collab-react-components

Database backend and collaborative React components. This package is an abstraction layer to the famous collaborative database backend ShareDB.

The current available components are:

• A simple collaborative editor
• A rich collaborative editor based on React-Quill
• A collaborative form based on react-jsonschema-form

Example apps

Multiple example apps are present in the demos directory. Feel free look at them for a real implementation.

To start the demo applications, just clone the repository, move to the desired demo, install the npm packages and start the application:

cd demos/collab-editor
npm install
npm start

Table of contents

• Installation
• Server initialization
  • The CollabCollection class
• Usage
  • Server API
  • Simple collaborative Editor
  • Collaborative Form
  • Rich Collaborative Editor
• License

Installation

• Requires React 15.4.0+.

Note: The "master" branch of the repository reflects the published stable release.

$ npm install --save collab-react-components

Note: It is recommended to use Bootstrap with this package for better rendering of the form elements.

Server initialization

In order to use the collaborative functionalities, you will need to start a new CollabServer instance. One way to do it is on startup:

const CollabServer = require('collab-react-components').Server;

// app is you Express app for example.

CollabServer.start(app);

You can also stop the server by calling:

CollabServer.stop();

Note: See the demos for an example of implementation with an Express server.

The CollabCollection class

The CollabCollection class represents a new collaborative collection of documents on the server. Collaborative Collections collection can be persisted to disk using MongoDB or in memory if no options are passed to the server. To use MongoDB, set up a database and pass its URL to the CollabServer. For example:

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;

// Create a MongoDB server
const url = 'mongodb://localhost:27017/my-collaborative-app';
MongoClient.connect(url)
  .catch(function (err) {
    if (err) throw err;
  })
;

const options = {
  db: {
    type: 'mongo',
    url
  }
};

// Create a CollabServer instance with MongoDB
CollabServer.start(app, options);

Note: For the moment, only MongoDB is supported as a persistence layer.

Once a CollabCollection is created, you will be able to query its content using the CollabCollection methods.

Usage

For a basic implementation, see the demos applications.

Server API

The CollabCollection class methods are the following:

• create(id, data = ''): Creates a new collaborative document for a simple editor with id (String) and with initial data (String).
• createForm(id, schema): Creates a new collaborative form with id (String) and with initial data corresponding to the schema, where schema is a react-jsonschema-form schema.
• createRichText(id, data=''): Creates a new collaborative document for a rich editor with id (String) and with initial data (String).
• remove(id): Deletes a document with ID id.

Simple Collaborative Editor

To implement a simple collaborative editor (textarea), start by instantiating a new CollabCollection on the server, taking as parameter the name of the collaborative collection:

const CollabCollection = require('collab-react-components').Collection;

const documents = new CollabCollection("documents");
documents.create("editor1");

Client API

Call CollabEditor from the client

import React from 'react';
import { CollabEditor } from 'collab-react-components/dist/client';

<CollabEditor
    id="myEditor"
    collectionName="documents"
/>

Props of CollabEditor:

• id: ID of the document to fetch from the database
• collectionName: Name of the collection
• rows: "rows" attribute of the textarea
• classNames: default is form-control
• onChange(text): Function called on every local modification. text is a string representing the current value of the editor.

Collaborative Form

Note: The collaborative form is based on react-jsonschema-form

To implement a collaborative form, start by instantiating a new CollabCollection on the server, taking as parameter the name of the collection and a schema:

const CollabCollection = require('collab-react-components').Collection;

const forms = new CollabCollection("forms");
const schema = {
      title: "My collaborative form",
      type: "object",
      required: ["input", "textarea"],
      properties: {
        input: {type: "string", title: "Input"},
        textarea: {type: "string", title: "Textarea", default: 'Default text'},
      }
    };
forms.createForm("form1", schema);

This will create a new collaborative document on the database containing the collaborative data of the form.

Client API

Just call CollabForm from the client.

Note: You should not use the widget password in a collaborative form. At least not until the data is encrypted on the database.

import React from 'react';
import { CollabForm } from 'collab-react-components/dist/client';

<CollabForm
    id="MyForm" 
    collectionName="forms"
/>

Note: CollabForm can be used exactly like Form from react-jsonschema-form with few exceptions (see below).

Props of CollabForm that vary from react-jsonschema-form:

• id: ID of the form to fetch from the database
• collectionName: Name of the collection
• You should not pass a schema to the CollabForm component.
• You should not pass formData to CollabForm, the data will be fetched from the collaboratively shared data in the databas

The supported collaborative String types are text, textarea and uri. They can be defined in the uiSchema like:

const uiSchema = {
    textarea: {"ui:widget": "textarea"},
    uri: {"ui:widget": "uri"}
}

<CollabForm
    id="MyForm"
    collectionName="forms"
    uiSchema={uiSchema}
/>

Note: Other types such as date or email cannot be updated simultaneously in a collaborative manner.

At the moment, CollabForm only supports form schemas where the root element is a non-nested object (does not contain other objects or arrays). We are currently working on implementing array capabilities.

Rich Collaborative Editor

Note: The collaborative editor is based on react-quill

To implement a rich collaborative editor, start by instantiating a new CollabCollection on the server, taking as parameter the name of the collection:

const CollabCollection = require('collab-react-components').Collection;

const documents = new CollabCollection("documents");
documents.createRichText('rich-editor1', 'My initial data');

This will create a new collaborative document on the database containing the collaborative data of the rich text editor.

Client API

Just call CollabRichEditor from the client.

import React from 'react';
import { CollabRichEditor } from 'collab-react-components/dist/client';

<CollabRichEditor
    id="MyDoc"
    collectionName="documents"
/>

Note: CollabRichEditor can be used exactly like ReactQuill from react-quill with few exceptions (see below).

Props of CollabRichEditor that vary from react-quill:

• id: ID of the form to fetch from the database
• collectionName: Name of the collection

Note: Do not pass value or defaultValue to CollabRichEditor, the data will be fetched from the collaboratively shared data on the server.

License

MIT