Why ReactJS has Become an Integral Part of the Digital World

ReactJS is a Meta framework developed in 2013, essentially made to build User Interfaces for web and mobile applications. It (updated to advanced versions over time) is so popular with front-end developers that it has become an integral part of the digital world today.

ReactJS is one of the most sought-after libraries because it enables developers to build complex websites and applications quickly and easily. Its powerful features support efficient interface rendering and allow developers to separate the code into reusable components. It offers simplicity, modularity, scalability, and stability, making it a popular choice.

How React Has Increased the Growth Potential of Fintech Companies

The recent pandemic compelled people to switch to a digital lifestyle. As people began purchasing online and conducting business on web platforms more and more, the need and demand for online transactions spiked. The banking and financial industry was propelled toward web-based innovation and ReactJS became the lynchpin of the financial technology (FinTech) revolution.

Online banking services, e-wallets, and web apps for mobile payments, insurance, asset management, and other monetary services are customer-centric innovations. Whether the user is a high-net-worth individual or merely any citizen, every fintech consumer’s experience and feedback will impact the company and its product’s success. For example, when an individual uses a banking app for a quick transaction, seeing it reflected in the account balance inquiries in real-time, without an error,  immediately establishes faith in the bank.

The Deloitte Insights on digital banking behaviors and channel usage suggest today’s consumers expect financial institutions to act and interact more like top technology brands. They need to be able to quickly deliver easy-to-use, highly tailored digital services to address changing consumer and business preferences, especially if they wish to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

With ReactJS, front-end developers can promise optimal quality, easy-to-navigate apps, and websites. A simple and comprehensible user interface, quick-to-load pages, and secure & fast data processing are essential features that React lends to FinTech product development. By reducing development time and increasing the scalability of FinTech products or web applications, ReactJS has contributed to accelerating the industry’s growth.

How React Supports E-Commerce Experiences

The modern e-commerce environment has been gaining traction due to attractive and creative web applications for a while now. We can safely say that ReactJS is the secret sauce that has helped many companies stay ahead of the e-commerce curve.

Whether it is Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), or any other type of business model on the Internet, the website or app is the crucial bridge between the customers and products or services. The user experience has to be dynamic if you wish to gain customer loyalty.

Sales depend on how enticing the app and/or site looks. The more user-friendly it is, the more visitors will get converted into customers. During an online shopping experience, the customer expects ease of interaction with online catalogs and a smooth shopping cart or real-time checkout experience, which increases repeat value for customers.

ReactJS is the most effective tool for developing high-quality e-commerce user interfaces. It not only provides a library of reusable components and templates, but its high-speed rendering also makes updating new features to the websites and apps very convenient. With React, you can keep pace with the rapidly evolving industry where innovation is paramount. The ReactJS framework facilitates compatibility with any back-end system. It enhances the capabilities of your e-commerce web applications, assuring a superb customer experience.

How React is Shaping eLearning, Medtech, and More …  

ReactJS has been a game-changer for many industries. It has made a largely positive impact on e-learning and Medtech sectors, among other verticals.

When academic material became available for interactive distance learning on the Internet, the education industry entered into a new era. Virtual lessons became accessible online for individual students, schools, universities, and government training centers too. Hosted on websites and in the cloud, dissemination of education through desktop and mobile applications started.

In education technology (EdTech), ReactJS can help present all the interactive course content in a highly-creative manner. Top e-learning apps and e-marketplaces, virtual classrooms, and more are created with the help of ReactJS. The most popular feature of ReactJS is its reusable components, which help develop highly-responsive websites and applications without having to start from scratch each time. ReactJS is the key script used in complex coding for generating a seamless educational session. ReactJS framework is designed to help front-end developers save a lot of time and effort while building a reliable digital product. The more engaging and user-friendly course content, the more subscriptions for the e-learning material. It’s a simple equation!

On the other hand, in the medical technology (MedTech) industry, React is being used to develop patient portals, healthcare products, medical consultation dashboards, diet & fitness apps, electronic health records (EHRs), medical billing & coding software, medical image processing software, and more. The success of a modern medical and healthcare app depends on its accessibility, even in unstable or slow Internet connection areas.

