Transpile single React component to use as JS widget

Question

I am working on a fairly complex web app using React.js, and I would like to allow the app's users to use one of the components as an API widget on their sites as well with a script tag (think Google Maps API, Analytics, etc.)

I'm new to React, but I think React takes all of the components, etc. in the app, and bundles them into a single JS file.

Is it possible to bundle only one component into a JS file, then let users place that file in their site, and use it as a widget?

I've tried transpiling the component I want users to use as a widget with reactify, but I can't seem to get it to work.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Absolutely, however they will still need to include React as a dependency, or you would have to in your widget.

To use React you don't need to use transpilation, i.e. you don't need reactify. Building a widget for React is like building a widget for jQuery.

// Your widget root component
var SayHelloComponent = React.createClass({
  render() {
    // You use React.createElement API instead of JSX
    return React.createElement('span', null, "Hello " + this.props.name + "!");
  }
});


// This is a function so that it can be evaluated after document load
var getWidgetNodes = function () { 
  return document.querySelectorAll('[data-say-hello]'); 
};

function initializeWidget(node) {
  // get the widget properties from the node attributes
  var name = node.getAttribute('data-say-hello');

  // create an instance of the widget using the node attributes 
  // as properties
  var element = React.createElement(SayHelloComponent, { name: name });
  ReactDOM.render(element, node);
}

getWidgetNodes().forEach(initializeWidget);

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react-dom.min.js"></script>

<!-- What it would look to include your widget in a page -->
<div data-say-hello="Guzart"></div>

The only reason you would need to transpile your code would be to use JSX and ES6.