redux-app

Type-safe, DRY and OO redux. Implemented with typescript.

Change Log

Installation

yarn add redux-app

or

npm install --save redux-app

Short Example

@component
class App {
    counter = new Counter();
}
 
@component
class Counter {
    value = 0;
 
    @action
    increment() {
        this.value = this.value + 1; // <--- see Important Notice below
    }
}
 
const app = new ReduxApp(new App());
 
console.log(app.root.counter.value); // 0
console.log(app.store.getState()); // { counter: { value: 0 } }
 
app.root.counter.increment(); // will dispatch a 'Counter.increment' redux action
 
console.log(app.root.counter.value); // 1
console.log(app.store.getState()); // { counter: { value: 1 } }

Important Notice

You should not mutate the object properties but rather assign them with new values. That's why we write this.value = this.value + 1 and not this.value++.

More Examples

More examples, including usage with Angular and React, can be found here redux-app-examples.

How it works

For each decorated class the library generates an underlying Component object that holds the same properties and methods. The new Component object has it's prototype patched and all of it's methods replaced with dispatch() calls. The generated Component also has a hidden 'reducer' property which is later on used by redux store. The 'reducer' property itself is generated from the original object methods, replacing all 'this' values with the current state from the store on each call (using Object.assign and Function.prototype.call).

To make it easier to debug, each generated component name follows the following pattern: OriginalClassName_ReduxAppComponent (if while debugging you don't see the _ReduxAppComponent suffix it means the class was not replaced by an underlying component and is probably lacking a decorator, any of the following will do: @component, @action or @sequence).

Reading the source tip #1: There are two main classes in redux-app. The first is ReduxApp and the second is Component.

Documentation

• Stay Pure
• Features
  • Async Actions
  • Multiple Components of the Same Type
  • Computed Values ("selectors")
  • Ignoring Parts of the State
  • Connect to a view
    • React
    • Angular and others
• Utilities
  • isInstanceOf
• Applying Enhancers (devtools, etc.)
• Options
  • App Options
  • Global Options
• Changelog

Stay Pure

Although redux-app embraces a new syntax it still adheres to the three principals of redux:

• The store is still the single source of truth. An automatic process propagates it to the components, similarly to what happens in react-redux.
• The state is still read only. Don't mutate the component's state directly, only via actions (methods).
• Changes are made with pure functions so keep your actions pure.

Async Actions

Async actions (thunks, sagas, epics...) and side effects are handled in redux-app by using the sequence decorator. What it does is to tell redux-app that the decorated method acts (almost) as a plain old javascript method. We say almost since while the method body is executed regularly it still dispatches an action so it's still easy to track and log.

Remember:

• Don't change the state inside sequence methods.
• If you need to dispatch a series of actions use the sequence decorator. Don't call actions from within other actions directly.

Usage:

working example can be found on the redux-app-examples page

@component
class MyComponent {
 
    @sequence
    public async fetchImage() {
 
        // dispatch an action
        this.setStatus('Fetching...');
 
        // do async stuff
        var response = await fetch('fetch something from somewhere');
        var responseBody = await response.json();
 
        // dispatch another action
        this.setStatus('Adding unnecessary delay...');
 
        // more async...
        setTimeout(() => {
 
            // more dispatch
            this.setStatus('I am done.');
 
        }, 2000);
    }
 
    @action
    public setStatus(newStatus: string) {
        this.status = newStatus;
    }
}

Multiple Components of the Same Type

The role of the withId decorator is double. From one hand, it enables the co-existence of two (or more) instances of the same component, each with it's own separate state. From the other hand, it is used to keep two separate components in sync. Every component, when dispatching an action attaches it's ID to the action payload. The reducer in it's turn reacts only to actions targeting it's component ID. The 'id' argument of the decorator can be anything (string, number, object, etc.).

Example:

working example can be found on the redux-app-examples page

@component
export class App {
 
    @withId('SyncMe')
    public counter1 = new Counter();  // <-- this counter is in sync with counter2
 
    @withId('SyncMe')
    public counter2 = new Counter();  // <-- this counter is in sync with counter1
 
    @withId(123)
    public counter3 = new Counter();  // <-- manual set ID
                                               // this counter is not synced with the others
    @withId()
    public counter4 = new Counter();  // <-- auto generated unique ID (unique within the scope of the application)
                                               // this counter also has it's own unique state
}

Connect to a view

You can leverage the following ReduxApp static method to connect your state components to your view:

ReduxApp.getComponent(componentType, componentId?, appId?)

You can use IDs to retrieve a specific component or omit the ID to get the first instance that redux-app finds.

