Can I use jsx without React to inline HTML in script?
Solution 1:
I was able to write JSX files and inject them into an HTML page using a 'fake' React file.
no-react.js
/**
* Include this script in your HTML to use JSX compiled code without React.
*/
const React = {
createElement: function (tag, attrs, children) {
var element = document.createElement(tag);
for (let name in attrs) {
if (name && attrs.hasOwnProperty(name)) {
let value = attrs[name];
if (value === true) {
element.setAttribute(name, name);
} else if (value !== false && value != null) {
element.setAttribute(name, value.toString());
}
}
}
for (let i = 2; i < arguments.length; i++) {
let child = arguments[i];
element.appendChild(
child.nodeType == null ?
document.createTextNode(child.toString()) : child);
}
return element;
}
};
Then compile your jsx.
test.jsx
const title = "Hello World";
document.getElementById('app').appendChild(
<div>
<h1>{title}</h1>
<h2>This is a template written in TSX, then compiled to JSX by tsc (the Typescript compiler), and finally
injected into a web page using a script</h2>
</div>
);
Resulting compiled 'test.js'
var title = "Hello World";
document.querySelector('#app').appendChild(React.createElement("div", null,
React.createElement("h1", null, title),
React.createElement("h2", null, "This is a template written in TSX, then compiled to JSX by tsc (the Typescript compiler), and finally" + " " + "injected into a web page")));
And finally, the HTML page that includes both scripts.
index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>no-react</title>
<script src="no-react.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="app"></div>
</body>
</html>
<script src="test.js"></script>
Solution 2:
React renders JSX html syntax to JS using functions such as React.createElement (among others for Fragments and so on). But that all boils down to the @babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx plugin which does the transpiling of this:
return(<div id="hello">Hello World</div>)
into this...
return React.createElement('div', {id: 'hello'}, 'Hello World');
However you can replace React.createElement with you're own function to do this. You can read more on that here: https://babeljs.io/docs/en/next/babel-plugin-transform-react-jsx.html
You should also look at libraries which do exactly this such as nervjs, jsx-render and deku. All of these use a JSX html syntax without react. Some (such as jsx-render) are only focused on converting JSX to the final JS, which might be what you're looking for.
The author of that package wrote an article on it here: https://itnext.io/lessons-learned-using-jsx-without-react-bbddb6c28561
Also Typescript can do this if you use that...but I've no first hand experience with it.
To sum up
You can do it without React, but not without Babel or Typescript.
Solution 3:
JSX is not a string-based templating language; it compiles to actual JavaScript function calls. For example,
<div attr1="something" attr2="other">
Here are some <span>children</span>
</div>
transpiles to
React.createElement("div", {attr1: "something", attr2: "other"},
"Here are some ", React.createElement("span", null, "children")
)
Solution 4:
I was looking for something like this myself. A way to write Components and JSX like for simple projects. Didn't find one that I liked so I've built this: https://github.com/SagiMedina/Aviya#aviya Have a look, maybe it will answer your problem as well.
Solution 5:
You will need something to transform the JSX into JS function calls. React uses Babel to do this -- you would probably be best off with that too.
There's a library by the creators of Preact that essentially does what you're after called vhtml. The tagline is "Render JSX/Hyperscript to HTML strings, without VDOM".
Here is a copy of the Readme at time of writing:
Usage
// import the library:
import h from 'vhtml';
// tell babel to transpile JSX to h() calls:
/** @jsx h */
// now render JSX to an HTML string!
let items = ['one', 'two', 'three'];
document.body.innerHTML = (
<div class="foo">
<h1>Hi!</h1>
<p>Here is a list of {items.length} items:</p>
<ul>
{ items.map( item => (
<li>{ item }</li>
)) }
</ul>
</div>
);
New: "Sortof" Components!
vhtml intentionally does not transform JSX to a Virtual DOM, instead serializing it directly to HTML. However, it's still possible to make use of basic Pure Functional Components as a sort of "template partial".
When vhtml is given a Function as the JSX tag name, it will invoke that function and pass it { children, ...props }. This is the same signature as a Pure Functional Component in react/preact, except children is an Array of already-serialized HTML strings.
This actually means it's possible to build compositional template modifiers with these simple Components, or even higher-order components.
Here's a more complex version of the previous example that uses a component to encapsulate iteration items:
let items = ['one', 'two'];
const Item = ({ item, index, children }) => (
<li id={index}>
<h4>{item}</h4>
{children}
</li>
);
console.log(
<div class="foo">
<h1>Hi!</h1>
<ul>
{ items.map( (item, index) => (
<Item {...{ item, index }}>
This is item {item}!
</Item>
)) }
</ul>
</div>
);
The above outputs the following HTML:
<div class="foo">
<h1>Hi!</h1>
<ul>
<li id="0">
<h4>one</h4>This is item one!
</li>
<li id="1">
<h4>two</h4>This is item two!
</li>
</ul>
</div>