React dat.GUI
react-dat-gui is a fully* featured React port of Google's esteemed dat.GUI controller library. It comes packed with all of the core components you will need to cleanly integrate dat.GUIs into your React app.
The dat.GUI library is designed for easily updating and interacting with objects in real time. It is used extensively in canvas and WebGL rendering demos/apps for libraries such as three.js and is also commonly used in browser based editing software.
Contents
Installation
npm install react-dat-gui --save
Basic Usage
react-dat-gui has a wrapper component <DatGUI />
and several control components that can be used to add functionality to the controller.
import React from 'react';
import DatGui, { DatBoolean, DatColor, DatNumber, DatString } from 'react-dat-gui';
class App extends React.Component {
state = {
data: {
package: 'react-dat-gui',
power: 9000,
isAwesome: true,
feelsLike: '#2FA1D6',
}
}
// Update current state with changes from controls
handleUpdate = newData =>
this.setState(prevState => ({
data: { ...prevState.data, ...newData }
}));
render() {
const { data } = this.state;
return (
<DatGui data={data} onUpdate={this.handleUpdate}>
<DatString path='package' label='Package' />
<DatNumber path='power' label='Power' min={9000} max={9999} step={1} />
<DatBoolean path='isAwesome' label='Awesome?' />
<DatColor path='feelsLike' label='Feels Like' />
</DatGui>
)
}
Docs
<DatGui />
This is the main container component for your GUI and is the default export from the package.
required
prop | Description | Type |
---|---|---|
data | The data your dat.GUI controller will mutate | object |
onUpdate | The method which will be called whenever an update is handled by the controller | function |
children | The dat.GUI components that make up the controller | array |
optional
prop | Description | Type | Default |
---|---|---|---|
liveUpdate | Determines if live updates should occur | boolean | true |
labelWidth | The width of the labels in any valid CSS units | string | "40%" |
className | The class name to set on the DatGui div |
string | null |
style | The style object to set on the DatGui div |
object | null |
Control Components
react-dat-gui
comes with eight built-in control components which can be used by rendering them as direct children of <DatGui />
.
Custom control components can also be used so long as they implement the required props.
Common props
All child components of <DatGui />
receive the following props implicitly, these are useful when building custom control components. See the built-in control components in src/components for examples of how to implement your own controls.
prop | Description | Type |
---|---|---|
data | The data your dat.GUI controller will mutate, the same object from ` | object |
labelWidth | The width of the control name label | string |
liveUpdate | Determines if live updates should occur | boolean |
_onUpdateValue | A callback function for `, call this method to update dat.Gui state from your control. | function |
Below are docs for the required and optional props you can pass to each built-in control component.
required
path: string
- the path to the value within thedata
object which the component will control, eg., considering your object was{ foo: 'bar' }
:<DatString path='foo' />
or{ foo: { bar: 'string' } }
:<DatString path='foo.bar' />
for nested values.- Note, this prop is not required for the following components
DatButton
DatFolder
DatPresets
optional
className: string
- A CSS class namestyle: object
- A style object for inline styleslabel: string
- The label for the controller eg.,<DatString path='message' label='Message' />
labelWidth: string
- The width of the labels in any valid CSS units, overrides<DatGUI labelWidth>
DatBoolean
Used for controlling boolean values. Renders a checkbox input element.
DatButton
Can be used for performing any kind of function. Simply pass an onClick
prop to the component and it will fire whenever the rendered element is clicked.
props
required
onClick :func
- the function to perform with the rendered element is clicked
DatColor
Uses react-color
to render a color picker component that will control color values.
DatFolder
Component which wraps other components to render them within an expandable/collapsable nested folder.
props
required
title: string
- The folder title eg.,<DatFolder title='MyAwesomeFolder' />
children: array
- The child components to render
optional
closed: boolean
- Whether the initial state of the folder is closed, defaults totrue
DatNumber
A number component for updating numeric values. Will render a slider if min
, max
and step
props are supplied.
props
optional
min: number
- The minimum range for the numbermax: number
- The maximum range for the numberstep: number
- The amount the number should increment each tick
If your step
prop is a float, DatNumber
will ensure that your number field steps to the correct number of decimal places to align with the step that you've set.
DatPresets
Presets for the object which your DatGui
is controlling can be supplied to this component as items in its options
prop. A select field will be rendered which will allow you to easily switch between the presets.
Each item in this array will need to be in the format { 'presetName': ...data, ...preset }
where ...data
is your initial data and ...preset
is your preset.
props
required
options: array
- An array of objects, each in the format{ 'presetName': ...data, ...preset }
DatSelect
A select component for updating a value with one of the options supplied via the options
prop. The initial selected value will be taken from the mapped path
prop.
props
required
options: array
- A simple array of options to select from eg.,<DatSelect path='fruits' options={['apple', 'orange', 'pear']} />
DatString
A simple text input component that can be used to mutate strings.
Local Development
Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/claus/react-dat-gui.git react-dat-gui
cd react-dat-gui
In order to see your changes to react-dat-gui
the best way is to develop on the package and the example simultaneously. To do this, follow these steps.
1. Setup symlinks and install dependencies
npm install
cd example
npm install
2. Run the library in development mode
cd ..
npm run dev
3. Run the example app in development mode (in second terminal window)
cd example
npm run dev
After the example has compiled, it should be available for viewing at http://localhost:3000. Changes to the library code should now hot reload in the example app
Scripts
Script | Description |
---|---|
build |
Builds the library for production into /dist |
start |
Starts the library in development mode with hot module reloading |
test |
Runs unit testing suite powered by Jest and testing-library |
lint |
Runs linting over entire codebase with prettier , eslint and stylelint |
lint-js |
Lints only javascript files |
lint-styles |
Lints only stylesheet files |
fix |
Runs linting over entire codebase with prettier , eslint and stylelint and applies any available automatic fixes |
fix-js |
Lints only javascript files and applies any available automatic fixes |
fix-styles |
Lints only stylesheet files and applies any available automatic fixes |
deploy |
Compiles and deploys a static build of /example next.js app to gh-pages |
What's missing
There are still a few features from the original implementation missing from this package. These are mainly related to saving and loading data as well as local storage. Animations for folder expanding/collapsing is also not currently implemented, but shouldn't be too hard to do.
For the first, I think the fact that this is now an NPM module sort of goes against it handling this sort of stuff. Google's original concept was basically a plug and play controller that could do everything if you just slam it into the browser and pass it an object. However, in module form, it's expected that you'll most likely be integrating this with an existing application. In that case, you'll probably have pretty specific needs around how you would like to save/load data into your GUI and so it's been left out for now.
Local storage however is in the roadmap and will probably be done very soon.
Roadmap
- Loading and storing both default and preset data via
localStorage
- Animations for
DatFolder
expanding/collapsing - Time travel with undo/redo buttons
Better support for floating pointDatNumber
s (rounding etc.)✅