Trust and reliability are everything in e-healthcare. That is why React has become a popular choice for MedTech developers. It delivers easy-to-understand interfaces, making the apps user-friendly and convenient for all ages. React-based coding assists greatly in the security of your sensitive health or medical data. ReactJS ensures stability, flexibility, and efficiency of web apps and has helped to improve the overall quality of “care” for MedTech consumers and patients.

From Fortune 500s to new-age start-ups, the number of businesses lining up to leverage React is growing by the minute. Quick app-load time and incredible UI performance are the salient features that React brings to the table, making it the most sought-after open-source JavaScript library.

Why You Should Be Thinking of Integrating React into Your Business Strategy

In the digital world, where competition is growing thicker than ever, User Experience is everything. Launching a digital product or going digital with your company’s services requires seamless performance and agility in the software. ReactJS brings flexibility and finesse to website and application development. The ease of reusable components facilitates a faster turnaround time for your development team. In record time, ReactJS framework can deliver high-performance cross-platform apps that are astutely aligned with your business goals.

The React team at MetaSys makes the best use of all the new exciting features of React like React Hooks, React Bootstrap, React Query, React Redux and React Router to build complex web and mobile applications. We create engaging web applications, Opt for our Reactjs development service now!

What is React?

React is an independent and open-source front-end JavaScript library for building user interfaces.The current version of React 18 provides developers with improved features to create a Great User Experience. Some of the improvements are

• Automatic Batching: Groups all state updates which in turn improves performance.
• Transitions: Is now more sophisticated and differentiates between urgent and non-urgent user interactions.
• React Suspense: Allows for better Server-side rendering and improves the User Experience. as well as Performance

Let’s look at these in a bit more detail

1. Automatic Batching:
   

   Batching is one of the React features that combines all the updated states in a single update. Batched updates can be performed inside React event handlers, i.e., it only worked inside the synchronous React event handlers functions. These changes were made in React version 18 with automatic batching.In the example code below, it shows how the automatic batching helps to stop re-rendering the set Counter () function twice.

   

2. Transitions:
   

   Transition is an advanced concept introduced in React 18 that helps to differentiate between urgent and non-urgent updates.

   • Urgent Update: It reflects direct interaction like typing, clicking, pressing etc. This visual feedback is high priority for users.
   • Non-urgent Update: Non-urgent updates are not vital to the user like searching, which can be marked as no-urgent updates.

   For such use cases, startTransitions and useTransitions methods are used.

   • useTransitions: useTransitions is a hook concept that begins transitions, in addition to a value to track the pending state.
   • startTransitions: startTransitions is a method to initialize start transition where hooks can’t be used. Below is the example for startTransition where you can put your code which is non-vital to the end user.
     

3. Suspense:
   

   Suspense lets you declaratively specify the loading state for some of the component tree if it’s not prepared to be displayed. Suspense in React version 18 functions better when combined with transitions API. while you suspend the time of transition, React will halt already-visible content from being altered by a fallback. Rather, React will stop or delay the rendering until enough data has loaded to prevent an inferior loading state.
   Below is the example for Suspense that explains how to use a fallback property of it to show the loading state to the end-user.

   Concurrency

   Concurrency is the most important addition in React version 18. It is a confidential mechanism that makes it possible for React to prepare multiple versions of UI.

   For these, React uses a “dispatcher” internally which is responsible to compile and combine the callbacks.

   Before React 18, the user did not have any way to control the appeal order of these functions. Since the release of React version 18, React is providing some authority to this event loop to the user with a Transition API.

   How to upgrade to React version 18?

   You will need to install React 18 and DOM using npm/yarn.

   npm install react react-dom

   npm install react@latest react-dom@latest

   

   After upgrading to version 18, the following changes need to be made in the Index.js file:

   Note: – There is an error in the console while upgrading to version 18.
   
   To fix this console issue, the index.js is converted to the latest React version 18, which recommends a new root API. This new root API provides a user-friendly system for executing roots. The new root API also enables the new concurrent re-renders which fastens the coexisting features.
   
   Our React developers have experience of building complex applications using React technology. They use the latest Dev tools such as React-Redux, React Hooks, React Router, React Bootstrap etc. If you would like to develop a mobile or web application using React technology, then please feel free to contact us.

