Become a Master of React by Gaining Expertise in These Five Concepts

MDS-Logo
MetaDesign Solutions
  • Date Published
  • Categories Blog
  • Reading Time 6-Minute Read

Five working concepts are all you require to gain expertise in using the React library of JavaScript. Read full details here

Five working concepts are all you require to gain expertise in using the React library of JavaScript. React is a JavaScript library that facilitates developing interactive and modular UIs (User Interfaces). The React library is composed of numerous tiny pieces of code referred to as components. In React, every component is a heterogeneous mixture of JavaScript and HTML code.

HTML and JavaScript both help gather and retain the code logic. The logic in the code displays a tiny specific part of a much bigger UI. Every component could be scaled iteratively into complex modules of an application. Initially, the 0.3.0 version of the React library was released for public usage on 29th May 2013. Since then, many React js development companies have been providing UI development services leveraging React js.

Tip #1 Learn the Component Hierarchy

The React js library is filled with all kinds of small and big components. Bigger components call upon smaller components to display the UI elements on the screen. An example of a component could be a <a> HTML element. This <a> element provides links and comes with its on-screen display output.

The blue color of the text is where the link is embedded, and the text is underlined. The HREF element has its opening and closing tags as well. This tag in itself calls for Header and Underline tags.

Now imagine customizing the <a> element including italics and bold as well within the same tag. This mustn’t require the italics and bold tags to add those effects on the hyperlinked text. A component in React js is an individual object element.

The traditional look from HTML combines with the JavaScript code required to direct the user to the specified link. React developers write React components with a render method returning HTML in output. For instance,

class ReactComponent extends React.Component

{ render()

{    return <a href = “https://reactjs.org”>Hello World!</a>;  }

}

Tip #2 Leveraging XML to combine with HTML with JavaScript

Tip #1 has shown you both the HTML and JavaScript code reside within the same React js file. So, how to utilize the benefits of this alliance? Here comes XML (Extensible Markup Language). React seldom displays this feat in public of how to leverage JSX. So, what’s JSX? JSX stands for JavaScript XML.

Traditional web development services have permanently imbibed in us the isolation of HTML and JavaScript. All the companies providing React js development services do leverage React JSX a lot. Developers might seem a little bit surprised at first glance, but they learn and upskill. But for a second, think about breaking these rules. Just for once, and you shall see the magic of doing that in React.

React js library speeds up and flexes the front-end of your web application or software. The productivity of developers increases exponentially. Now, you know JavaScript displays the current date by inserting a code snippet in the HTML using {…} braces:

class ReactComponent extends React.Component

{  render() { return <p>Today the date is:  {new Date()}</p>;  }

}

So here, you had to use simple JavaScript. But developers don’t prefer to use any template-specific syntax for conditional statements such as if or looping operations. The ternary operator in JavaScript is used in React js as:

class ReactComponent extends React.Component

{  render() { return <b>Hi {this.props.someVar ?  ‘Cat’ : ‘Mouse’}</b>;  }

}

Developers constantly keep on updating themselves on the latest versions of JavaScript syntax.

Tip #3 Properties and their States

A React component’s state can be passed on to its child components as inheriting property. Programmers often use this.props.someVar variable to refer to this pointer to a specific variable. Coders are familiar with HTML and its various attributes, such as the <a> tag’s href (hyperlink element). React has similar properties known as elements and attributes known as props. Using props, the various big and small components communicate with each other.

class ParentComponent extends React.Component

{  render() { return <ChildComponent message=”Hello Cat”/>;  }

}

class ChildComponent extends React.Component

{  render() { return <b>And then the teacher goes, “{this.props.message}”</b>;  }

}

As props get inherited, data in React flows in a unidirectional manner and not bidirectional. Data can only be inherited from parent components into child components. Vice-a-versa is not possible. However, there are instances where few components react to data that isn’t inserted from any parent component.

A perfect example of this case is the user input. Here comes the introduction of State in React.

Properties in React are inherent and cannot change or be modified by the user. States are not an inherent property in React and may change as per the user’s inputs. However, States are a temporary result and are volatile. Any component manages the State using the setState function. This function is called inside an event handler in this fashion:

class ReactComponent extends React.Component

{  handleClick = (e) =>   {  this.setState({clicked: true});  }

render()      {  return <a href=”#” onClick={this.handleClick}>Click me</a>;  }

}

Much of the data in any React application is Prop, and less of it is State. States come into play only when user input is considered in the working of any application.

Tip #4 Learning the React API component

Components API methods provide a set of callbacks to the runtime code. These callbacks are triggered during the component’s lifecycle. render, and setState are examples of component API methods. Coders use the constructor API method to initialize the state and bind methods. Getting to know React is adventurous when developers master the programming and architectural concepts in React.

Tip #5 Types of Components

Classes define components in React, and they support component methods as well.

class ReactComponent extends React.Component

{  render()   { return <b>Hello Mars!</b>;  }

}

Developers write their functional components that take a prop’s object as an argument & return HTML output.

const reactComponent = props =>

{  return <b> Hi {props.name}! Today’s date: {new Date()} </b>

}

Here, often coders lose access to the component methods. But practice makes a programmer perfect. A vast majority of React’s components don’t need any syntax. Since functional components need less launch code, developers use them as much as possible. Hence, many applications built with React have a heterogeneous mixture of both kinds of syntaxes.

However, the legacy syntax uses the function of createClass. Coders sometimes still use them:

var Greeting = React.createClass ({ render: function()

{  return <h1>Hello, {this.props.name}</h1>;   }

});

React js development companies prefer their in-house developers to master these five concepts in the React js library. React Meta Platforms create native opensource UI framework, Inc. Professionals use React to develop desktop, web-based, IoT device applications across popular operating systems such as Windows and macOS.