This repository defines a Meteor package that automatically integrates the React rendering framework on both the client and the server, to complement or replace the default Handlebars templating system.
The React core is officially agnostic about how you fetch and update your data, so it is far from obvious which approach is the best. This package provides one answer to that question (use Meteor!), and I hope you will find it a compelling combination.
If you have not yet installed Meteor, do that:
curl https://install.meteor.com | /bin/sh
Clone this repository:
git clone https://github.com/benjamn/react-meteor.git
Fire up one of the examples:
cd react-meteor/examples/leaderboard
meteor
Finally, visit localhost:3000 in your browser. For extra fun, try using the example in multiple browser windows!
Although the Meteor package API is deliberately undocumented and remains in flux before v1.0, here is how I currently recommend adding this package to your Meteor app:
cd path/to/my-app/
echo react >> .meteor/packages
git clone https://github.com/benjamn/react-meteor.git packages/react
If you want to share the package between multiple apps, you can clone it
to a common location and make packages/react
a symbolic link.
The package exposes a special ReactMeteor.Mixin
object that can be used
to enable reactive data fetching for your React components.
To add the ReactMeteor.Mixin
to a React component, simply include it in
the mixins
class property:
var MyComponent = React.createClass({
mixins: [ReactMeteor.Mixin],
// Make sure your component implements this method.
getMeteorState: function() {
return {
foo: Session.get("foo"),
...
};
}
});
The getMeteorState
method should return an object of properties that
will be accessed via this.state
in the component's render
method or
elsewhere. Dependencies will be registered for any data accesses
performed by getMeteorState
so that the component can be automatically
re-rendered whenever the data changes.
Alternatively, if you prefer not to declare mixins
explicitly, you can
create the class with ReactMeteor.createClass
:
var MyComponent = ReactMeteor.createClass({
// Make sure your component implements this method.
getMeteorState: function() {
return {
foo: Session.get("foo"),
...
};
}
});