How React Query Enhances App Performance

React Query makes it possible to replace several lines of complicated code from a React application with just a few lines of code. This makes application maintenance and the addition of new features on top of the existing ones easier. The user experience is more responsive and quicker than before. It also helps to increase memory performance from an application perspective.

React Query in Action

If we look at the code for React Query, at the root level of the project, it provides a “QueryClientProvider” as a wrapper that handles and manages global data-fetching and caching.

React Query provides multiple hooks that connect with its global state controller and returns a Promise object for fetching/caching the server-side data. It calls the API client method to fetch/update/delete/create server-side data and also manages server states such as data, error, failurecount, isError, isIdle, isLoading, isPreviousData, isFetchedAfterMount, isFetching, isStale, isSuccess, refetch, remove, status.

The useQuery hook has multiple options so developers can pass them to customize the hook to meet their project needs. It has the “enabled” option, a powerful option that actually provides multiple features such as-

• an option to run multiple queries in parallel or even synchronously i.e., on the basis of the previous query execution;
• turning the queries on or off based on the functionality;
• sorting and filtering features in the queries to help improve performance; and
• an option to wait for inputs from the user; you can disable the query for any of the use-case.

React Query allows developers to create custom hooks based on their project requirements using React Query hooks. This feature keeps the code more generalized.

It provides multiple fetching features such as:

• refetching the data on window focus;
• retrying the query if an error occurs; and
• fetching the data on updating or deleting of the records. With this, the list is always up to date after “update” and “delete” actions.

Every query has four main statuses – idle, loading, error, and success. Based on these, React Query returns the server-side states for handling each query. And with those states, developers can build a view. That means it displays the loading view until the loading state is enabled. It correctly handles errors based on error states. It displays the data or processes the data, then shows the normalized data depending on the successor states.

React Query also offers the best ways to handle data pagination. It provides infiniteQuery and mutationQuery options for paginating the data properly, depending on what the users require.

It also helps resolve issues arising out of asynchronous server-side data handling. Before React Query, developers had to write custom code for handling asynchronous server-side data. React Query has solved this issue. Additionally, it integrates well with the react-testing-library, providing appropriate code coverage too.

My intention behind writing this blog is to help React-native developers create their own package. If any developer wants to share his own package on the NPM registry, then he needs to make it public. This allows developers to contribute to the NPM ecosystem. Steps to create and publish a react-native NPM package are as follows:

There are 3 phases to create and publish a package.

1. Creating the NPM package.
2. Testing the NPM package on the react-native app.
3. Publishing on the NPM website.

1. Creating the NPM package:

First create a folder where package information like package.json, .babelrc, webpack.config.js, etc will be stored. We will introduce these files soon.

Now navigate into that folder directory using terminal and run command – npm init

You will be prompted for the package name, version, main, keyword, etc. You can skip questions (by pressing enter) (it is easy to modify later). At this point, a package.json file will be created.

Now, open the package.json file in your IDE (code editor) and install all the dependencies as below using – npm install dependency-name.

Below is an example of package.json file.

Note: “main” should be the same as above.

Now create a file .babelrc and add the following lines. Babel is a compiler to convert JavaScript code into ES5 JavaScript.

Let’s create a file named webpack.config.js and add the lines below.
Remember, webpack is the builder. It compresses code into ‘build’ that can be deployed in the React-Native app. Make sure “entry” is either ./src/index.js or ./index.js depending upon your file structure.

Now, create a folder src, add the index.js file and add your component.

Whenever you make any change to your package, you have to create the build again using command – npm run build. After that, you must re-install it in the react-native app.

Once you configure the above steps, your folder structure should look as follows

2. Testing the package on React-Native app:

To test or use your package, you will need a React-Native app. Create a React-Native app by executing the run command npm create-react-app “your app name” and open it in your IDE.

You can install your package in two ways

1. Upload it on the NPM website and then install it using npm i “package name”.
2. Locally install it through a relative path of NPM package to react-native app npm i ../react-test-library

Note: We will try to avoid the first option because whenever there is any change in your NPM package, you have to re-publish it on the NPM website and re-install it on your project.

