PhoenixLiveReact

Render React.js components in Phoenix LiveView views.

Installation

Add to your mix.exs and run mix deps.get:

def deps do
  [
    {:phoenix_live_react, "~> 0.4"}
  ]
end

If you're using Phoenix 1.5 or older, then add to your assets/package.json and run npm i or yarn:

{
  ...
  "dependencies": {
    ...
    "phoenix": "file:../deps/phoenix",
    "phoenix_html": "file:../deps/phoenix_html",
    "phoenix_live_view": "file:../deps/phoenix_live_view",
    "phoenix_live_react": "file:../deps/phoenix_live_react", # <-- ADD THIS!
    ...
  },
  ...
}

Note for umbrella projects the relative file paths should look like "file:../../../deps/phoenix_live_react"

Connect the hooks to your liveview (app.js):

import LiveReact, { initLiveReact } from "phoenix_live_react"

let hooks = { LiveReact }

let liveSocket = new LiveSocket("/live", Socket, { hooks, params: { _csrf_token: csrfToken } })

// Optionally render the React components on page load as
// well to speed up the initial time to render.
// The pushEvent, pushEventTo and handleEvent props will not be passed here.
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", e => {
  initLiveReact()
})

Add the helper to your MyAppWeb file.

defp view_helpers do
  quote do
    # ...
    import PhoenixLiveReact
    # ...
  end
end

Add your react components to the window scope (app.js):

import { MyComponent } from "./components/MyComponent"

window.Components = {
  MyComponent
}

Usage

Use in your live view:

<%= live_react_component("Components.MyComponent", [name: @name], id: "my-component-1") %>

Events

To push events back to the liveview the pushEvent, pushEventTo and handleEvent functions from Phoenix LiveView are passed as props to the component.

  • pushEvent(event, payload, (reply, ref) => ...) - push an event from the client to the LiveView
  • pushEventTo(selector, event, payload, (reply, ref) => ...) - push an event from the client to a specific LiveView component
  • handleEvent(event, handler) - (phoenix_live_view >= 0.14) receive data directly through liveview push_event
const { pushEvent, pushEventTo, handleEvent } = this.props;

pushEvent("button_click");
pushEvent("myevent", {"var": "value"});
pushEventTo("#component-1", "do_something")

handleEvent("some-event", (payload) => console.log(payload))

How to add React to Phoenix 1.6 app

Add NPM

In your assets dir:

npm init # press enter until its done

In your config.exs:

Change the NODE_PATH to include node_modules for the :esbuild / :default entry.

    env: %{"NODE_PATH" => Enum.join([Path.expand("../deps", __DIR__), Path.expand("../assets/node_modules", __DIR__)], ":")}

Add react

In your assets dir:

npm add react react-dom

How to add react to Phoenix 1.5 or older

In your assets dir:

npm install react react-dom --save
npm install @babel/preset-env @babel/preset-react --save-dev

Create an assets/.babelrc file:

{
  "presets": [
    "@babel/preset-env",
    "@babel/preset-react"
  ]
}

For NPM users, you might need the add the following to your assets/webpack.config.js file:

module.exports = (env, options) => ({
  // add:
  resolve: {
    alias: {
      react: path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules/react'),
      'react-dom': path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules/react-dom')
    }
  }
  //
});

React phoenix

This library is inspired by react-phoenix.

Check it out if you want to use react components in regular views.