Webpacker::React

Webpacker-React makes it easy to use React with Webpacker in your Rails applications.

Important note: Webpacker is not yet officially released. It will be included in Rails 5.1 but is highly experimental for now.

An example application is available: https://github.com/renchap/webpacker-react-example/

This gem is a work in progress. Final feature list:

• uses the new Webpacker way of integrating Javascript with Rails (using packs)
• render React components from views using a react_component helper
• render React components from controllers using render react_component: 'name'
• render components server-side
• support for hot reloading
• use a Rails generator to create new components

Installation

Your Rails application needs to use Webpacker and have the React integration done. Please refer to their documentation documentation for this: https://github.com/rails/webpacker/blob/master/README.md#ready-for-react

First, you need to add the webpacker-react gem to your Rails app Gemfile:

gem 'webpacker-react', github: 'renchap/webpacker-react'

Once done, run bundler to install the gem.

Then you need to update your vendor/package.json file to include the webpacker-react NPM module:

  "dependencies": {
    "..."
    "webpacker-react": "~>0.0.1"
  },

Finally, run ./bin/yarn to install the module. You are now all set!

Note about versions

Webpacker-React contains two parts: a Javascript module and a Ruby gem. Both of those components respect semantic versioning. When upgrading the gem, you need to upgrade the NPM module to the same minor version. New patch versions can be released for each of the two independently, so it is ok to have the NPM module at version A.X.Y and the gem at version A.X.Z, but you should never have a different A or X.

Usage

The first step is to register your root components (those you want to load from your HTML). In your pack file (app/javascript/packs/*.js), import your components as well as webpacker-react and register them. Considering you have a component in app/javascript/components/hello.js:

import Hello from 'components/hello';
import WebpackerReact from 'webpacker-react';

WebpackerReact.register(Hello);

Now you can render React components from your views or your controllers.

Rendering from a view

Use the react_component helper:

<%= react_component('Hello', name: 'React') %>

Rendering from a controller

class PageController < ApplicationController
  def main
    render react_component: 'Hello', props: { name: 'React' }
  end
end

You can pass any of the usual arguments to render in this call: layout, status, content_type, etc.

Note: you need to have Webpack process your code before it is available to the browser, either by manually running ./bin/webpack or having the ./bin/webpack-watcher process running.

Development

To work on this gem locally, you first need to clone and setup the example application.

Then you need to change the example app Gemfile to point to your local repository and run bundle afterwise:

gem 'webpacker-react', path: '~/code/webpacker-react/'

Finally, you need to tell Yarn to use your local copy of the NPM module in this application, using yarn link:

$ cd ~/code/webpacker-react/javascript/webpacker_react-npm-module/
$ yarn link
success Registered "webpacker-react".
info You can now run `yarn link "webpacker-react"` in the projects where you want to use this module and it will be used instead.
$ cd ~/code/webpacker-react-example/
success Registered "webpacker-react".

After launching ./bin/webpack-watcher and ./bin/rails server in your example app directory, you can now change the Ruby or Javascript code in your local webpacker-react repository, and test it immediately using the example app.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/renchap/webpacker-react. Please feel free to open issues about your needs and features you would like to be added.

Thanks

This gem has been inspired by the awesome work on react-rails and react_on_rails. Many thanks to their authors!