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BlazorState

A collection of libraries to help manage state in Blazor applications.

deployment

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For recent changes see CHANGELOG

BlazorState.Hooks

Is an easy and light weight way of managing state in Blazor app. It is very similar to "Hooks" feature in React, but different.

To use Hooks, install BlazorState.Hooks Nuget package.

Install-Package BlazorState.Hooks

or

dotnet add package BlazorState.Hooks

In the Startup.cs add services.AddHooks(); to register necessary dependencies.

Transient component state

Inherit your component from HookedComponentBase. Define state using UseState method in the markup.

@inherits HookedComponentBase

@{ var (count, setCount) = UseState(InitialCount); }
<p>Current count: @count</p>
<div class="form-group">
    <button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="() => setCount(count + 1)">+1</button>
    <button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="() => setCount(count - 1)">-1</button>
    <button class="btn btn-danger" @onclick="() => setCount(0)">Reset</button>
</div>

In this case component state is created per component instance and disposed when component gets disposed.

See CounterOnHooks.razor for an example.

Persistent component state

Allows the component state to be mapped to an entity outside the component's lifetime.

Inherit your component from PersistedHookedComponentBase<TState>, provide type of the object used to store state. Define state using UseState method. PersistedHookedComponentBase<TState> will look for Props property of type TState. You can override GetStateProperty method to control the property used.

@inherits PersistedHookedComponentBase<PersistedCounterState>

@{ var (count, setCount) = UseState(s => s.Count); }
<p>Current count: @count</p>
<div class="form-group">
    <button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="() => setCount(count + 1)">+1</button>
    <button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="() => setCount(count - 1)">-1</button>
    <button class="btn btn-danger" @onclick="() => setCount(0)">Reset</button>
</div>
  @code {

    [Parameter]
    public PersistedCounterState Props { get; set; }
  
  }

By default, value is immediately set to the backing entity property, this behavior can be changed by calling DeferStatePersistans method in the component initializer. Later when ready to synchronize state with a backing object, call Persist method. See, CounterOnHooksDeferredPersisted for an example.

All samples can be found here samples.

BlazorState.Redux

As the name suggests it is a port of React-Redux library to Blazor/.NET world.

Why should I care?

Redux is a popular library for managing state in SPA applications. Key benefits of using Redux:

  1. Single source of truth. The whole state of the application is in one place, the store.
  2. It helps to enforce unidirectional data flow in the application, thus making state mutations more predictable and easier to understand.
  3. It helps separate presentational components from container components (state aware components).
  4. Great DevTools makes it easy to see how the state of the application is changing in time.

More on Redux here.

Refer to samples in the repository for usage examples.

Installing

Install BlazorState.Redux from NuGet

Install-Package BlazorState.Redux

or

dotnet add package BlazorState.Redux

Shaping the state of the application

The state in Redux is a tree. Here is an example of the state object for a sample application:

    public class RootState
    {
        public int Count { get; set; }

        public WeatherState Weather { get; set; }
    }

where WeatherState is:

    public class WeatherState
    {
        public WeatherState(IEnumerable<WeatherForecast> forecasts)
        {
            Forecasts = forecasts;
        }

        public IEnumerable<WeatherForecast> Forecasts { get; private set; }
    }

Note: Name RootState is completely arbitrary and can be anything.

In Redux, state is immutable, meaning that if it needs to change a new state object is created. For that purpose, WeatherState does not expose setters for its properties.

RootState change is handled by an out of the box reducer and must have a default constructor.

Boilerplate code

When state shape is defined, some configuration needs to be put in place for Redux to work.

In your services configuration (Startup.cs or Program.cs) add the following line:

services.AddReduxStore<RootState>(cfg =>
{
    // TODO: Configure reducers and actions
});

This registers all services needed for Redux to function properly. Also, it provides a configurator that can be used to configure reducers, actions, and other options. See Configuration section below.

Next, in App.razor add a BlazorRedux component before Router component.

<BlazorRedux />
<Router AppAssembly="@typeof(Program).Assembly">
    <Found Context="routeData">
        <RouteView RouteData="@routeData" DefaultLayout="@typeof(MainLayout)" />
    </Found>
    <NotFound>
        <LayoutView Layout="@typeof(MainLayout)">
            <p>Sorry, there's nothing at this address.</p>
        </LayoutView>
    </NotFound>
</Router>

For the component to be found @using BlazorState.Redux.Blazor statement needs to be added to _Imports.razor.

BlazorRedux component is responsible for bootstrapping Redux store and dev tools, if enabled.

