React-Magic and HTMLtoJSX

React-Magic is an experimental library that uses the power of Facebook's React library to inject AJAX-loading goodness into plain old HTML webpages, without having to write any custom JavaScript. You can even use CSS transitions between the pages. Simply add a single script tag (or click a bookmarklet) and "it just works".

HTMLtoJSX is a component of React-Magic that converts HTML to JSX. It can be used standalone, either on the web or via Node.js.

Under the covers

React-Magic intercepts all navigation (link clicks and form posts) and loads the requested page via an AJAX request. React is then used to "diff" the old HTML with the new HTML, and only update the parts of the DOM that have been changed.

Demos

Usage

To use React-Magic, add a <script> tag to the bottom of your page, right above the </body>:

<script src="http://magic.reactjs.net/magic-loader.js"></script>

This handles loading all the required scripts. Alternatively, you can put all the required scripts instead:

<script src="http://fb.me/react-0.13.3.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://fb.me/JSXTransformer-0.13.3.js"></script>
<script src="http://magic.reactjs.net/magic.min.js"></script>

The end result is the same.

A fun party trick is adding a bookmarklet to your browser which can be used to Reactify any plain HTML site. Click it and mystify your friends:

javascript:(function(b){function c(){if(0!==d.length){var e=d.shift(),a=b.createElement("script");a.src=e;a.onload=c;b.body.appendChild(a)}}var d=["http://fb.me/react-0.13.3.min.js","http://fb.me/JSXTransformer-0.13.3.js","http://magic.reactjs.net/magic.min.js"];c();return!1})(document);

This just loads the same scripts as referenced above.

Caveat Emptor

Even magic comes with its limitations. Since this project is experimental, it may not work properly in all browsers. If you're looking for something that works in IE6, you've come to the wrong place.

Development

Run gulp watch from the root to automatically rebuild the compiled JavaScript files as you edit them. To run the unit tests, point a web server to build/site then navigate to test.htm. If you use the LiveReload browser extension, the tests will automatically reload and rerun when you modify any of the JavaScript.

Similar Projects

This project has been inspired by the Ajaxify project, which achieves a similar outcome but using jQuery. What makes React-Magic different is that it only updates the DOM nodes that have changed, whereas Ajaxify and similar solutions just blow away the whole document.body on every page load.

kasperp / react-magic