Theatric

An easy to use Tweakpane/Leva-like library for React, built on top of Theatre.js.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/2991360/214639118-b64a9464-9df4-489d-b408-b70492990883.mp4

With Theatric you can:

• Create controls for your React components.
• Tweak those values while while your tweaks are persisted in the browser.
• Undo/redo your tweaks, even after a page refresh.
• Try out different assets (such as .hdr files), and once you're done, download your assets from the browser storage and put them in a static folder in your app.

Quick start

$ npm install theatric

// index.jsx
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'))

// App.jsx
import {useControls} from 'theatric'
import React from 'react'

export default function App() {
  const {name, age} = useControls({name: 'Andrew', age: 28})

  return (
    <div>
      Hey, I'm {name} and I'm {age} years old.
    </div>
  )
}

• Example with @react-three/fiber on Codesandbox.
• Example with assets on Codesandbox.

Supported prop types

Theatric supports all the prop types that Theatre.js supports. You can find a list of supported prop types here.

API

useControls(controls, options?)

initialize(config)

types

useControls(controls, options?)

useControls is Theatric's main API. It is a React hook which you can call from anywhere in your component tree. It takes an object of controls and returns an object of values.

import {useControls} from 'theatric'

function Introduction() {
  const {name, age} = useControls({name: 'Andrew', age: 28})

  return (
    <div>
      Hey, I'm {name} and I'm {age} years old.
    </div>
  )
}

Optionally, you can also provide a folder option in the options argument, which will namespace your controls to that folder in the UI. This is useful if you have multiple instances of the same component, in which case the controls would collide.

import {useControls} from 'theatric'

function Introduction({id}) {
  const {name, age} = useControls({name: 'Andrew', age: 28}, {folder: id})

  return (
    <div>
      Hey, I'm {name} and I'm {age} years old.
    </div>
  )
}

useControls also returns two special properties, $get and $set, which you can use to get and set the values of your controls imperatively.

import {useControls} from 'theatric'

function Introduction() {
  const {name, age, $get, $set} = useControls({name: 'Andrew', age: 28})

  const increaseAge = useCallback(() => {
    $set((values) => values.age, $get((values) => values.age) + 1)
  }, [$get, $set])

  return (
    <div>
      <div>
        Hey, I'm {name} and I'm {age} years old.
      </div>
      <button onClick={increaseAge}>Increase age</button>
    </div>
  )
}

You can also place buttons on the control panel to trigger actions. You can combine this with the $get and $set methods to create a more convenient UI.

import {useControls, button} from 'theatric'

function Introduction() {
  const {name, age, $get, $set} = useControls({
    name: 'Andrew',
    age: 28,
    IncrementAge: button(() => {
      $set((values) => values.age, $get((values) => values.age) + 1)
    }),
  })

  return (
    <div>
      <div>
        Hey, I'm {name} and I'm {age} years old.
      </div>
    </div>
  )
}

$get() and $set() use pointers to specify which prop to get/set. Learn more about pointers here.

Example of setting a nested prop:

import {useControls, button} from 'theatric'

function Introduction() {
  const {person, $get, $set} = useControls({
    // note how name and age are sub-props of person
    person: {
      name: 'Andrew',
      age: 28,
    },
    
    IncrementAge: button(() => {
      // values.person.age is a pointer to the age prop of the person object
      $set((values) => values.person.age, $get((values) => values.person.age) + 1)
    }),
  })

  return (
    <div>
      <div>
        Hey, I'm {person.name} and I'm {person.age} years old.
      </div>
    </div>
  )
}

initialize(config)

Optionally, you can call initialize() to initialize the UI with a certain state, or to take advantage of features like assets support. initialize() takes the same config object as getProject().

import {initialize, useControls, types, getAssetUrl} from 'theatric'
import theatricState from './theatricState.json'

initialize({
  // use the state of the state.json file you exported from the UI
  state: theatricState,
}).then(() => {
  // theatric is ready (although we don't have to wait for it unless we want to use assets)
})
  
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'))

function App() {
  const {img} = useControls({
    name: 'Andrew',
    age: types.number(28, {
      range: [0, 150],
    }),
  })
  

  return (
    <div>
      Hey, I'm {name} and I'm {age} years old.
    </div>
  )
}

types

The types export lets you provide more advanced options for your controls.

For example, to specify a range for a number, or adjust the scrubbing sensitivity, you can use the number type.

import {useControls, types} from 'theatric'

function Introduction() {
  const {name, age} = useControls({
    name: 'Andrew',
    age: types.number(28, {
      // The range allowed in the UI (just a visual guide, not a validation rule)
      range: [0, 10],
      // Factor influencing the mouse-sensitivity when scrubbing the input
      nudgeMultiplier: 0.1,
    }),
  })

  return (
    <div>
      Hey, I'm {name} and I'm {age} years old.
    </div>
  )
}

This is simply a re-export via export {types} from '@tomorrowevening/theatre-core'. To learn more about types, check out the types documentation.

Using assets

Here is an example of using image assets in your controls. Learn more about assets here.

import {initialize, useControls, types, getAssetUrl} from 'theatric'
import theatricState from './theatricState.json'

initialize({
  // if you're using assets in your controls, you can specify the base URL here.
  
  assets: {
    // Defaults to '/'
    // If you host your assets on a different domain, you can specify it here.
    // For example if you're hosting your assets on https://cdn.example.com/theatric-assets
    // you can set this to 'https://cdn.example.com/theatric-assets' (no trailing slash)
    baseUrl: '/theatric-assets',
  },
}).then(() => {
  // this is only necessary if you're using assets such as .hdr images in your prop values.
  // awaiting the initialization ensures that the assets are loaded before rendering the app.
  ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'))
})

function App() {
  const {img} = useControls({
    // this will accept jpegs/pngs/hdrs/etc
    // its default value is '' (empty string)
    // learn more about assets here: https://www.theatrejs.com/docs/latest/manual/assets
    img: types.image('')
  })

  const src = getAssetUrl(img)

  return (
    <div>
      <img src={src} />
    </div>
  )
}

How does Theatric compare to Theatre.js?

• You can use both Theatric and Theatre.js in the same project. That's a common use-case.
• You'd use Theatre.js if you're creating complex animation, or if you have large projects with many objects and props to control.
• On the other hand, if you're just looking for a quick way to tweak a few values in your app, Theatric is a good choice. It requires no setup, no configuration, and no boilerplate. All of your values end up in a single Theatre.js Object.

License

Apache License Version 2.0. Theatric only embeds Theatre.js' studio in the development build, so studio won't be included in your production build.