OneHatUi Patterns

The OneHatUi library is a set of pre-built components that make use of the OneHatData library. It is built on top of ReactNative, and either NativeBase or GlueStack.

Many of the components make use of other components internally. For example, the Grid component uses IconButtons for its pagination toolbar. The Combo component makes use of the Grid component for its menu. And the Tag component is simply a Combo with additional functionality.

Many components have “regular” and “editor” versions. For example, there’s a Grid and a GridEditor. The Grid is simply for viewing. The GridEditor allows the records within the Grid to be managed (add/edit/delete).

For the most part, it follows the React rules of data flowing only top-down through props, and of components not knowing about their relative position in the component tree. But there are some cases where such wooden adherence is counterproductive. In such cases, the library makes use of the withComponent HOC, which adds a “self” prop to every component, which has references to parents and children. In this way, a child component can directly reference its parent(s) or children.

For parentage examples, the Form component closes its grandparent Editor in some cases, and the InlineEditor queries its parent Grid to figure out which row it should align with.

For a child example, the Combo can directly tell its menu Grid to selectNext() or selectPrev() based on user keystrokes.