README.md

Idiomatic ClojureScript interface to modern React.js

Discuss at #uix on Clojurians Slack. Bug reports, feature requests and PRs are welcome.

Try it in online REPL

Docs and Guides

API Documentation

Clojars updates are pushed occasionally, depend via Git deps to get the most recent updates.

{:deps {uix.core {:git/url "https://github.com/roman01la/uix.git"
                  :deps/root "core"
                  :sha "{{replace with commit hash}}"}
        uix.dom {:git/url "https://github.com/roman01la/uix.git"
                 :deps/root "dom"
                 :sha "{{replace with commit hash}}"}
        uix.rn {:git/url "https://github.com/roman01la/uix.git"
                :deps/root "rn"
                :sha "{{replace with commit hash}}"}}}

(require '[uix.core.alpha :as uix])
(require '[uix.dom.alpha :as uix.dom])

(defn button [{:keys [on-click]} text]
  [:button.btn {:on-click on-click}
    text])

(defn app []
  (let [state* (uix/state 0)]
    [:<>
      [button {:on-click #(swap! state* dec)} "-"]
      [:span @state*]
      [button {:on-click #(swap! state* inc)} "+"]]))

(uix.dom/render [app] js/root)

Recipes

• State hook

• Global state and effects

• Dynamic styles

• Lazy loading

• Server-side rendering

• Interop between UIx and JS components

• Popups

• Error Boundaries

• React Context

• Build front-end clojure -A:dev -m figwheel.main -O advanced -bo dev:prod

• Run server clojure -A:dev -m uix.server

• Run front-end recipes in dev clojure -A:dev:rec-front

• Run SSR streaming recipe clojure -A:dev:rec-ssr

Features

Hiccup syntax extension

• [:div#id.class] or [:#id.class]
• [:> js/Component attrs & children] - interop with JS components
• [:<> attrs & children] - React.Fragment
• [:# {:fallback element} & children] - React.Suspense

Hooks

React Hooks in idiomatic Clojure style

;; state hook
;; (mutable ref type, re-renders component when mutated)
(let [state (uix/state 0)]
  (swap! state inc)
  @state) ; 1

;; ref hook
;; (mutable ref type, doesn't cause re-renders)
(let [ref (uix/ref 0)]
  (swap! ref inc)
  @ref) ; 1

;; effect hook
(uix/effect!
  (fn []
    (prn "after update")
    #(prn "before unmount"))
  [deps])

;; convenience macro for uix.core/effect!
(uix/with-effect [deps]
  (prn "after update")
  #(prn "before unmount"))

;; more in uix.core.alpha ns

Attributes syntax extension

Injects provided function into attributes transformation stage. Could be used for various side effects, such as processing styles with CSS-in-JS libraries (see uix.recipes.dynamic-styles).

(uix.core.alpha/add-transform-fn
  (fn [attrs]
    (my-transform-attrs attrs)))

Hiccup pre-compilation (advanced)

NOTE: UIx interpreter is already super fast (3x faster than Reagent and only 2x slower than vanilla React). Use pre-compilation ONLY if you are hitting performance problems.

Compiles Hiccup into inlined React elements at compile-time and hoists constant elements so they can be shared across components in different namespaces (for reference see @babel/plugin-transform-react-inline-elements and @babel/plugin-transform-react-constant-elements). Hoisting is enabled with :optimize-constants compiler option, which is automatically enabled for :optimizations :advanced.

(uix/html
  [:h1 "Title"])

;; emits this
{
  $$typeof: Symbol.for("react.element"),
  key: null,
  ref: null,
  props: { children: "Title" },
  _owner: null
}

Lazy loading components

Loading React components on-demand as Closure modules. See code splitting guide and how lazy loading is used in React with Suspense: guide.

(uix.core.lazy-loader/require-lazy
  '[uix.components :refer [ui-list]])

[:# {:fallback "Loading..."}
  (when show?
    [ui-list])]

Server-side rendering

UIx can be used for SSR or usual templating in both JVM and JavaScript runtimes

Server-side rendering in JVM

See an example in uix.recipes.server-rendering

(uix.dom/render-to-string element) ;; see https://reactjs.org/docs/react-dom-server.html#rendertostring
(uix.dom/render-to-static-markup element) ;; see https://reactjs.org/docs/react-dom-server.html#rendertostaticmarkup

;; Streaming HTML
(uix.dom/render-to-stream element {:on-chunk f}) ;; see https://reactjs.org/docs/react-dom-server.html#rendertonodestream
(uix.dom/render-to-static-stream element {:on-chunk f}) ;; see https://reactjs.org/docs/react-dom-server.html#rendertostaticnodestream

Server-side rendering in JS

SSR works in JavaScript environment via React's serializer using same API.

1. Add ReactDOMServer into your dependencies (as cljsjs/react-dom-server or any other way)
2. Run (uix.dom/render-to-string element)

Benchmarks

• Hiccup interpretation clojure -A:dev:benchmark:bench-front
• SSR on JVM clojure -A:dev:benchmark:bench-ssr

Hiccup interpretation

react x 23866 ops/s, elapsed 419ms
uix-interpret x 11848 ops/s, elapsed 844ms
reagent-interpret x 4031 ops/s, elapsed 2481ms

SSR on JVM

lib	test 1	test 2	test 3
rum	107.8 µs	3.6 ms	7.7 ms
uix	120.8 µs	3.8 ms	8.1 ms
uix streaming	115.7 µs	3.4 ms	7.6 ms
hiccup	205.7 µs	6.5 ms	16.6 ms

TodoMVC bundle size

lib	size	gzip
rum	254KB	70KB
reagent	269KB	74KB
uix	234KB	65KB

Figwheel

When developing with Figwheel it is recommended to mark root render function with ^:after-load meta, so Figwheel can update UI tree once the code was re-evaluated.

(ns ^:figwheel-hooks my.ns)

(defn ^:after-load render []
  (uix.dom/render [app] js/root))

React DevTools

When inspecting UI tree in React DevTools, filter out memo components to get cleaner view of components tree.

Testing

scripts/test

Note: to ensure you're using the right Node.js version, you can use nvm and run nvm use once in the directory. Otherwise the Node.js version you use is in the .nvmrc file. See nvm repo for more documentation.

Who’s using UIx

• Video editor (private)
• Fitness App (private)
• Zeal (REPL meets Clipboard Manager)
• Floor Planner
• Happy Paw mobile web app
• ProtonNative app
• Lumber - source
• GRID