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