react-to-webcomponent
react-to-webcomponent
converts React components to custom elements! It lets you share React components as native elements that don't require mounted being through React. The custom element acts as a wrapper for the underlying React component. Use these custom elements with any project that uses HTML even in any framework (vue, svelte, angular, ember, canjs) the same way you would use standard HTML elements.
react-to-webcomponent
:
- Works in all modern browsers. (Edge needs a customElements polyfill).
- Is
1.11KB
minified and gzipped.
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Basic Use
For basic usage, we will use this simple React component:
import React from "react"
import * as ReactDOM from "react-dom/client"
// When using React 16 and 17 import ReactDom with the commented statement below instead:
// import ReactDom from "react-dom"
const Greeting = ({ name }) => {
return <h1>Hello, {name}</h1>
}
With our React component complete, all we have to do is call reactToWebComponent
and customElements.define to create and define our custom element:
import reactToWebComponent from "react-to-webcomponent"
const WebGreeting = reactToWebComponent(Greeting, React, ReactDOM)
customElements.define("web-greeting", WebGreeting)
Now we can use <web-greeting>
like any other HTML element!
<body>
<h1>Greeting Demo</h1>
<web-greeting></web-greeting>
</body>
Note that by using React 18, reactToWebComponent
will use the new root API. If your application needs the legacy API, please use React 17
In the above case, the web-greeting custom element is not making use of the name
property from our Greeting
component.
Working with Attributes
By default, custom elements created by reactToWebComponent
only
pass properties to the underlying React component. To make attributes
work, you must specify your component's properties with
PropTypes as follows:
import React from "react"
import PropTypes from "prop-types"
import * as ReactDOM from "react-dom/client"
const Greeting = ({ name }) => {
return <h1>Hello, {name}</h1>
}
Greeting.propTypes = {
name: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
}
Now reactToWebComponent
will know to look for name
attributes
as follows:
<body>
<h1>Greeting Demo</h1>
<web-greeting name="Justin"></web-greeting>
</body>
For projects needing more advanced usage of the web components, see our programatic usage and declarative demos.
We also have a complete example using a third party library.
Setup
To install from npm:
npm i react-to-webcomponent
External Examples
Greeting example in a CodePen
Greeting example in CodeSandbox
Bundled JS file available
https://unpkg.com/react-to-webcomponent/dist/react-to-webcomponent.js
How it works
Check out our full API documentation.
reactToWebComponent
creates a constructor function whose prototype is a Proxy. This acts as a trap for any property set on instances of the custom element. When a property is set, the proxy:
- re-renders the React component inside the custom element.
- creates an enumerable getter / setter on the instance to save the set value and avoid hitting the proxy in the future.
Also:
- Enumerable properties and values on the custom element are used as the
props
passed to the React component. - The React component is not rendered until the custom element is inserted into the page.
tests
To run tests, first run:
npm run buildtests
This copies the root test file into each of the /tests/react*
versioned folders, modifies the ReactDOM import for older versions, and installs the corresponding version of react in that directory.
Then run:
npm run test
We want to hear from you.
Come chat with us about open source in our community Slack.
See what we're up to by following us on Twitter.