react-alive

React Live

A production-focused playground for live editing React code

React Live brings you the ability to render React components and present the user with editable source code and live preview. It supports server-side rendering and comes in a tiny bundle, thanks to Bublé and a Prism.js-based editor.

The library is structured modularly and lets you style its components as you wish and put them where you want.

Usage

Install it with npm install react-live and try out this piece of JSX:

import {
  LiveProvider,
  LiveEditor,
  LiveError,
  LivePreview
} from 'react-live'


  
  
  

Demo

https://react-live-demo.philpl.com/

FAQ

How does it work?

It takes your code and transpiles it through Bublé, while the code is displayed using Prism.js. The transpiled code is then rendered in the preview component, which does a fake mount, if the code is a component.

Easy peasy!

What code can I use?

The code can be one of the following things:

• React elements, e.g. <strong>Hello World!</strong>
• React pure functional components, e.g. () =&gt; <strong>Hello World!</strong>
• React component classes

If you enable the noInline prop on your LiveProvider, you’ll be able to write imperative code, and render one of the above things by calling render.

How does the scope work?

The scope prop on the LiveProvider accepts additional globals. By default it injects React only, which means that the user can use it in their code like this:

//                    ↓↓↓↓↓
class Example extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return <strong>Hello World!</strong>
  }
}

But you can of course pass more things to this scope, that will be available as variables in the code.

API

<LiveProvider />

This component provides the context for all the other ones. It also transpiles the user’s code! It supports these props, while passing all others through to a <div>:

Apart from these props it attaches the .react-live CSS class to its div. All subsequent components must be rendered inside a provider, since they communicate using one.

By default this component will render a <style> tag for the Prism styling. You can decide not to render it and include the react-live.css file instead.

The noInline option kicks the Provider into a different mode, where you can write imperative-style code and nothing gets evaluated and mounted automatically. Your example will need to call render with valid JSX elements.

<LiveEditor />

This component renders the editor that displays the code. It is built using Prism.js and a Content Editable. It accepts these props for styling:

This component renders a Prism.js editor underneath it and also renders all of Prism’s styles inside a style tag. The editor / content editable has an additional .react-live-editor CSS class.

<LiveError />

This component renders any error that occur while executing the code, or transpiling it. It passes through any props to its div and also attaches the .react-live-error CSS class to it.

Note: Right now the component unmounts, when there’s no error to be shown.

<LivePreview />

This component renders the actual component, that the code generates, inside an error boundary. It passes through any props to its div and also attaches the .react-live-preview CSS class to it.

Comparison to component-playground

Component Playground is a similar but different project, that builds on babel-standalone and thus comes with a bigger bundle size. It comes with support for automatic documentation based on PropTypes and an ES6 console. Use it in projects where the page doesn’t have to load quickly, or even where it’s not user-facing, and correctness (Babel) and the additional features are more important than a lean bundle.