react-layout-generator

React Layout Generator 0.6.24-alpha.3

React-layout-generator (RLG) is exploring a layout system that uses React to compute the layouts directly.

RLG is an experimental framework for building, editing, and running sites that compute the layout dynamically using generators. It does not directly rely on css for the layout. Generators are used to compute and update the layout and since the generators are just javascript they can generate whatever you can imagine and translate into code. All positioning is based on the css absolute position. RLG only needs to know the window size. From there all other positions are computed.

RLG is general purpose, supports both html and svg*, and allows precise and continuous control for responsive layouts. Major features include template support, animation support including custom engines, persistance support, built-in property-controlled editor with position and size editing, fine grain responsiveness, top down design, drag and drop, and layers support.

As an example consider the drag and drop implementation in RLG. It is high level built with RLG blocks. Its runtime behavior follows the philosophy of React. A block specifies the position of a component in a layout and it is the block that is dragged. Its location and size are known. There is little need to query or manipulate html.

RLG can do more than layout. It can be used to visually connect components that know their relationships. It can edit and animate blocks. An example of using HTML with svg connecting components is shown in the demo.

Like other components, RLG can be used through-out an app or only for one component. It's only significant dependency is React 16 itself since RLG is built on top of React.

* For SVG to be more than an icon generator or canvas in React it needs to know position and size along with relationships. RLG makes this easy. For example to use svg to generate a line connecting two react components requires access to the layout details of both components. It also needs to assume that it and the two components layout will not change. This can be done in React but small changes in layout can easily break the assumption. In RLG you just link the two components.

Examples

See Live examples. Be sure to turn on the info-circle for details.

Documentation

See docs.

Install

Use either npm or yarn to install.

yarn add react-layout-generator
 
or
 
npm install react-layout-generator

You can also clone or fork the project to evaluate. To run locally follow these steps: 1) cd to the <directory> where you installed RLG, 2) run npm install or yarn, 3) cd to the examples directory, 4) run npm install or yarn, and 4) yarn start (to build the examples).

Features

• Top down design of pages
• Edit and runtime support
• Persistence
• Template support
• Animation support
• HTML and SVG
• Fine grain responsiveness
• Layers with support for grouping, reordering, hiding, and animation
• Drag and drop

Applications

• Responsive page layout
• Dashboards
• Organization charts
• Diagrams
• Games
• Animations
• Free form layout