React

working example can be found on the redux-app-examples page

Use the snippet below to create an autoSync function. You can then use it as you would normally use react-redux's connect:

const MyReactCounter: React.SFC<Counter> = (props) => (
    <div>
        <span>Value: {props.value}</span>
        <button onClick={props.increment}>Increment</button>
    </div>
);
 
const synced = autoSync(Counter)(MyReactCounter); // <-- using 'autoSync' here
export { synced as MyReactComponent };

The autoSync snippet:

import { connect } from 'react-redux';
import { Constructor, getMethods, ReduxApp } from 'redux-app';
 
export function autoSync<T>(stateType: Constructor<T>) {
    return connect<T>(() => {
        const comp = ReduxApp.getComponent(stateType);
        const compMethods = getMethods(comp, true);
        return Object.assign({}, comp, compMethods);
    });
}

Angular and others

working example can be found on the redux-app-examples page

With Angular and similar frameworks (like Aurelia) it's as easy as:

class MyCounterView {
    public myCounterReference = ReduxApp.getComponent(Counter);
 
    // other view logic here...
}

Computed Values

To calculate values from other parts of the components state instead of using a fancy selector function you can simply use a standard javascript getter.

Remember: As everything else, getters should be pure and should not mutate the state.

Example:

working example can be found on the redux-app-examples page

@component
class ComputedGreeter {
 
    public name: string;
 
    public get welcomeString(): string {
        return 'Hello ' + this.name;
    }
 
    @action
    public setName(newVal: string) {
        this.name = newVal;
    }
}

Ignoring Parts of the State

You can use the ignoreState decorator to prevent particular properties of your components to be stored in the store.

Example:

@component
class MyComponent {
 
    public storeMe = 'I am stored';
 
    @ignoreState
    public ignoreMe = 'not stored';
}
 
const app = new ReduxApp(new MyComponent());
 
console.log(app.root); // { storeMe: 'I am stored', ignoreMe: 'not stored' }
console.log(app.store.getState()); // { storeMe: 'I am stored' }

isInstanceOf

We've already said that classes decorated with the component decorator are being replaced at runtime with a generated subclass of the base Component class. This means you lose the ability to have assertions like this:

@component
class MyComponent {
    // ...
}
 
// and elsewhere:
 
if (!(obj instanceof MyComponent))
    throw new Error("Invalid argument. Expected instance of MyComponent");

Luckily redux-app supplies a utility method called isInstanceOf which you can use instead:

@component
class MyComponent {
    // ...
}
 
// and elsewhere:
 
if (!isInstanceOf(obj, MyComponent))
    throw new Error("Invalid argument. Expected instance of MyComponent");

The updated code will throw either if obj is instance of MyComponent or if it is an instance of a Component that was generated from the MyComponent class. In all other cases the call to isInstanceOf will return false and no exception will be thrown.

Applying Enhancers

The ReduxApp class has few constructor overloads that lets you pass additional store arguments (for instance, the awesome devtool extension enhancer).

constructor(appCreator: T, enhancer?: StoreEnhancer<T>);
 
constructor(appCreator: T, options: AppOptions, enhancer?: StoreEnhancer<T>);
 
constructor(appCreator: T, options: AppOptions, preloadedState: T, enhancer?: StoreEnhancer<T>);

Example:

const app = new ReduxApp(new App(), devToolsEnhancer(undefined));

App Options

export class AppOptions {
    /**
     * Name of the newly created app.
     */
    name?: string;
    /**
     * By default each component is assigned (with some optimizations) with it's
     * relevant sub state on each store change. Set this to false to disable
     * this updating process. The store's state will still be updated as usual
     * and can always be retrieved using store.getState().
     * Default value: true.
     */
    updateState?: boolean;
}

Usage:

const app = new ReduxApp(new App(), { updateState: false }, devToolsEnhancer(undefined));

Global Options

class GlobalOptions {
    /**
     * Default value: LogLevel.Warn
     */
    logLevel: LogLevel;
    /**
     * Customize actions naming.
     */
    action: ActionOptions;
}
 
enum LogLevel {
    /**
     * Emit no logs
     */
    None = 0,
    Verbose = 1,
    Debug = 2,
    Warn = 5,
    /**
     * Emit no logs (same as None)
     */
    Silent = 10
}
 
class ActionOptions {
    /**
     * Add the class name of the object that holds the action to the action name.
     * Format: <class name><separator><action name>
     * Default value: true.
     */
    actionNamespace?: boolean;
    /**
     * Default value: . (dot)
     */
    actionNamespaceSeparator?: string;
    /**
     * Use redux style action names. For instance, if a component defines a
     * method called 'incrementCounter' the matching action name will be
     * 'INCREMENT_COUNTER'.
     * Default value: false.
     */
    uppercaseActions?: boolean;
}

Usage:

ReduxApp.options.logLevel = LogLevel.Debug;
ReduxApp.options.action.uppercaseActions = true;

Changelog

The change log can be found here.