Using React in Your Portlets

You can use the npm React portlet template to automate much of the required configuration for you or create the module manually. For convenience, all manual steps are listed below. This tutorial shows how to use React in your portlets, whether you’re migrating an existing React project or building a fresh project. See the npm React portlet template reference docs for more information on the portlet’s anatomy or the react npm portlet sample for a React portlet example that you can test and deploy right now. Get started by creating your OSGi module and configuring its metadata.

Configuring Metadata

Follow these steps to create the module and configure its metadata for React:

  1. Create an OSGi module. For example, use the npm React portlet template.

  2. Specify the Web-ContextPath BND Header in your project’s bnd.bnd file. Below is the default configuration for the npm React portlet template:

    Web-ContextPath: /my-npm-react-portlet
    
  3. Create a .babelrc file and add the following presets to it:

    {
    	"presets": ["env", "react"]
    }
    
  4. Optionally add a .npmbundlerrc file to your project’s root folder. This file is not required. You can, however, configure this file to customize the liferay-npm-bundler to suit your needs, such as to ignore files.

  5. Include the following dependency in your build.gradle file:

    compileOnly group: "com.liferay", 
    name: "com.liferay.frontend.js.loader.modules.extender.api", 
    version: "2.0.2"
    
  6. Create a package.json in your project if it doesn’t already exist with the configuration shown below. Update the "main" JS path to point to your app’s main JS file. Note that the liferay-npm-bundler is added last to the build script. List any additional build processes before this that your project requires:

    {
    	"dependencies": {
    		"react": "15.6.2",
    		"react-dom": "15.6.2"
    	},
      "description": "React Portlet",
    	"devDependencies": {
    		"babel-cli": "^6.26.0",
    		"babel-preset-env": "^1.7.0",
    		"babel-preset-react": "6.24.1",
    		"liferay-npm-bundler": "^2.0.0"
    	},
    	"main": "js/index.js",
    	"name": "my-npm-react-portlet",
    	"scripts": {
    		"build": "babel --source-maps -d 
        build/resources/main/META-INF/resources 
        src/main/resources/META-INF/resources && liferay-npm-bundler"
    	},
    	"version": "1.0.0"
    }    
    

To use ES2015+ syntax in your portlet, you must transpile it for the browser. Babel, included in your build script, takes care of this for you.

Next You can configure the portlet.

Configuring the Portlet

Follow these steps to configure your portlet:

  1. Create a Component class that implements the Portlet.class service:

    @Component(
    	immediate = true,
    	property = {
    		"com.liferay.portlet.display-category=category.sample",
    		"com.liferay.portlet.instanceable=true",
    		"javax.portlet.init-param.template-path=/",
    		"javax.portlet.init-param.view-template=/view.jsp",
    		"javax.portlet.name=" + MyNpmReactPortletKeys.MyNpmReact,
    		"javax.portlet.resource-bundle=content.Language",
    		"javax.portlet.security-role-ref=power-user,user"
    	},
    	service = Portlet.class
    )
    public class MyNpmReactPortlet extends MVCPortlet {
      ...
    }
    
  2. If your React project includes CSS styling as well, add the following additional property to specify the location of the main CSS file:

    "com.liferay.portlet.header-portlet-css=/css/main.css"
    

    Note that this path is relative to the resources path. If using Sass, drop the .scss extension in this property and use .css instead. For example, if your main CSS file is located in src/main/resources/META-INF/resources/css/app.scss, then you would have the following configuration:

    "com.liferay.portlet.header-portlet-css=/css/app.css"
    
  3. To improve code maintenance, use the NPMResolver APIs to alias your module’s package name. The example below exposes the module’s name as bootstrapRequire:

    @Override
    public void doView(
    		RenderRequest renderRequest, RenderResponse renderResponse)
    	throws IOException, PortletException {
    
    	JSPackage jsPackage = _npmResolver.getJSPackage();
    
    	renderRequest.setAttribute(
    		MyNpmReactWebKeys.BOOTSTRAP_REQUIRE,
    		jsPackage.getResolvedId() + " as bootstrapRequire");
    
    	super.doView(renderRequest, renderResponse);
    }
    
    @Reference
    private NPMResolver _npmResolver;
    
  4. Inside your init.jsp, add the following Java scriptlet to access the bootstrapRequire variable in your portlet’s view.jsp:

    <%
    String bootstrapRequire = (String)renderRequest.getAttribute(
      MyNpmReactWebKeys.BOOTSTRAP_REQUIRE
    );
    %>
    

Next you can learn how to render your app’s component.

Rendering Your Component

Follow these steps to render your app component:

  1. Inside your app’s main JS file (index.js for example), use the function below to render your component:

    import React from 'react';
    import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
    import AppComponent from './components/App' //parent component
    
    export default function(elementId) {
      ReactDOM.render(<AppComponent />, document.getElementById(elementId));
    }  
    
  2. Open your view.jsp and add an element container to house your component. Then add an <aui:script> tag and pass your aliased module name as the require attribute’s value. Finally, call your module’s default function that you exported in the previous step and pass the container element in as the element ID. Adding the <portlet:namespace /> to the <div>’s id ensures that it is unique to the portlet and doesn’t clash with any existing elements on the page:

    <%@ include file="/init.jsp" %>
    
    <div id="<portlet:namespace />-root"></div>
    
    <aui:script require="<%= bootstrapRequire %>">
    	bootstrapRequire.default('<portlet:namespace />-root');
    </aui:script>
    

Now you know how to use React in your projects!

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