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React Shortcuts

Manage keyboard shortcuts from one place.

Intro

Managing keyboard shortcuts can sometimes get messy. Or always, if not implemented the right way.

Real problems:

You can't easily tell which shortcut is bound to which component
You have to write a lot of boilerplate code (addEventListeners, removeEventListeners, ...)
Memory leaks are a real problem if components don’t remove their listeners properly
Platform specific shortcuts is another headache
It's more difficult to implement feature like user-defined shortcuts
You can't easily get allthe application shortcuts and display it (e.g. in settings)

React shortcuts to the rescue!

With react-shortcuts you can declaratively manage shortcuts for each one of your React components.

Important parts of React Shortcuts:

Your keymap definition
ShortcutManager which handles keymap
<Shortcut> component for handling shortcuts

DEMO: http://avocode.github.io/react-shortcuts/

Quick tour

1. `npm install react-shortcuts`

2. Define application shortcuts

Create a new JS, Coffee, JSON or CSON file wherever you want (which probably is your project root). And define the shortcuts for your React component.

Keymap definition

{
 "Namespace": {
   "Action": "Shortcut",
   "Action_2": ["Shortcut", "Shortcut"],
   "Action_3": {
     "osx": "Shortcut",
     "windows": ["Shortcut", "Shortcut"],
     "linux": "Shortcut"
   }
 }
}

Namespace should ideally be the component’s displayName.
Action describes what will be happening. For example MODAL_CLOSE.
Keyboard shortcut can be a string, array of strings or an object which specifies platform differences (Windows, OSX, Linux). The shortcut may be composed of single keys (a, 6,…), combinations (command+shift+k) or sequences (up up down down left right left right B A).

Mousetrap is used under the hood for handling the shortcuts. Read more about how you can specify keys.

Example `keymap` definition (in CoffeeScript):

module.exports =
  TodoItem:
    MOVE_LEFT: 'left'
    MOVE_RIGHT: 'right'
    MOVE_UP: ['up', 'w']
    COPY:
      osx: 'command+c'
      windows: 'ctrl+c'
      linux: 'ctrl+c'

Save this file as keymap.[js|coffee|json|cson] and require it into your main file.

keymap = require './keymap'

3. Rise of the ShortcutsManager

Define your keymap in whichever supported format but in the end it must be an object. ShortcutsManager can’t parse JSON and will certainly not be happy about the situation.

keymap = require './keymap'
ShortcutsManager = require 'react-shortcuts'

shortcutManager = new ShortcutsManager(keymap)

# Or like this

shortcutManager = new ShortcutsManager()
shortcutManager.setKeymap(keymap)

4. Include `shortcutManager` into getChildContext of some parent component. So that `<shortcuts>` can receive it.

App = React.createClass
  displayName: 'App'

  childContextTypes:
    shortcuts: React.PropTypes.object.isRequired

  getChildContext: ->
    shortcuts: shortcutManager

5. Require the component

You need to require the component in the file you want to use shortcuts in. For example <TodoItem>.

Shortcuts = require `react-shortcuts/component`

TodoItem = React.createClass
  displayName: 'TodoItem'

  _handleShortcuts: (action) ->
    switch action
      when 'MOVE_LEFT' then console.log('moving left')
      when 'MOVE_RIGHT' then console.log('moving right')
      when 'MOVE_UP' then console.log('moving up')
      when 'COPY' then console.log('copying stuff')

  render: ->

      div className: 'todo-item',

      Shortcuts
        name: @constructor.displayName
        handler: @_handleShortcuts,

        div null,
          'Buy some milk'

The <Shortcuts> component creates a <shortcuts> element in HTML, binds listeners and adds tabIndex to the element so that it’s focusable. _handleShortcuts is invoked when some of the defined shortcuts fire.

Custom props for `<Shortcuts>` component

handler: func.isRequired
name: string.isRequired
element: func (React.DOM)
- You can render a custom element instead of the default shortcuts one
tabIndex: number
- Default is -1
className: string
eventType: string
- Just for gourmets
stopPropagation: bool
targetNode: DOM Node
- Use this one with caution. It binds listeners to the provided string instead of the component.