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Architecture.md

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Digitransit-ui is a React based web application. The following bullet points describe the architecture on a overview level and provide guidelines on how the code should be.

Logic (i.e. HTML + JS in traditional web)

  • Front-end is written using modern JavaScript (ES2015)
  • Use Babel to transpile it into ES5
  • We could provide a different bundle for modern browsers using widely-supported ES6 syntax
  • Use polyfills for older browsers by polyfill-service
  • React + JSX
  • Airbnb styleguide for ES6 and React

Additions to Airbnb style guide

  • Use object property spread instead of Object.assign when creating new objects: not Object.assign({}, {state}, {a: 1, b: 2}), but instead {...state, a: 1, b: 2}

Components

  • Three types of components
  • Views
    • Simple views that transform props to JSX
    • Views must contain only DOM elements and other Views
      • i.e. no references to containers
    • Views should preferably be created using stateless functional components
    • Views mustn't hold any state
      • If state is needed you should either store it using fluxible or in a container
  • RelayConnector
    • Data from server should be fetched by adding a relay fragment and wrapping it with Relay.createContainer
    • The file should have the pure view as default export and the RelayConnector as named export
      • Alternatively both components can be placed in separate files
    • The view should use RelayContainers in its render method if props.relay is defined. If props.relay is not defined, then the pure view should be used instead.
  • Containers
    • Two types of containers
    • "Traditional" containers
      • Containers are components that do complex transformations of props data in order to show one or more views or containers
      • Containers should only contain only other containers and views
        • i.e. no DOM components
      • Continers must include Container in their name
    • StoreConnectors
      • Data from stores should be loaded using fluxible connectToStores
      • Higher order component that wraps another component to provide store state to other component props
      • Must include StoreConnector in their name
    • Containers should include unit tests either testing their functions separately or by testing it's shallow rendering using Enzyme

React components can access data in two different ways:

  • OpenTripPlanner GraphQL queries with Relay
  • Other querys with Flux model

Basically, division between alternatives is:

  • GraphQL is used to fetch data from server
  • If server endpoint does not support GraphQL, flux can be used to retrieve that data
  • Flux stores are mainly used to store application state

Architecture

Links:

CSS (or styles in general)

  • Modular CSS

    • how to implement is still a good question
    • Prefer flexbox based layouts if it simplifies the layouting process
    • We should provide information about layout (mobile/tablet/desktop) in the context by using matchMedia or browser sniffing in order for the containers to be able to render different contents depending on the device
  • How to get there

    • Still a uncertain process