130 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
130 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
matrix-react-sdk
|
|
================
|
|
|
|
This is a react-based SDK for inserting a Matrix chat/voip client into a web page.
|
|
|
|
This package provides the React components needed to build a Matrix web client
|
|
using React. It is not useable in isolation, and instead must must be used from
|
|
a 'skin'. A skin provides:
|
|
* Customised implementations of presentation components.
|
|
* Custom CSS
|
|
* The containing application
|
|
* Zero or more 'modules' containing non-UI functionality
|
|
|
|
As of Aug 2018, the only skin that exists is `vector-im/riot-web`; it and
|
|
`matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk` should effectively
|
|
be considered as a single project (for instance, matrix-react-sdk bugs
|
|
are currently filed against vector-im/riot-web rather than this project).
|
|
|
|
Translation Status
|
|
==================
|
|
[](https://translate.riot.im/engage/riot-web/?utm_source=widget)
|
|
|
|
Developer Guide
|
|
===============
|
|
|
|
Platform Targets:
|
|
* Chrome, Firefox and Safari.
|
|
* Edge should also work, but we're not testing it proactively.
|
|
* WebRTC features (VoIP and Video calling) are only available in Chrome & Firefox.
|
|
* Mobile Web is not currently a target platform - instead please use the native
|
|
iOS (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-ios-kit) and Android
|
|
(https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-android-sdk) SDKs.
|
|
|
|
All code lands on the `develop` branch - `master` is only used for stable releases.
|
|
**Please file PRs against `develop`!!**
|
|
|
|
Please follow the standard Matrix contributor's guide:
|
|
https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tree/master/CONTRIBUTING.rst
|
|
|
|
Please follow the Matrix JS/React code style as per:
|
|
https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/blob/master/code_style.md
|
|
|
|
Code should be committed as follows:
|
|
* All new components: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/tree/master/src/components
|
|
* Riot-specific components: https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/tree/master/src/components
|
|
* In practice, `matrix-react-sdk` is still evolving so fast that the maintenance
|
|
burden of customising and overriding these components for Riot can seriously
|
|
impede development. So right now, there should be very few (if any) customisations for Riot.
|
|
* CSS: https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/tree/master/src/skins/vector/css/matrix-react-sdk
|
|
* Theme specific CSS & resources: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/tree/master/res/themes
|
|
|
|
React components in matrix-react-sdk are come in two different flavours:
|
|
'structures' and 'views'. Structures are stateful components which handle the
|
|
more complicated business logic of the app, delegating their actual presentation
|
|
rendering to stateless 'view' components. For instance, the RoomView component
|
|
that orchestrates the act of visualising the contents of a given Matrix chat room
|
|
tracks lots of state for its child components which it passes into them for visual
|
|
rendering via props.
|
|
|
|
Good separation between the components is maintained by adopting various best
|
|
practices that anyone working with the SDK needs to be be aware of and uphold:
|
|
|
|
* Components are named with upper camel case (e.g. views/rooms/EventTile.js)
|
|
|
|
* They are organised in a typically two-level hierarchy - first whether the
|
|
component is a view or a structure, and then a broad functional grouping
|
|
(e.g. 'rooms' here)
|
|
|
|
* After creating a new component you must run `npm run reskindex` to regenerate
|
|
the `component-index.js` for the SDK (used in future for skinning)
|
|
|
|
* The view's CSS file MUST have the same name (e.g. view/rooms/MessageTile.css).
|
|
CSS for matrix-react-sdk currently resides in
|
|
https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/tree/master/src/skins/vector/css/matrix-react-sdk.
|
|
|
|
* Per-view CSS is optional - it could choose to inherit all its styling from
|
|
the context of the rest of the app, although this is unusual for any but
|
|
* Theme specific CSS & resources: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/tree/master/res/themes
|
|
structural components (lacking presentation logic) and the simplest view
|
|
components.
|
|
|
|
* The view MUST *only* refer to the CSS rules defined in its own CSS file.
|
|
'Stealing' styling information from other components (including parents)
|
|
is not cool, as it breaks the independence of the components.
|
|
|
|
* CSS classes are named with an app-specific namespacing prefix to try to avoid
|
|
CSS collisions. The base skin shipped by Matrix.org with the matrix-react-sdk
|
|
uses the naming prefix "mx_". A company called Yoyodyne Inc might use a
|
|
prefix like "yy_" for its app-specific classes.
|
|
|
|
* CSS classes use upper camel case when they describe React components - e.g.
|
|
.mx_MessageTile is the selector for the CSS applied to a MessageTile view.
|
|
|
|
* CSS classes for DOM elements within a view which aren't components are named
|
|
by appending a lower camel case identifier to the view's class name - e.g.
|
|
.mx_MessageTile_randomDiv is how you'd name the class of an arbitrary div
|
|
within the MessageTile view.
|
|
|
|
* We deliberately use vanilla CSS 3.0 to avoid adding any more magic
|
|
dependencies into the mix than we already have. App developers are welcome
|
|
to use whatever floats their boat however. In future we'll start using
|
|
css-next to pull in features like CSS variable support.
|
|
|
|
* The CSS for a component can override the rules for child components.
|
|
For instance, .mx_RoomList .mx_RoomTile {} would be the selector to override
|
|
styles of RoomTiles when viewed in the context of a RoomList view.
|
|
Overrides *must* be scoped to the View's CSS class - i.e. don't just define
|
|
.mx_RoomTile {} in RoomList.css - only RoomTile.css is allowed to define its
|
|
own CSS. Instead, say .mx_RoomList .mx_RoomTile {} to scope the override
|
|
only to the context of RoomList views. N.B. overrides should be relatively
|
|
rare as in general CSS inheritence should be enough.
|
|
|
|
* Components should render only within the bounding box of their outermost DOM
|
|
element. Page-absolute positioning and negative CSS margins and similar are
|
|
generally not cool and stop the component from being reused easily in
|
|
different places.
|
|
|
|
Originally `matrix-react-sdk` followed the Atomic design pattern as per
|
|
http://patternlab.io to try to encourage a modular architecture. However, we
|
|
found that the grouping of components into atoms/molecules/organisms
|
|
made them harder to find relative to a functional split, and didn't emphasise
|
|
the distinction between 'structural' and 'view' components, so we backed away
|
|
from it.
|
|
|
|
Github Issues
|
|
=============
|
|
|
|
All issues should be filed under https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues
|
|
for now.
|