Search Headless React

Search Headless React is the official React UI Bindings layer for Search Headless.

Written in 100% TypeScript.

Installation

npm install @yext/search-headless-react

Getting Started - SearchHeadlessProvider

Search Headless React includes an <SearchHeadlessProvider /> component, which takes in a SearchHeadless instance and makes it available to the rest of your app. SearchHeadless instance is created using provideHeadless(...) with the appropriate credentials:

import { provideHeadless, SearchHeadlessProvider } from '@yext/search-headless-react';
import SearchBar from './SearchBar';
import MostRecentSearch from './MostRecentSearch';
import UniversalResults from './UniversalResults';

const searcher = provideHeadless(config);

function MyApp() {
  return (
    <SearchHeadlessProvider searcher={searcher}>
      {/* Add components that use Search as children */}
      <SearchBar/>
      <MostRecentSearch/>
      <UniversalResults/>
    </SearchHeadlessProvider>
  );
}

Respond to State Updates with useSearchState

useSearchState reads a value from the SearchHeadless state and subscribes to updates.

import { useSearchState } from '@yext/search-headless-react';

export default function MostRecentSearch() {
  const mostRecentSearch = useSearchState(state => state.query.mostRecentSearch);
  return <div>Showing results for {mostRecentSearch}</div>;
}

Dispatch Actions with useSearchActions

useSearchActions allows you to dispatch actions using the SearchHeadless instance.

These include performing searches, getting autocomplete suggestions, and adding filters.

For a full list of capabilities see the search-headless docs.

import { useSearchActions } from '@yext/search-headless-react';
import { ChangeEvent, KeyboardEvent, useCallback } from 'react';

function SearchBar() {
  const search = useSearchActions();
  const handleTyping = useCallback((e: ChangeEvent<HTMLInputElement>) => {
    search.setQuery(e.target.value);
  }, [search]);
  
  const handleKeyDown = useCallback((evt: KeyboardEvent<HTMLInputElement>) => {
    if (evt.key === 'Enter' ) {
      search.executeUniversalQuery();
    }
  }, [search]);

  return <input onChange={handleTyping} onKeyDown={handleKeyDown}/>;
}

SearchHeadlessContext

Class Components

For users that want to use class components instead of functional components, you can use the SearchHeadlessContext directly to dispatch actions and receive updates from state.

As an example, here is our simple SearchBar again, rewritten as a class using SearchHeadlessContext.

import { SearchHeadlessContext, SearchHeadless, State } from '@yext/search-headless-react';
import { Component } from 'react';

export default class Searcher extends Component {
  static contextType = SearchHeadlessContext;
  unsubscribeQueryListener: any;
  state = { query: "" };

  componentDidMount() {
    const search: SearchHeadless = this.context;
    this.unsubscribeQueryListener = search.addListener({
      valueAccessor: (state: State) => state.query.mostRecentSearch,
      callback: newPropsFromState => {
        this.setState({ query: newPropsFromState })
      }
    });
  }

  componentWillUnmount() {
    this.unsubscribeQueryListener();
  }

  render() {
    const search: SearchHeadless = this.context;
    return (
      <div>
        <p>Query: {this.state.query}</p>
        <input
          onChange={evt => search.setQuery(evt.target.value)}
          onKeyDown={evt => {
            if (evt.key === 'Enter') {
              search.executeUniversalQuery();
            }
          }}
        />
      </div>
    )
  }
}

useSearchUtilities

We offer a useSearchUtilities convenience hook for accessing SearchHeadless.utilities, which offers a number of stateless utility methods. The searchUtilities and searchUtilitiesFromActions variables below are equivalent.

For class components, you can access SearchUtilities through SearchHeadlessContext.

const searchUtilities = useSearchUtilities();
const searchUtilitiesFromActions = useSearchActions().utilities;