What problem does `react-redux-firebase` solve? - firebase

I'm new to all of these technologies, but as far as I understand it, you can use React Native with Redux and Firebase without react-redux-firebase. You could just use
react
react-native
redux
react-redux
react-native-firebase
Then you load data from Firebase (e.g. Firestore) and put the data in a reducer so it gets merged into the redux store.
Why do I need react-redux-firebase? What problem does it solve?
I have tried its docs, but they seem to be written for someone who is already familiar with its goals. They do not really explain, and when reading the examples, I do not understand why I specifically need react-redux-firebase instead of the setup listed above.

Firebase is on your state, listen to it an modify it, it will change your Firebase database. After the data on the database is changed the components listening will change as well.
This will create an item in the database
updateTodo: props => () => {
return firebase.update(`todos/${params.todoId}`, { done: !todo.isDone })
}
So any component listening to that node will get updated:
connect((state) => ({
todos: state.firebase.data.todos,
// profile: state.firebase.profile // load profile
}))
It solves the problem of having multiple sources of truth, your Firebase database is your only source of truth, otherwise, you change your local data and then you update the data online and then if it works nothing else but if it fails you have to update the local data again

Related

Using vuex with Vue 3

Last year I spent some time learning Vue 2. I really enjoyed the framework but did not move forward with a project. I now have time for a project but I'd like to use Vue 3 with the composition API. I'll be using Firebase as the backend. I've seen conflicting techniques on whether or not to use Vuex.
For example, I'd like to store a "currentUser" object in global state that can be accessed from any component in the app. Normally, it would be done using Vuex. I'd have a getter to return the object, an async action to get the data from firebase and a mutation to set the state.
However, I've seen several Vue 3 code examples that do not use Vuex at all, instead they do something like this to get/set a currentUser in an app wherever it is needed for example in a navbar component.
composables/getUser.js
import { ref } from 'vue'
import firebase from 'firebase/app'
// refs
const user = ref(firebase.auth().currentUser)
// auth changes
firebase.auth().onAuthStateChanged(_user => {
console.log('User state change. Current user is:', _user)
user.value = _user
});
const getUser = () => {
return { user }
}
export default getUser
With this little bit of code above, I'm able to import getUser.js and access the currently logged in user using code like this. Also, the user object is now reactive:
<script>
import getUser from '../composables/getUser'
export default {
setup() {
const { user } = getUser()
return { user }
}
}
</script>
It seems I can use these little functions to get data from db directly without the need to use the Vuex pattern, which I find to be a bit more complicated.
So, my question is - if I'm starting a new Vue 3 project, is it ok to create "composable" functions to get/set data and import them into my components instead of using Vuex? Are there any downsides to this method? Or should I just stick with Vuex?
Short answer - You don't need it.
Long answer - It depends.
It depends mostly on your app and how often do you use "currentUser" data inside your components. If it's in 2 or more components, how often do you want to perform actually fetching from backend?
Once on app-init/login or every time each component mounts?
(probably once)
Does it need to be reactive? If yes - then you'll probably use centralized data pattern, your own or a library. Taken that into consideration it's probably more simple to just use Vuex.

How can I ensure my not yet fetched data doesn't break my site

I am currently building a like button on my card component in vue. I am fetching data from firebase using middleware on a page to dispatch the vuex action that will go and get my user info which has their liked_posts stored in an array.
The issue comes up that when I load a page requiring some of the data
i.e. liked_posts and my state is empty it throws a error of
"undefined".
How can I make sure that even if the user hasn't signed in or hasn't ever visited that my user data wont cause an error
I have tried to change my action in the Vuex store to be asynchronous and use await so that I made sure the data was there, but it didn't help.
What is happening is the below code in computed properties is trying to access an object that doesn't exist in the array yet.
likedOrNot() {
const likeInfo = this.$store.state.userInfoSub[0].liked_posts
return likeInfo.includes(this.$store.state.loadedCards[0].id)
}
This data isn't there yet because the user isn't signed in, exist ect. once they do and middleware is dispatching an action to fetch the user data the userInfoSub will be filled with info.
my base state looks like this when the user hasn't signed in or middleware hasnt fired to look for the user that gets put in cookies.
So I need away to ensure my lack of userInfoSub doesn't break my computer property
loadedCards:Array[1]
0:Object
token:null
user:null
userInfoSub:Array[0]
username:null
Here's an opinionated answer: use get from lodash.
npm i lodash
Then you can write something like this:
import get from 'lodash/get';
export default {
computed: {
isLiked() {
const cardId = get(this.$store, 'state.loadedCards[0].id');
const postIds = get(this.$store, 'state.userInfoSub[0].liked_posts', []);
return postIds.includes(cardId);
},
},
};