Defining components

As in React-Redux there are also two kinds of component in Blazor-Redux. First, is presentational component, this component does not have access to the application state and takes all it needs from props object that is passed to it. Similarly, the outgoing communication is also done through callbacks, that are passed with props. In simple words, this component only renders data that is passed to it.

Here is an example of the Counter presentational component:

<h1>Counter</h1>

<p>Current count: @Props.Count</p>

<button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="Props.IncrementByOne">+1</button>
<button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="() => Props.IncrementBy.InvokeAsync(5)">+5</button>
<button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="() => Props.IncrementBy.InvokeAsync(10)">+10</button>

<button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="Props.DecrementByOne">-1</button>
<button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="() => Props.DecrementBy.InvokeAsync(5)">-5</button>
<button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="() => Props.DecrementBy.InvokeAsync(10)">-10</button>

<button class="btn btn-danger" @onclick="Props.Reset">Reset</button>

@code {
    [Parameter] public CounterProps Props { get; set; }
}

where CounterProps is

public class CounterProps
{
    public int Count { get; set; }

    public EventCallback IncrementByOne { get; set; }

    public EventCallback<int> IncrementBy { get; set; }

    public EventCallback DecrementByOne { get; set; }

    public EventCallback<int> DecrementBy { get; set; }

    public EventCallback Reset { get; set; }
}

Second, is container component, or connected component. It is called connected, because it knows about the store and it is responsible for mapping the state to the props and dispatching actions in response to presentational component callbacks.

Here is an example of the CounterConnected component:

public class CounterConnected : ConnectedComponent<Counter, RootState, CounterProps>
{
    protected override void MapStateToProps(RootState state, CounterProps props)
    {
        props.Count = state?.Count ?? 0;
    }
    protected override void MapDispatchToProps(IStore<RootState> store, CounterProps props)
    {
        props.IncrementByOne = EventCallback.Factory.Create(this, () =>
        {
            store.Dispatch(new IncrementByOneAction());
        });
        props.IncrementBy = EventCallback.Factory.Create<int>(this, amount =>
        {
            store.Dispatch(new IncrementByAction { Amount = amount });
        });
        props.DecrementByOne = EventCallback.Factory.Create(this, () =>
        {
            store.Dispatch(new DecrementByOneAction());
        });
        props.DecrementBy = EventCallback.Factory.Create<int>(this, amount =>
        {
            store.Dispatch(new DecrementByAction { Amount = amount });
        });
        props.Reset = EventCallback.Factory.Create(this, () =>
        {
            store.Dispatch(new ResetCountAction());
        });
    }

    protected async override Task Init(IStore<RootState> store)
    {
        // Optional
    }
}

Connected component must inherit from ConnectedComponent and provide 3 type arguments:

  1. Presentational component to connect
  2. Type of the application state (Root state)
  3. Props type of the presentational component

ConnectedComponent base class defines two abstract methods that need to be implemented:

  1. MapStateToProps - method responsible for mapping state object to presentational component props object. This method is called every time the state changes.
  2. MapDispatchToProp - method responsible for mapping presentational components callbacks to dispatch methods. This method is called once, when component initializes.

Additionally, there is an Init method that can be used to do data fetching or some other initialization logic. See '['Async actions' for more details.

Making some actions

Actions are payloads of information that send data from your application to your store. They are the only source of information for the store. Send them to the store using store.Dispatch().

Example of IncrementByAction action:

public class IncrementByAction : IAction
{
    public int Amount { get; set; }
}

Actions must implement IAction interface, otherwise they are Plain Old CLR Objects classes.

Reducers

Reducers specify how the application's state changes in response to actions sent to the store. Here is an example of the CountReducer:

public class CountReducer : IReducer<int>
{
    public int Reduce(int state, IAction action)
    {
        switch (action)
        {
            case IncrementByOneAction _:
                return state + 1;
            case DecrementByOneAction _:
                return state - 1;
            case IncrementByAction a:
                return state + a.Amount;
            case DecrementByAction a:
                return state - a.Amount;
            case ResetCountAction _:
                return 0;
            default:
                return state;
        }
    }
}

Reducer must implement IReducer<TState> interface, where TState is a type of state this particular reducer handles. In the example above, the state this reducer handles is of type int, but it can be any C# object. It is important to remember that reducer is a pure function, it should not produce side effects. In case of a change reducer must always return new state and should never modify existing state. For example, WeatherReducer will look like this:

public class WeatherReducer : IReducer<WeatherState>
{
    private static Random random = new Random();
    public WeatherState Reduce(WeatherState state, IAction action)
    {
        switch (action)
        {
            case ReceiveWeatherForecastsAction a:
                return new WeatherState(a.Forecasts);
            case AddRandomForecast a:
                var forecasts = new List<WeatherForecast>(state.Forecasts);
                forecasts.Add(new WeatherForecast
                {
                    Date = DateTime.Today.AddDays(random.Next(1, 30)),
                    Summary = $"There is {random.Next(0, 100)}% chance of rain.",
                    TemperatureC = random.Next(10, 40)
                });
                return new WeatherState(forecasts);
            default:
                return state;
        }
    }
}

