Developing mobile-first websites has become the priority of many companies these days as web development with React.js is gaining more popularity due to the advantages and benefits it offers. Responsive web design in React.js is enabling front-end developers to build apps like never before. Some of the key benefits of using React.js include one-way data flow, declarative components, easy component lifecycle methods, and a lot more.
Over the years building, web applications that are mobile-friendly have become a lot easier. Media queries and service workers have changed the dynamic of mobile websites.
Media queries allow developers to make a web application that has different shapes when viewed on mobile devices. Service workers provide powerful features to web applications like push notifications, background sync, etc which were previously limited to native apps only.
React.js is a multi-platform solution developed and maintained by Facebook and a community of individual developers and companies as well. It helps developers to build mobile apps and websites using JavaScript. The apps are considered multi-platform, as they are written once and deployed across various platforms like iOS, Android, etc.
Proven tips for Web Development using React.js which can be very handy for developers
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Using React Hooks in Functional Components:
Hooks were first introduced in React v16.8 and have been a great boost for functional programming in React. Using Hooks developers can use functional components instead of class components while web Development using React.js. Hooks like use State can be used to make the code a lot simpler as using it, we can set the initial state to an empty string and it returns an array with the current state along with a method to mutate that state (setValue). Functional components do not have access to lifecycle methods. But with the help of use Effect Hook, we can make it work. There are plenty of other Hooks to React as well and developers can even create their own custom hooks.
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Using React Context API for passing props:
Many a time developers face a situation where they may have deeply nested components and there is a need to pass down props from the higher to lower tiers with some components being present in the middle, allowing the props to pass. Editing each component in the chain can be a time-consuming and tricky affair. But using React Context API this can be done quite easily. React Context API easily gives access to the child components no matter how many they are. This makes the task of web Development using React.js a lot easier and should be implemented by all developers building mobile-first websites and applications.
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Styled- Components:
Styled Components effectively belong to the CSS in JS libraries which abstract the CSS to a component level making use of JavaScript to describe the style. The ES6 Template Literal Notation can be used to create them using backticks. You can now have a custom-styled button component for the entire application instead of the normal HTML button. All the styles used are encapsulated and will not interfere with other styles in the DOM. This is a great feature that can be used to enhance the application or website.
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Using React Fragments:
Developers have had to wrap everything in a return statement into a single div so that it is rendered correctly in the DOM, for a long time. They had to do the same to make use of array notation. But since the introduction of React Fragments, this is no longer required to be done. The code has thus become a lot smaller and easier to execute.
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React and Typescript:
Typescript is one of the topics which is getting a lot of attention these days and it helps developers further in creating responsive web design in React js. The newer versions of create-react-app (CRA) comes with built-in support for Typescript. The developers just need to add the typescript flag while creating a new project with CRA. The main benefits of using Typescript with React are 1. Interfaces for complex type definitions; 2. Availability of latest JavaScript features; 3. Readability and validation which helps to avoid bugs during development. Typescript is something all developers should learn and implement to make their work easier and the results better.
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Using Error Boundaries:
There might be errors in an application and that happens quite often. Even if they appear in the view, they should not break the entire application, at the very least. To avoid this, Error Boundaries have been introduced or implemented to React. They are nothing but components that can be used to wrap other components. They are able to catch errors during rendering and in the lifecycle, methods down the tree. using the componentDidCatch method, it is pretty easy to react to the error and render a fallback or log the error
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Testing with Jest and Enzyme:
It is important for developers to test their applications to find bugs and rectify them if any. Testing is even mandatory in most corporations. Apps and websites created with React can be tested in a very interesting manner using the right setup. One of the most widely used setups consists of Jest and Enzyme. Jest comes bundled along with the create-react-app and is a test runner, mocking library, and assertion library. Jest also provides snapshot testing which creates a rendered snapshot of a component and compares it to previous snapshots automatically. If the two snapshots do not match the test will fail automatically. It is very useful for unit and integration tests. Next comes Enzyme which is a testing library for React Components and is used widely by developers working with react. An enzyme is developed and maintained by Airbnb and is the perfect partner for Jest. Many things like testing lifecycle methods or mocking API calls can be done using this setup.
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Using Higher-Order Components:
Higher-Order Components or HOC is an advanced concept in React which is used to abstract shared code and make it accessible wherever necessary. This concept is quite similar to the higher-order function is JavaScript. Higher-Order Components take and return components but they aren’t components themselves. They are just functions.
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Using React DevTools:
React DevTools is a browser extension which is available for Firefox and Chrome. It is maintained by the Facebook React Core Team. It works very well with React Native and react.js and helps developers to understand what is happening inside the react App. Several big companies like Netflix and Airbnb are using React.
Final Words
A lot of things can be done using React js and it is largely used today for website development. Using the right tools and methods of responsive web designs to React. js can be created. The websites are mobile-first which means it is capable of being used by millions of mobile device users without any interruptions or crashes. If you want to take your business forward it is high time that you look for a website development company to develop a website with React. js for you.
As for developers, using the points mentioned in the blog, you can create even more responsive web design in react.js.
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