Local storage with Redux

I have recently begun coding in Redux.
Before Redux with AngularJS it was easy to map models with state using $localstorage. I just can figure out the best way to do that with Redux.
Should I be dispatching and action and ask reducers to read local storage for in my code ?
Or should I allow local storage to be managed with a global object ?
There are few ways.
Just note that for syncing to localStorage you need to call JSON.stringify which is quite expensive, so please don't do that often and also with large data structures as it might hurt app's performance.
1) Sync whole Redux store to Local Storage. You can use existing solution for that eg. https://github.com/elgerlambert/redux-localstorage
I would not recommend to sync whole store as you might sync also state which should not be persisted after refresh and also you might make application slower; For better performance you can use paths argument in above library or use one of another options.
To see how you can build such functionality manually, there is great explanation video from Dan https://egghead.io/lessons/javascript-redux-persisting-the-state-to-the-local-storage
2) Manually build simple cache middleware like below, which might catch specific actions you would like to sync with local storage
const cacheMiddleware = store => next => action => {
if(action.type !== 'GET_SOMETHING') {
return next(action);
}
const data = getFromLocalstorage();
if(!data) {
// Fetch and put to localstorate for later use
const data = fetchFromServer();
return next({ type: 'SERVER_RESULT', data });
}
return next({ type: 'CACHED_RESULT', data });
};
3) If you are using Redux Thunk you can perform caching there as you are allowed to have side effects in actions.
You can find more info about Redux middleware here https://redux.js.org/advanced/middleware

Integrate ngrx into my code

I'm trying to get how to add ngrx into my current project structure.
I've got all concepts around ngrx/reflux. Nevertheless, I don't quite figure out how to rebuild project structure in order to integrate it into my project.
Where do I need to add reducers?
Where do I need to add states?
What about actions?
Where should Store be, on a service, injected in each component?
Where or when the data should be fetched from server?
Is there any project structure best practice over there?
First, you should take a look into #ngrx/store documentation : https://github.com/ngrx/store#setup
I've made a small (funny) project to demonstrate how to use :
- angular
- ngrx/store
- ngrx/effects
- normalized state
- selectors
You can find it here : https://github.com/maxime1992/pizza-sync
To give you some info about how it works :
- core.module.ts is were I declare my root reducer
- root.reducer.ts is were I build the root reducer and compose it with middlewares according to dev/prod env
- For a reducer, I keep every related part together (interface(s) + reducer + effects + selectors)
Then within a component, to access the store simply do like that :
Inject the store :
constructor(private _store$: Store<IStore>) { }
Get data from either
a) A selector (ex)
this._pizzasCategories$ = this._store$.let(getCategoriesAndPizzas());
b) Directly from the store (ex)
this._idCurrentUser$ = this
._store$
.select(state => state.users.idCurrentUser);
Notice that I didn't subscribe which means I'm using in my view the async pipe so angular subscribe to the Observable for me.
But of course you can also do it by hand and use subscribe in your ts.
PS: I'll be releasing a starter with all that already setup to avoid loosing time with all of that when starting a new project. I'll try to release it this week and I'll update this post as soon as it's done. Maybe it might help you.
EDIT 12/05/17
Late but I finally released the starter :) !
https://github.com/maxime1992/angular-ngrx-starter

Component is not unmount after its delete in store

Project (Todolist) was created with immutable library, source here
Store structure: project have many tasks, In redux store: State - map, projects, tasks - Records
When I asyncly remove project ...
export const removeProject = project => (dispatch) => {
if (!isProjectExist(project)) return Promise.resolve()
return projectService
.delete(project)
.then(
() => {
dispatch(remove(project))
console.log("post removeProject resolved")
},
handleError,
)
}
.... that was created after initialization - it will be deleted and properly unmounted, but when project was passed as initialState - ProjectList will not be rerendered, and ProjectItem try to render itself with stale data, and fail, as in picture
It have tests
It looks like reducer returs changed data, but I use immutablejs, and previously i use normalizr-immutable, but I thought that source of issue in this library and write my own normalizeInitialState (source), it did not help, now I think that maybe source of problem in redux-immutable
I struggled entire day on solving of this problem
creator of redux says
I don't think this is something we can fix. React state changes are
asynchronous and React may (or may not) batch them. Therefore, the
moment you press “Remove”, the Redux store updates, and both Item and
App receive the new state. Even if the App state change results in
unmounting of Items, that will happen later than mapStateToProps is
called for Item.
Unless I'm mistaken, there is nothing we can do. You have two options:
Request all required state at App (or a lower, e.g. ItemList) level
and pass it down to “dumb” Items. Add safeguards to mapStateToProps
for “currently unmounting” state. For example, you may return null
from render in this case. Potentially we could have the component
generated by connect() return null from its render if mapStateToProps
returned null. Does this make any sense? Is this too surprising?
Hm, I never saw stubs like return (<div></div>) or safeguards in mapStateToProps in others code
markerikson
I'm not entirely sure I follow what exactly your problem is, but as a
guess: it sounds like the child component is re-rendering before the
parent is. This is a known issue with React-Redux v4 and earlier. The
v5 beta fixes that issue. Try installing react-redux#next and see if
that takes care of your problem.

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