CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2016 E1691 ConvertAssignmentCreationFormtoReactJS

E1691 Convert Assignment Creation Form to ReactJS

This a page to describe a final project for ECE517. In this project we will be converting Assignment creation form to ReactJS.

React JS

ReactJS is an open source JavaScript library, used to provide a view for data rendered as HTML.It is maintained by Facebook, Instagram and a community of individual developers and corporations. React was created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook. He was influenced by XHP, an HTML component framework for PHP. It was first deployed on Facebook's newsfeed in 2011 and later on Instagram.com in 2012. It was open-sourced at JSConf US in May 2013.

Advantages of ReactJS

• It is easy to know how a component is rendered, you just look at the render function. This render function basically implements html divs.
• JSX is a faster, safer and easer JavaScript which makes it easy to read the code of your components. It is also really easy to see the layout, or how components are plugged or combined with each other.
• React can be rendered on the server-side. So you can easily use it in the Ruby on Rails too.
• It is easy to test (easier than the traditional JavaScript or JQuery where you have to test the code in the Developer Tools) and it can easily be integrated with tools like jest which can make testing painless.
• It ensures readability and makes maintainability easier.
• It can be used with any framework such as Backbone.js, Angular.js, as it is only a view layer.

Current implementation

The assignment creation view is currently implemented mostly in HTML and some data validations are done using JQuery. This implementation does not support dynamic view rendering which is essential to improving the user interface and contributing to the fluidity of the overall experience. For example, If the user wants to create a new assignment, clicking the new assignment link will generate a server request and the new view is rendered (url is changed). After filling up all the details required for the assignment creation, save link will again generate a server request which will make the database entry and again render a new view. Implementing this in ReactJS, will eliminate these server requests. New assignemnt link will generae a popoup window, right there on the same view (url remains same) and will be provided with the same options. Saving the details will make the databse entry and close the popup window. So basically the processing is done at the client side except for the database change.

Proposed solution

This is an example of a dynamically rendered webpage. The user is able to enter values, which are reflected in the view immediately after submission, without any redirection or reloading of the webpage. You can also see the timer running on the page, which demonstrates the ability to dynamically update variable values inside the view.

References

• https://facebook.github.io/react/