HotwireReact

HotwireReact is a Ruby gem that seamlessly integrates React into Rails 7 projects using esbuild.

It allows you to create React components in the app/javascript/components directory and include them in your Rails views with a <%= component "ComponentName" %> helper.

This gem is designed to work alongside Hotwire, providing a useTurboFetch hook to allow React components to send JSON to Rails controllers and receive back and render TurboStreams.

Features

• Easy Integration: Add React components to your Rails views effortlessly.
• Hotwire/ Compatibility: Use the useTurboFetch hook for seamless integration with TurboStreams.
• JavaScript and TypeScript Support: Write your components in either JavaScript or TypeScript.
• Automatic Setup: Installs react and react-dom (and types and TypeScript, if using) and sets up your project with necessary files.

Installation

Create a new Rails 7 project using esbuild:

rails new my_app -j esbuild

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'hotwire_react'

And then execute:

bundle install

Next, run the install generator:

rails generate hotwire_react:install:js # for JavaScript
rails generate hotwire_react:install:ts # for TypeScript

This will install the necessary JavaScript dependencies and copy the required files into your app/javascript directory.

Usage

Creating React Components

Create a React component in app/javascript/components, an example component is already created for you:

import React from "react";

type HelloProps = {
  name: String
}

const Hello = ({ name }: HelloProps) => {
  if (name === undefined) {
    return (
      <h1>Hello from HotwireReact!</h1>
    )
  }
  
  return (
    <h1>Hello, { name }!</h1>
  )
}

export default Hello

Make sure you add this component to the components/index.ts:

import Hello from "./Hello";

interface Components {
  [key: string]: ({}: any) => React.JSX.Element;
}

const components: Components = {
  Hello,
  // Add other components here
};

export default components;

Including Components in Rails Views

Now you can use the component in a Rails view:

<%= component "Hello" %>

Components with Props

You can pass props (if required by your components) as follows:

<%= component "Hello", { name: @name } %>

The useTurboFetch hook

With the useTurboFetch hook you can continue to use TurboStreams to update page content as you would in a standard Rails application. Create a React form that uses the hook like so:

import React, { useState, FormEvent, ChangeEvent } from "react";
import useTurboFetch from "../hooks/useTurboFetch";

const MessageForm = () => {
  const [content, setContent] = useState('');
  const { turboFetch } = useTurboFetch();

  const handleSubmit = (event: FormEvent<HTMLFormElement>) => {
    event.preventDefault();
    turboFetch(event.currentTarget.action, "POST", { message: { content } });
    setContent('');
  }

  const handleMessageChange = (event: ChangeEvent<HTMLInputElement>) => {
    setContent(event.target.value);
  }

  return (
    <form action="/messages" onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
      <input type="text" value={content} onChange={handleMessageChange}/>
      <button type="submit">Submit</button>
    </form>
  )
}

export default MessageForm

Here turboFetch replaces the standard fetch call.

Configuration

By default, HotwireReact will automatically configure your Rails application. If you need to customize the setup, you can modify the generated files in the app/javascript directory.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/carldaws/hotwire_react.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.