Preface

React was built by Meta to provide more structure to its code base and allow it to scale much better. React worked so well for Facebook that they eventually made it open source. Today, React is the dominant technology for building the frontend of an application; it allows us to build small, isolated, and highly reusable components that can be composed together to create complex frontends.

TypeScript was built by Microsoft to help developers more easily develop large JavaScript-based programs. It is a superset of JavaScript that brings a rich type system to it. This type system helps developers to catch bugs early and allows tools to be created to robustly navigate and refactor code.

This book will teach you how to use both of these technologies to create large, sophisticated frontends that are easy to maintain.

Who this book is for

If you are a developer who wants to create large and complex frontends with React and TypeScript, this book is for you. The book doesn't assume you have any previous knowledge of React or TypeScript - however, basic knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS will help you get to grips with the concepts covered.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing React, covers the fundamentals of building React components. This includes defining component output using JSX, making a component configurable using props, and making a component interactive using states.

Chapter 2, Introducing TypeScript, is all about the fundamentals of TypeScript and its type system. This includes using inbuilt types, as well as creating new types.

Chapter 3, Setting Up React and TypeScript, explains how to create a project for React and TypeScript development. The chapter then moves on to how to create React components that use TypeScript to make props and states type-safe.

Chapter 4, Using React Hooks, details the common React hooks and their typical use cases. The chapter also covers how to use the hooks with TypeScript to make them type-safe.

Chapter 5, Approaches to Styling React Frontends, walks through how to style React components using several different approaches. The benefits of each approach are also explored.

Chapter 6, Routing with React Router, introduces a popular library that provides client-side routing for applications with multiple pages. It covers how to declare the paths for the pages and how to create links between them. It also covers how to implement page parameters for highly dynamic pages.

Chapter 7, Working with Forms, explores how forms can be implemented using several different approaches, including the use of a popular library. The benefits of each approach are also included.

Chapter 8, State Management, walks through how states can be shared between different components. Several approaches are explored, along with their benefits.

Chapter 9, Interacting with RESTful APIs, demonstrates how React components can interact with a REST API. The chapter steps through an approach using core React and then an alternative approach using a popular library.

Chapter 10, Interacting with GraphQL APIs, shows how React components can interact with a GraphQL API. The chapter details how this can be done using two different popular libraries.

Chapter 11, Reusable Components, brings in several patterns for making React components highly reusable but still type-safe.

Chapter 12, Unit Testing with Jest and React Testing Library, first delves into how functions can be tested with Jest. The chapter then moves on to how React components can be tested with the help of the React Testing Library.

To get the most out of this book

To get the most out of this book, you need to know the basics of JavaScript, including the following:

• An understanding of some of the primitive JavaScript types, such as string, number, boolean, null, and undefined
• An understanding of how to create variables and reference them, including arrays and objects
• An understanding of how to create functions and call them
• An understanding of how to create conditional statements with the if and else keywords

You also need to know the basics of HTML, including the following:

• An understanding of basic HTML elements such as div, ul, a, and h1
• An understanding of how to reference a CSS class to style an HTML element

An understanding of basic CSS is also helpful, including the following:

• How to size elements and include margins and padding
• How to position elements
• How to color elements

To follow along with this book, you will need the following technologies installed on your computer:

• A modern browser such as Google Chrome, which can be installed from https://www.google.com/chrome/
• Node.js and npm: You can install them from https://nodejs.org/en/download/
• Visual Studio Code: You can install it from: https://code.visualstudio.com/

Software/hardware covered in the book

React 18.0 or later

TypeScript 4.7 or later

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book's GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Learn-React-with-TypeScript-2nd-Edition. If there's an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/5CvU5.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Here, null is passed because there are no properties."

A block of code is set as follows:

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: "Select System info from the Administration panel."

Tips or important notes

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Get in touch

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