Mapping reducers to state

Once reducers defined, they need to be mapped to the corresponding state property that they handle. This is done in Startup.cs using config object of the AddReduxStore method:

services.AddReduxStore<RootState>(cfg =>
{
    cfg.Map<CountReducer, int>(s => s.Count);
    cfg.Map<WeatherReducer, WeatherState>(s => s.Weather);
});

Note: Reducer must have a default parameter-less constructor.

Render component

When all necessary components are in place, it is time to place component(s) on the page. This is typically done by using static Get method on the connected component. See section Defining components for more details. This method returns RenderFragment that can be directly rendered on the page. Clean and simple.

Here is an example of the Counter page rendering Counter component.

@page "/counter"

<CounterConnected />

DevTools

To configure DevTools, add cfg.UseReduxDevTools(); to the configuration callback in Startup.cs:

services.AddReduxStore<RootState>(cfg =>
{
    cfg.UseReduxDevTools();
    cfg.Map<CountReducer, int>(s => s.Count);
    cfg.Map<WeatherReducer, WeatherState>(s => s.Weather);
});

Assuming that ReduxDevTools is installed, open your browser of choice developer tools and enjoy time travel debugging and other goodness of ReduxDevTools.

Async actions

Actions we've seen so far were synchronous, but sooner or later application needs to make asynchronous request for data to the server. For such a case BlazorState.Redux has a concept of async actions.

Here is an example of async action fetching weather information from the server:

public class FetchWeather : IAsyncAction
{
    private readonly HttpClient _http;

    public FetchWeather(HttpClient http)
    {
        _http = http;
    }

    public async Task Execute(IDispatcher dispatcher)
    {
        var forecasts = await _http.GetJsonAsync<WeatherForecast[]>("sample-data/weather.json");
        dispatcher.Dispatch(new ReceiveWeatherForecastsAction
        {
            Forecasts = forecasts
        });
    }
}

Async action must implement IAsyncAction or IAsyncAction<TParam> interface. Both interfaces have only one method, Execute, the difference is that IAsyncAction<TParam> expect a second parameter. This parameter is a user-defined object of any type. For example:

public class DeleteIdentity : IAsyncAction<IdentityViewModel>
{
    private readonly HttpClient _client;

    public DeleteIdentity(HttpClient client)
    {
        _client = client;
    }

    public async Task Execute(IDispatcher dispatcher, IdentityViewModel identity)
    {
        await _client.Delete<IdentityViewModel>(identity.Id);
        await dispatcher.Dispatch<FetchIdentities>();
    }
}

To dispatch async action, use the store.Dispatch<TAsyncAction> method.

private async Task Init(IStore<RootState> store)
{
    await store.Dispatch<FetchWeather>();
}

Last, but not least, actions must be registered in Startup.cs. There are two options:

  1. Register each action separately. cfg.RegisterAsyncAction<WeatherForecast>();
  2. Register all actions in assembly. cfg.RegisterActionsFromAssemblyContaining<FetchWeather>();
services.AddReduxStore<RootState>(cfg =>
{
    cfg.RegisterActionsFromAssemblyContaining<FetchWeather>();
});

Location tracking

In some cases it is desirable to store current page address in the state. Once such case might be to navigate user back to the same page where he left during last session. This is supported by Redux out of the box, and can be configured by adding cfg.TrackUserNavigation(s => s.Location); to Startup.cs:

services.AddReduxStore<RootState>(cfg =>
{
    cfg.TrackUserNavigation(s => s.Location);
});

s => s.Location is the property on the RootState. This property must be of type string. When configured, special NavigationAction will be dispatched every time user navigates to another page. Navigation Action Example

If state is persisted, Redux will handle navigating user back to the page stored in the state on the first request.

Persisting and restoring state

This is done automatically by Redux, the only action required is configuring state storage. BlazorState.Redux has out of the box implementation that uses browser Local Storage to persist and restore state. To use it, install Blazor.Redux.Storage NuGet package and add cfg.UseLocalStorage(); to the config callback in Startup.cs:

services.AddReduxStore<RootState>(cfg =>
{
    cfg.UseLocalStorage();
});