Parse + React

Seamlessly bringing Parse data into your React applications.

Overview

Parse + React is an interface layer on top of the Parse JS SDK that provides simple access to the Parse API from React. It lets React components subscribe to Parse queries, and allows data mutations to be dispatched in a Flux-style manner. In the background, these subscriptions are managed in a way that lets these components automatically update as objects are created and modified, allowing user interfaces to be snappy and responsive.

Full API

Example

To add Parse data to a component, it simply needs to subscribe to a standard Parse Query. This is done through an implementation of the newly-proposed observe() API for React. The ParseReact Mixin allows a version of this new lifecycle method to be used today with Parse Queries.

If you're using React with ES6 classes, we also provide a subclass of React.Component that allows you to use the observe() and Query-specific APIs.

var CommentBlock = React.createClass({
  mixins: [ParseReact.Mixin], // Enable query subscriptions

  observe: function() {
    // Subscribe to all Comment objects, ordered by creation date
    // The results will be available at this.data.comments
    return {
      comments: (new Parse.Query('Comment')).ascending('createdAt')
    };
  },

  render: function() {
    // Render the text of each comment as a list item
    return (
      <ul>
        {this.data.comments.map(function(c) {
          return <li>{c.text}</li>;
        })}
      </ul>
    );
  }
});

Whenever this component mounts, it will issue the query and the results will be attached to this.data.comments. Each time the query is re-issued, or objects are modified locally that match the query, it will update itself to reflect these changes.

Mutations are dispatched in the manner of Flux Actions, allowing updates to be synchronized between many different components without requiring views to talk to each other. All of the standard Parse data mutations are supported, and you can read more about them in the Data Mutation guide.

// Create a new Comment object with some initial data
ParseReact.Mutation.Create('Comment', {
  text: 'Parse <3 React'
}).dispatch();

Getting Started

You can download Parse + React from within this Github repo. It's also available on our CDN (minified), and on npm.

If you're not familiar with React, we recommend you first walk through their tutorials before adding Parse data to your React applications.

Parse + React adds new functionality when React and the Parse JS SDK are used together, and it requires that those libraries be in place before it is initialized. The easiest way to do this is to load them on your page before loading the Parse + React library:

<html>
  <head>
    <script src="http://fb.me/react-0.13.3.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://www.parsecdn.com/js/parse-latest.js"></script>
    <!-- Now include parse-react.js -->
    <script src="https://www.parsecdn.com/js/parse-react.js"></script>

    ...

If you're using a tool like Webpack or Browserify to enable Common JS require statements, you need to make sure you also include the 'parse' npm package in your dependencies.

var React = require('react');
var Parse = require('parse');
var ParseReact = require('parse-react');

// ...

As of version 1.6, the Parse JS SDK has a different build for React Native. If you're using Parse+React on React Native, you'll need to require the 'parse-react/react-native' package instead.

// For React Native apps
var React = require('react-native');
var Parse = require('parse/react-native');
var ParseReact = require('parse-react/react-native');

Now that you've included all of the necessary libraries, you're ready to start subscribing to Parse data and mutating it.

Contributing

See the CONTRIBUTING file for information on how to help out.

License

You are hereby granted a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software in source code or binary form for use in connection with the web services and APIs provided by Parse.

As with any software that integrates with the Parse platform, your use of this software is subject to the Parse Terms of Service [https://www.parse.com/about/terms]. This copyright notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.