So we will test it locally first and then upload it on the NPM website.

To check your package, you have to install it through the relative path as shown in the above example and import your component from your package.

src/App.js

To see the result of the installed package, run the command in your react-native app – npm start.

Now, let’s see the final step.

3. Publishing on the NPM website:

For publishing any package, you should have an account on the NPM website (if not you can create one). While uploading the same package, the package version should be unique each time.

Steps to upload your package –

1. Using the terminal, navigate to your package directory.
2. Run command – npm login. Enter a username, password, and email id.
3. Run command – npm publish.

Once your package has been published, you can check it on the NPM website.

At last, you are able to create your own library. In case of any queries feel free to share your feedback in the comments section below.

Happy Coding…

React Hooks are functions that allow you to hook into React lifecycle and state features. They primarily serve as an alternative for classes. They can help in keeping your components clean and perform better. Hooks are a recent  addition in React version 16.8.0.

In this article, we are going to show you how to convert a React class into a functional component using the useState Hook.

Hooks don’t work inside classes because they let you use React without classes. We will use the built-in hooks instead of React lifecycle methods. Eg. useState, useEffect, useRef etc.

We are covering useState, useEffect, useRef React hooks in this article. useState() is used to replace the constructor functions and state declarations. While useEffect() is used to replace componentDidMount() and componentDidUpdate(). You can use useEffect as many times as you need to in single component. And the last one, useRef has another cool usage besides DOM refs, it is also a generic container whose current property is mutable, it also can hold any value similar to an instance property of a class.

Steps to convert a React class component into a functional component using React Hooks –

Step 1. Change ‘class ComponentName extends Component’ With ‘function ComponentName(props)‘

Step 2. Remove “this.” And “this.state” from the entire component.

Step 3. import React, { useState } from ‘react’

Step 4. Remove the constructor. Add its logic as shown above in the image for initializing the state variables with the help of useState hook.

Let’s understand conversion into useState, useEffect and useRef with examples –

• useState() Hook –

The parameter of the useState hook is the initial value of the state. This hook provides the array with two values – the first is the name of the state and the second is the function name which updates the value of that state.

Eg.

const [num, setNum] = useState(0); //declaration

setNum(10) //use

Here num is the state name, setCount is the function that you can use anywhere in the component to update that state.

Here are some examples of setting or initializing state variables for different data types –

//Set an Integer

const [num, setNum] = useState(0);

setNum(10);

//Set a String

const [name, setUsername] = useState(‘John’);

setUsername(‘Smith’);

//Set a Boolean

const [isValid, setIsValid] = useState(false);

setIsValid(true);

//Set and Array

const [items, setItems] = useState([]);

setItems([0,1,2,3,4]);

setItems([{id:0, color:”red”},{id:1, color:”green”},{id:2, color:”blue”}]);

//Set and Object

const [form, setValues] = useState({

id: 0,

firstName: ‘’,

lastName: ‘’,

subscribe: false

})

setValues({

…form,

firstName: ‘Jamie’,

subscribe: true

})

• Replace lifecycle methods (compentDidMount, componentWillUnmount,

 componentWillReceiveProps, componentDidUpdate) with useEffect

e.g.

const [items, setItems] = useState([]);

const [num, setNum] = useState(0);

1. compentDidMount

useEffect(()=>{

setItems(items);

}, [])   // Here empty array indicates don’t look for any updates

b.componentWillUnmount

useEffect(()=>{

return () => {console.log(‘unmounting the component’)}

},[])

c. componentDidUpdate/componentWillReceiveProps

This will get executed when your ‘num’ state variable and ‘id’ props will get updated.

useEffect(()=>{

if (!isEmpty(num))

{

console.log(‘num changed = ’,num);

setItems(items);

}

if(!isEmpty(props.id))

{

console.log(‘props.id changed = ’,props.id);

}

},[num, props.id])

• Use of useRef

const [num, setNum] = useState(0);

const prevNumRef = useRef();

useEffect(()=>{

prevNumRef.current = num;

})

const prevNum = prevNumRef.current;

return <h1>Current value : {num}, previous value = {prevNum}</h1>

Advantages

1.With React hooks, the component will be cleaner and easier to read (fewer lines of code). Hooks are easier to work with and to test.

