tree-component-example

This is an example tree component in React TS.

Setup

• With yarn

  yarn
  

• With npm

  npm i
  

Run project

• With yarn

  yarn dev
  

• With npm

  npm run dev
  

Usage

Given the example data structure defined in data.mock.ts, it is possible to render a navigable tree of directories with the following component:

<Tree
data={data}
onSelect={handleSelect}
getId={getId}
>

In addition, the component offers actions at the top such as:

• Expand, collapse all nodes
• Add new files/directories

Props

name	required	type	description
data	✅	TTreeNode	Recursive data structure that represents a tree model
onSelect	✅	Function	Triggered when node is selected or deselected
getId	✅	Function	Required function to generate unique id's for each node

Design notes

The main components of the application are:

• TreeNode: represents a tree node, whether it is a node or a leaf.
• TreeContainer: renders the possible actions and initializes the root node.
• TreeContext/TreeProvider: represents the shared state for a particular tree and the allowed state mutations. It is the source of truth for the Tree.

And secondarily, it is also worth mentioning these components:

• NodeViewer: a naive example of rendering any node
• App: provides the split layout with the main components of the application, Tree and NodeViewer.

Tree is mainly supported by 2 pieces, the TreeNode as a recursive Component that navigates through the data structure, and the TreeContext that provides source of truth and state mutation.

To manage the state, it is important that the consumer defines a getId function to identify any node of the tree, as the rest of the operations rely on this.

For example, the expanded state is defined as a hashmap of nodeIds/booleans so we can directly access its state. Also, the expand/collapse changes all these IDs to the desired state.

There is also an interesting concept of path as a number[] that every node knows at render-time, so we can programmatically navigate to a specific node of the tree. This is mainly used by the creation or update of nodes. This is also important since, depending on the selected target-node at creation, we may create the new node as a sibling or child.

Finally, TreeNodes have the ability to edit their names by double-clicking their names, which will be saved on blur.

We use CSS modules with SASS to provide styles to the component, but we can definitely choose another strategy theme-based, or a component library like Material-UI. This is a simple solution that avoids class collision and also enforces file colocation.

The project is configured with a linter and formatter to enforce best practices.

Future improvements

• Current getId cannot support repeated filenames or directory at different levels. We could try to integrate the tree path in the id generation to avoid name collisions. A simple workaround I have applied in this example is to ensure new nodes have unique default names.
• Delegated getChildren and render methods so we can fully abstract tree-renderer from tree-model and define its components with TS Generics.
• Re-render performance, try to avoid full tree render for subtree changes. Maybe migrating the shared Tree state from context to useReducer could help.
• new nodes should be compliant with the consumer datamodel (files, directories), so we can define better defaults for each kind.
• Better UI
• creatable/draggable as optional features
• loader state
• search input to filter nodes