react-hookless

Features

react-hookless is a new state management library. This is a quite unusual and yet efficient usage of React.js' hooks.

• No framework is required
• No more infinite rendering loop
• No more stale closure problem
• No more batch update problem
• No more fussy tricks to manage rendering triggers indirect way
• Just call rerender() whenever you want to rerender

In react-hookless, you can create a single object without restrictions which React.js applications have to follow and the object can be accessed from anywhere in your React.js application. The object survives re-renderings so that you do not have to care for its life-cycle. The object persists until the browser window closes.

In react-hookless, the object is called a model. And call rerender() method when there are any components to be updated because the components are built upon any fields of the model object; at this point, the React components can be called as views.

CodeSandbox

In this way, you can build your React application as a traditional pure JavaScritp object and you can even manually control when React renders the current Virtual DOM tree into HTML DOM tree.

How to Use

Define your business logic as a simple pure JavaScript object as:

AppModel.js

export class AppModel {
  fooValue = 1;
  barValue = 1;
  foo() {
    this.fooValue++;
    this.rerender();
  }
  bar() {
    this.barValue--;
    this.rerender();
  }
  dependency = 0;
}

Then bind the model object to your main component; in this example, your main component is named as AppView.

App.js

import { defineModelView } from "react-hookless";
import { AppView         } from "./AppView.js";
import { AppModel        } from "./AppModel.js";
export const [App, useAppModel] = defineModelView(
  AppView,
  () => new AppModel()
);

Then build your main component. Your object can be accessed with useAppModel() hook.

This is actually the only hook you have to use in this framework; other hooks are hidden to the hook.

AppView.js

import { useAppModel } from "./App.js";

export function AppView() {
  const appModel = useAppModel();
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>An Unusual and Yet Very Effective Usage of React.js</h1>
      <div onClick={() => appModel.foo()}>{appModel.fooValue}</div>
      <br />
      <div onClick={() => appModel.bar()}>{appModel.barValue}</div>
    </div>
  );
}

In case you worry about the life cycle of your object, I will mention that the object you specified to defineModelView() function survives re-renderings.

Then render the application object.

import { StrictMode } from "react";
import { createRoot } from "react-dom/client";
import { App } from "./App.js";

const rootElement = document.getElementById("root");
const root = createRoot(rootElement);
root.render(
  <StrictMode>
    <App />
  </StrictMode>
);

The Principle of React-Hookless

The module react-hookless is so small that the source code can be exhibited in the README.md of itsown.

The specified object becomes persistent by using useRef() hook and the instance is shared by useContext() hook.

import * as React from "react";

export function useRerender() {
  const [, setState] = React.useState(true);
  function rerender() {
    setState((e) => !e);
  }
  return rerender;
}

function usePersistentObject(factory, rerender) {
  const ref = React.useRef(null);
  if (ref.current === null) {
    ref.current = factory(rerender);
    ref.current.rerender = rerender;
  }
  return ref.current;
}

function definePersistentObject(ObjectConsumer, objectFactory) {
  const context = React.createContext();
  function ObjectProvider(props) {
    const rerender = useRerender();
    const persistentObject = usePersistentObject(objectFactory, rerender);
    // return (
    //   <context.Provider value={persistentObject}>
    //     <ObjectConsumer />
    //   </context.Provider>
    // );
    return React.createElement( context.Provider, {
      value : persistentObject
    }, React.createElement(ObjectConsumer, null));
  }
  function useObject() {
    return React.useContext(context);
  }
  return [ObjectProvider, useObject];
}

export function defineModelView(AppView, modelFactory) {
  return definePersistentObject(AppView, modelFactory);
}

The API Reference

defineModelView()

import { defineModelView } from "react-hookless";
export const [App, useAppModel] = defineModelView( AppView, appModelFactory );

• Parameters
  • AppView : Specifing the view component
  • appModelFactory : A function which creates the model object
• Return Values
  • App : The generated main component which is a view bound to the single model object.
  • useAppModel : The generated hook funcion which is to retrieve the current model object from the view.

useRerender()

function SomeComponent(props) {
  const rerender = useRerender();
  const ref = React.useRef({
    status: "ready"
  });

  React.useEffect(() => {
    if (ref.current.status === "ready") {
      ref.current.status = "started";
      rerender();
      setTimeout(() => {
        ref.current.status = "done";
        ref.current.value = 42;
        // Call `rerender()` in case of the timeout was occured while it is
        // unmounted. If the timeout had been occured before this component was
        // mounted, rerender() would not be necessary since it would be already
        // displayed.
        rerender();
      }, 5000);
    }
    return ()=>{
      // intentionally sabotarge to clear the timer
    };
  }, []);

  return (
    <>
      <h1>{ref.current.status}</h1>
      {ref.current.status === "done" ? <h1>{ref.current.value}</h1> : null}
    </>
  );
}

Here is my two cents; just stick to useRef()/useMemo() to manage the state of your application and whenever you want to update your components, call rerender(). Just do not let React detect when to rerender. This effectively lets your application survive under the error detection of React which enforces every rendering to repeat twice, especially if your application needs to start initialization by useEffect() hook; you have to be very clever to avoid the infnite rendering loop.

Conclusion

I am not sure this is an appropriate usage React.js nor I even don't think this is a correct usage of React.js since this usage is a kind of an attempt of denial of the React.js's mechanism for the automatic update detection.

But in this way, I believe, the number of issues which you often encounter when you build a comparably larger application can be easily avoided.

I am worrying that nobody understand the meaning and the effectiveness of this module because I even think this module is very weird; but it works.

Additionally, I am from Japan; my English ability is quite limited. Please excuse my obscured English and I hope my English is good enough for everyone to understand my idea.

Thank you very much and see you soon.

History

• v1.0.0 Released
• v1.0.1 Updated README.md
• v1.0.2 Updated README.md (Tue, 08 Aug 2023 10:41:08 +0900)
• v1.0.3 Updated README.md (Tue, 08 Aug 2023 10:49:17 +0900)
• v1.0.4 Updated README.md (Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:24:05 +0900)
• v1.0.5 Updated README.md (Wed, 09 Aug 2023 17:23:53 +0900)
• v1.0.6 Updated README.md (Wed, 09 Aug 2023 20:30:01 +0900)
• v1.0.7 Removed JSX syntax (Fri, 11 Aug 2023 10:56:13 +0900)
• v1.0.8 Exported useRerender() (Sat, 12 Aug 2023 15:57:48 +0900)