2.It is easy to make code reusable. They don’t create another element in DOM like HOCs in React do.

3. useState – it allows to update different states with specific functions. The ability to move the state update logic as a separate hook.

Disadvantages

1.useEffect hook allows to merge three lifecycle methods such as componentDidMount, componentWillUnmount and componentDidUpdate into one and the issue with useEffect is the second parameters ,i.e. the array that we need to pass to define this behaviour. It is not explicit enough.

2.React Hooks are new additions to React. So to convert and test a complex class can be a time-consuming task initially .

3.Since it is relatively a new addition it may not be compatible with all third party libraries. But this is rapidly changing .

This is all about React Hooks in a nutshell. If you are looking to build any a mobile or web application using React technology, then please contact us.

Happy coding!

Now, let’s understand – what is TypeScript?

TypeScript is an open-source programming language maintained and developed by Microsoft since 2012. It is a set of tools which uses a strongly typed, object-oriented and compiled language. It is an extended JavaScript programming language with additional features. When a new developer joins the team and uses any existing component of the project, he can easily understand its props with their specific types.

According to GitHub, TypeScript is one of the fastest-growing technologies. It is downloaded 31 Million times per month. Developer survey results of 2019 on stack overflow, place TypeScript at 10th position for “Most popular technology” and 3rd position for “Most Loved technology”. So as a new developer, it is not something which you can ignore.

When to use TypeScript?

Development teams working together on coding projects can struggle with code complexity, particularly as projects increase in size. TypeScript is recommended for large projects as it is the best option for maintaining code quality. It enables self-explanatory code right from the initial stages of the project.

Some of the significant features of TypeScript are listed below:

1. Static typing –
The static typing feature is one of the common reasons for developers to migrate their existing project from JavaScript to TypeScript. You can add data-types for variables, functions, properties, interfaces, etc, and it indicates warnings and errors regarding data type issues even before the compilation. I think that’s a wonderful feature because as a young developer, I faced a lot of problems while doing scripting.

Note: Static typing is optional.

2. Object-oriented –
TypeScript supports object-oriented programming, i.e. you can use class, Inheritance, Encapsulation, and Polymorphism.

3. Code suggestion –
It is best to use TypeScript with the IDEs since IDEs provide features such as IntelliSense and error highlighting.
If a developer wants to access the component props {this.props.}, then Typescript suggests all the available props, and highlights any typos.

4. Display errors/warnings ASAP –
TypeScript highlights the errors immediately.

5. TypeScript is portable –
All companies have a different kind of IT infrastructure set-up, with different operating systems and browsers. The advantage of TypeScript is that it is a superset of Javascript, meaning it can run on any environment that Javascript runs on. It is portable across operating systems and browsers.

How to create a new React JS project enabled by Typescript? –
To create a new project which is enabled by Typescript, you can use the following command.
e.g. npx create-react-app <> –TypeScript

It creates tsconfig.json which has typescript configurations.
tsconfig.json
{
“compilerOptions”: {
“target”: “es5”,
“lib”: [
“dom”,
“dom.iterable”,
“esnext”
],
“allowJs”: true,
“skipLibCheck”: true,
“esModuleInterop”: true,
“allowSyntheticDefaultImports”: true,
“strict”: true,
“forceConsistentCasingInFileNames”: true,
“module”: “esnext”,
“moduleResolution”: “node”,
“resolveJsonModule”: true,
“isolatedModules”: true,
“noEmit”: true,
“jsx”: “react”
},
“include”: [
“src”
]
}

Here, you can find the set of rules defined for the project. You can also modify or add more constraints if you want.

How to add TypeScript to the existing React JS project?
To add TypeScript in the existing project, you will have to install TypeScript and other required types externally
e.g. npm install –save TypeScript @types/node @types/react @types/jest @types/react-dom

After this, two changes are needed in the projects:
– First, rename all the “.js” file to “.ts” or “.tsx”
– Secondly, create a tsconfig.json in the root directory with the set of rules mentioned in the first step.

Happy Coding!!