react-use-loading

Manage your component's loading state with one simple hook. Very useful if you're making AJAX requests, for example, and you want to display a spinner and a loading message to clue your users into what's going on.

Getting Started

react-use-loading is just a normal NPM library. You can install it with the following command:

npm install react-use-loading

Or, if you prefer Yarn:

yarn add react-use-loading

Then, you can use it in your code like so:

import { useLoading } from 'react-use-loading';

Usage

const [{ isLoading, message }, { start, stop }] = useLoading(
  initState,
  initMessage
);

Params

Value	Type	Description
initState	boolean or undefined	Used to initialize isLoading
initMessage	string or undefined	Used to initialize message

Return Values

Value	Type	Default	Description
isLoading	boolean	false	Represents whether the component is engaged in loading or not
message	string or undefined	undefined	Used to communicate to the user what loading the component is engaged in
start	(newMessage?: string) => void	N/A	Used to toggle the hook into loading state. Results in a rerender whereafter isLoading is true and message is either a newly-specified message, or undefined if no message was specified. Memoized using useCallback.
stop	() => void	N/A	Used the toggle the hook out of loading state. Results in a rerender whereafter isLoading is false and message is undefined. Memoized using useCallback.

Examples

Using isLoading

This is the core reason that react-use-loading exists. Use this value to communicate whether the component is loading or not.

import React from 'react';
import { useLoading } from 'react-use-loading';
 
import Spinner from '../components/spinner';
import SomeComponent from '../components/some-component';
 
const MyComponent = () => {
  const [{ isLoading }] = useLoading(true);
 
  // Logic stuff...
 
  return isLoading ? <Spinner /> : <SomeComponent />;
};

Using message

The message variable is useful for communicating information to the user besides just the fact that your app is fetching information. For example, you could tell the user that you're fetching their profile information, or that you're saving their updated settings.

import React from 'react';
import { useLoading } from 'react-use-loading';
 
import Spinner from '../components/spinner';
import SomeComponent from '../components/some-component';
 
const MyComponent = () => {
  const [{ isLoading, message }] = useLoading(true, 'Getting profile info...');
 
  // Logic stuff...
 
  return isLoading ? <Spinner message={message} /> : <SomeComponent />;
};

Using start and stop

These methods are used for toggling loading state. They are useful for when you're making AJAX requests within the component, or when you start/stop any long-running task.

Calling start once

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import ky from 'ky';
import { useLoading } from 'react-use-loading';
 
import Spinner from '../components/spinner';
import SomeComponent from '../components/some-component';
 
const MyComponent = () => {
  const [profileInfo, setProfileInfo] = useState();
  const [{ isLoading, message }, { start, stop }] = useLoading(
    true // Initialize `isLoading` as true so there's no flash of content
  );
 
  useEffect(() => {
    (async () => {
      try {
        start('Getting profile info...');
        const res = await ky.get(/* Profile data endpoint */);
        setProfileInfo(res);
      } catch (error) {
        console.error(error);
      } finally {
        stop();
      }
    })();
  }, [start, stop]); // You can include these methods in the dependency
  //                    array and be confident that they will not change.
 
  return isLoading ? <Spinner message={message} /> : <SomeComponent />;
};

Calling start multiple times

You can safely call start multiple times before you call stop if you would like to tell the user that you're interacting with multiple data soruces.

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import ky from 'ky';
import { useLoading } from 'react-use-loading';
 
import Spinner from '../components/spinner';
import SomeComponent from '../components/some-component';
 
const MyComponent = () => {
  const [posts, setPosts] = useState();
  const [profileInfo, setProfileInfo] = useState();
  const [recommendations, setRecommentations] = useState();
  const [{ isLoading, message }, { start, stop }] = useLoading(
    true // Initialize `isLoading` as true so there's no flash of content
  );
 
  useEffect(() => {
    (async () => {
      try {
        start('Getting profile info...');
        const profileRes = await ky.get(/* Profile data endpoint */);
        setProfileInfo(profileRes);
 
        start('Getting your posts...');
        const postsRes = await ky.get(/* Posts endpoint */);
        setPosts(postsRes);
 
        start('Getting your recommendations...');
        const recommendationsRes = await ky.get(/* Recommendations endpoint */);
        setRecommendations(recommendationRes);
      } catch (error) {
        console.error(error);
      } finally {
        stop();
      }
    })();
  }, [start, stop]); // You can include these methods in the dependency
  //                    array and be confident that they will not change.
 
  return isLoading ? <Spinner message={message} /> : <SomeComponent />;
};

Handling Aborts

One thing to keep in mind when you're handling asynchronous requests in your component is that your component might be unmounted in the middle of a request. stop will attempt to update state behind the scenes, so when you abort your request make sure to prevent calling stop in the event of an AbortError.

import React, { useState, useEffect, useRef } from 'react'
import ky from 'ky'
import { useLoading } from 'react-use-loading'
 
import Spinner from '../components/spinner'
import SomeComponent from '../components/some-component'
 
const abortController = new AbortController()
 
const MyComponent = () => {
  const [profileInfo, setProfileInfo] = useState()
  const [{ isLoading, message }, { start, stop }] = useLoading(
    true // Initialize `isLoading` as true so there's no flash of content
  )
 
  useEffect(() => {
    return () => abortController.abort()
  }, [])
 
  useEffect(() => {
    ;(async () => {
      try {
        start('Getting profile info...')
        const profileRes = await ky.get(/* Profile data endpoint */, { signal: abortController.signal })
        setProfileInfo(profileRes)
        stop()
      } catch (error) {
        if (error.name === 'AbortError') return // Exit function if request was aborted
        console.error(error)
        stop()
      }
    })()
  }, [start, stop]) // You can include these methods in the dependency
                    // array and be confident that they will not change.
 
  return isLoading
    ? <Spinner message={message} />
    : <SomeComponent />
}

In the future, I would like to prevent stop from making a state update once the component has been unmounted, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please fork the repository and then make a pull request once you've completed your changes. Make sure to write new tests or alter existing ones to validate your changes as well.

Thanks

This project was bootstrapped with Jared Palmer's wonderful TSDX utility. The code itself is inspired by work I've completed for the Linux Foundation.