RefluxJS

A simple library for unidirectional dataflow architecture inspired by ReactJS Flux.

Installation

You can currently install the package as a npm package, a bower component, or import it from a CDN.

NPM

The following command installs RefluxJS as a npm package:

npm install reflux

Then, in your script, you can gain a reference to RefluxJS like so:

var Reflux = require('reflux');

Bower

The following command installs reflux as a bower component that can be used in the browser:

bower install reflux

Then the files may be imported into your html file via

bower_components/reflux/dist/reflux.js

bower_components/reflux/dist/reflux.min.js

Reflux

CDN

RefluxJS is available at jsdelivr.

You may import the CDN files directly through a script tag. At that point a

Reflux

Overview

The main function of Reflux is to introduce a more functional programming style architecture by eschewing MVC like pattern and adopting a single data flow pattern.

+---------+       +--------+       +-----------------+
¦ Actions ¦------>¦ Stores ¦------>¦ View Components ¦
+---------+       +--------+       +-----------------+
     ^                                      ¦
     +--------------------------------------+

The pattern is composed of actions and data stores, where actions initiate new data to pass through data stores before coming back to the view components again. If a view component has an event that needs to make a change in the application's data stores, they need to do so by signaling to the stores through the actions available.

Usage

For usage, you need to create actions which can be called from React components. Those actions are listened to by stores which hold and update data. In turn those stores are hooked up to React components and set state within them as it is updated within the store.

Therefore the 3 main concepts to know are:

1. creating actions
2. creating stores
3. hooking stores to React components

Creating Actions

Create an action by calling

Reflux.createAction

var statusUpdate = Reflux.createAction();

An action is a function object that can be invoked like any other function.

statusUpdate(data); // Invokes the action statusUpdate

There is also a convenience function for creating multiple actions.

var Actions = Reflux.createActions([
    "statusUpdate",
    "statusEdited",
    "statusAdded"
]);

// Actions object now contains the actions
// with the names given in the array above
// that may be invoked as usual
Actions.statusUpdate();

More on Actions:

Actions can also: - load files asynchronously with child actions - do preEmit and shouldEmit checking - have many shortcuts for easy usage

See Reflux Action Documentation for more.

Creating Stores

Create a data store much like ReactJS's own

React.Component

Reflux.Store

state

setState

constructor

listenTo

class StatusStore extends Reflux.Store
{
    constructor()
    {
        super();
        this.state = {flag:'OFFLINE'}; // 
In the above example, whenever the action 
statusUpdate
 is called, the store's 
onStatusUpdate
 callback will be called with whatever parameters were sent in the action. E.g. if the action is called as 
statusUpdate(true)
 then the 
status
 argument in the 
onStatusUpdate
 function is 
true
.

Stores also integrate easily with sets of actions via things like 
this.listenables
. When an actions object (or an Array of multiple actions objects) is applied to 
this.listenables
 you may automatically add listeners simply by naming convention. Just name the functions either after the action name (such as 
actionName
, or the camelcased action name preceded with "on", (such as 
onActionName
).
var Actions = Reflux.createActions(['firstAction', 'secondAction']);

class StatusStore extends Reflux.Store
{
    constructor()
    {
        super();
        this.listenables = Actions;
    }
onFirstAction()
{
    // calls on Actions.firstAction();
}

onSecondAction()
{
    // calls on Actions.secondAction();
}
}

More on Stores:

Reflux stores are very powerful. They can even do things like contribute to a global state that can be read and set for partial or full-state time-travel, debugging, etc.

See Reflux Store Documentation to learn more about stores.



Hooking Stores to Components

Once you've created actions and stores, now the last step in working RefluxJS is to hook those stores to a React component.

This is done as simply as extending 
Reflux.Component
 instead of 
React.Component
 and setting the store(s) to use. 
Reflux.Component
 itself extends 
React.Component
, so you use them the exact same way. The only difference is that 
Reflux.Component
 allows you to set stores for the component to get state from:
class MyComponent extends Reflux.Component
{
    constructor(props)
    {
        super(props);
        this.state = {}; // our store will add its own state to the component's
        this.store = StatusStore; // User is {flag}
    }
}

When the component mounts it will either create a singleton instance of 
StatusStore
 (if one isn't already made) or use an already made singleton (if it was already created by another component that uses the store).

Of important note is that you can:


Set multiple stores by setting 
this.stores
 (the plural) and setting it to an Array of store classes.
Set a 
this.storeKeys
 Array to restrict only certain parts of the store being mixed into the component state.


There is also a 
mapStoreToState
 method in the documentation for those that want absolute control over how a store's state is mapped to a component.
class MyComponent extends Reflux.Component
{
    constructor(props)
    {
        super(props);
        this.state = {type:'admin'}; // User is {flag}, info: {info}, type: {type}
    }
}

The above will mix in properties from the state of both 
StatusStore
 and 
AnotherStore
. However, because of 
this.storeKeys
 it will only mix in the properties 
flag
 and 
info
 from them. So any other properties within those stores will not get mixed in. So even if a store contained a 
type
 property in its state it would not get mixed in, and the 
type
 value we set as a normal part of the component state is safe.

More on using Reflux style components:

Reflux's simple and intuitive way of integrating stores into components is easy and powerful. You can aggregate stores together on a component-by-component basis, filter which parts of the stores come through and which don't, or even do a detailed manual mapping of exactly how you want the state from stores to map to the state in a particular component.

See Reflux Style Component Documentation to learn more.



Documentation

What you've just read is a "view from 10,000 feet" type overview of getting started with RefluxJS. For serious learning see the documentation.