which is a hidden div with a matching class that contains a data props. For an example, see spec/dummy/app/views/layouts/application.html.erb.
Note: you don't need to initialize your redux store. You can pass the props to your React component in a "generator function." However, consider using the redux_store helper for the two following use cases:
server_render_js(js_expression, options = {})
replay_console (boolean)This is a helper method that takes any JavaScript expression and returns the output from evaluating it. If you have more than one line that needs to be executed, wrap it in an IIFE. JS exceptions will be caught and console messages handled properly.
You may wish to have 2 React components share the same the Redux store. For example, if your navbar is a React component, you may want it to use the same store as your component in the main area of the page. You may even want multiple React components in the main area, which allows for greater modularity. Also, you may want this to work with Turbolinks to minimize reloading the JavaScript. A good example of this would be something like a notifications counter in a header. As each notification is read in the body of the page, you would like to update the header. If both the header and body share the same Redux store, then this is trivial. Otherwise, we have to rely on other solutions, such as the header polling the server to see how many unread notifications exist.
Suppose the Redux store is called appStore, and you have 3 React components that each needs to connect to a store: NavbarApp, CommentsApp, and BlogsApp. I named them with App to indicate that they are the registered components.
You will need to make a function that can create the store you will be using for all components and register it via the registerStore method. Note: this is a storeCreator, meaning that it is a function that takes (props, location) and returns a store:
function appStore(props, railsContext) {
// Create a hydrated redux store, using props and the railsContext (object with
// Rails contextual information).
return myAppStore;
}
ReactOnRails.registerStore({
appStore
});
When registering your component with React on Rails, you can get the store via ReactOnRails.getStore:
// getStore will initialize the store if not already initialized, so creates or retrieves store
const appStore = ReactOnRails.getStore("appStore");
return (
<Provider store={appStore}>
<CommentsApp />
</Provider>
);
From your Rails view, you can use the provided helper redux_store(store_name, props) to create a fresh version of the store (because it may already exist if you came from visiting a previous page). Note: for this example, since we're initializing this from the main layout, we're using a generic name of @react_props. In other words, the Rails controller would set @react_props to the properties to hydrate the Redux store.
app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
...
<%= redux_store("appStore", props: @react_props) %>;
<%= react_component("NavbarApp") %>
yield
...
Components are created as stateless function(al) components. Since you can pass in initial props via the helper redux_store, you do not need to pass any props directly to the component. Instead, the component hydrates by connecting to the store.
_comments.html.erb
<%= react_component("CommentsApp") %>
_blogs.html.erb
<%= react_component("BlogsApp") %>
Note: You will not be doing any partial updates to the Redux store when loading a new page. When the page content loads, React on Rails will rehydrate a new version of the store with whatever props are placed on the page.
See ReactOnRails JavaScript API.
Rails has built-in protection for Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), see Rails Documentation. To nicely utilize this feature in JavaScript requests, React on Rails provides two helpers that can be used as following for POST, PUT or DELETE requests:
import ReactOnRails from 'react-on-rails';
// reads from DOM csrf token generated by Rails in <%= csrf_meta_tags %>
csrfToken = ReactOnRails.authenticityToken();
// compose Rails specific request header as following { X-CSRF-Token: csrfToken, X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest }
header = ReactOnRails.authenticityHeaders(otherHeader);
If you are using jquery-ujs for AJAX calls, then these helpers are not needed because the jquery-ujs library updates header automatically, see jquery-ujs documentation.
React Router is supported, including server-side rendering! See:
config.symlink_non_digested_assets_regex: Set to nil to turn off the setup of non-js assets.build_production_command: Set to nil to turn off the precompilation of the js assets.If you want to use a node server for server rendering, get in touch. ShakaCode has built a premium Node rendering server for React on Rails.
Try out our new Documentation Gitbook for improved readability & reference!
Rails
Javascript
Development
API
Misc
cd spec/dummy
bundle && yarn
foreman start
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to our version of the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct).
See Contributing to get started.
The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.
The origins of the project began with the need to do a rich JavaScript interface for ShakaCode's client Madrone and the choice to use Webpack and Rails, as described in Fast Rich Client Rails Development With Webpack and the ES6 Transpiler.
The gem project started with Justin Gordon pairing with Samnang Chhun to figure out how to do server rendering with Webpack plus Rails. Alex Fedoseev then joined in. Rob Wise, Aaron Van Bokhoven, and Andy Wang did the bulk of the generators. Many others have contributed.
We owe much gratitude to the work of the react-rails gem.
The following companies support open source, and ShakaCode uses their products!
If you'd like to support React on Rails and have your company listed here, get in touch.
Identical to top of page
Thank you for considering using React on Rails.
We at ShakaCode are a small, boutique, remote-first application development company. We fund this project by:
My article "Why Hire ShakaCode?" provides additional details about our projects.
If any of this resonates with you, please email me, justin@shakacode.com. I offer a free half-hour project consultation, on anything from React on Rails to any aspect of web or mobile application development for both consumer and enterprise products.
We are currently looking to hire like-minded developers that wish to work on our projects, including Friends and Guests.
I appreciate your attention and sharing of these offerings with anybody that we can help. Your support allows me to bring you and your team front-end happiness in the Rails world.
Aloha and best wishes from the ShakaCode team!
[10.0.0] - 2017-10-08
react_component_hash method for react_helmet support.FAQs
react-on-rails JavaScript for react_on_rails Ruby gem
The npm package react-on-rails receives a total of 49,872 weekly downloads. As such, react-on-rails popularity was classified as popular.
We found that react-on-rails demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 0 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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