Rum is a client/server library for HTML UI. In ClojureScript, it works as React wrapper, in Clojure, it is a static HTML generator.
Simple semantics: Rum is arguably smaller, simpler and more straightforward than React itself.
Decomplected: Rum is a library, not a framework. Use only the parts you need, throw away or replace what you don’t need, combine different approaches in a single app, or even combine Rum with other frameworks.
No enforced state model: Unlike Om, Reagent or Quiescent, Rum does not dictate where to keep your state. Instead, it works well with any storage: persistent data structures, atoms, DataScript, JavaScript objects, localStorage or any custom solution you can think of.
Extensible: the API is stable and explicitly defined, including the API between Rum internals. It lets you build custom behaviours that change components in significant ways.
Minimal codebase: You can become a Rum expert just by reading its source code (~900 lines).
Rum:
- does not dictate how to store your state,
- has server-side rendering,
- is much smaller.
- Cognician, coaching platform
- Attendify, mobile app builder
- PartsBox.io, inventory management
- modnaKasta, online shopping
- ChildrensHeartSurgery.info, heart surgery statistics
- Mighty Hype, cinema platform (server-side rendering)
- БезопасныеДороги.рф, road data aggregator
- TourneyBot, frisbee tournament app
- PurposeFly, HR 2.0 platform
Add to project.clj: [rum "0.10.8"]
Use rum.core/defc
(short for “define component”) to define a function that returns component markup:
(require [rum.core :as rum])
(rum/defc label [text]
[:div {:class "label"} text])
Rum uses Hiccup-like syntax for defining markup:
[<tag-n-selector> <attrs>? <children>*]
<tag-n-selector>
defines a tag, its id and classes:
:span
:span#id
:span.class
:span#id.class
:span.class.class2
By default, if you omit the tag, div
is assumed:
:#id === :div#id
:.class === :div.class
<attrs>
is an optional map of attributes:
- Use kebab-case keywords for attributes (e.g.
:allow-full-screen
forallowFullScreen
) - You can include
:id
and:class
there as well :class
can be a string or a sequence of strings:style
, if needed, must be a map with kebab-case keywords- event handlers should be arity-one functions
[:input { :type "text"
:allow-full-screen true
:id "comment"
:class ["input_active" "input_error"]
:style { :background-color "#EEE"
:margin-left 42 }
:on-change (fn [e]
(js/alert (.. e -target -value))) }]
<children>
is a zero, one or many elements (strings or nested tags) with the same syntax:
[:div {} "Text"] ;; tag, attrs, nested text
[:div {} [:span]] ;; tag, attrs, nested tag
[:div "Text"] ;; omitted attrs
[:div "A" [:em "B"] "C"] ;; 3 children, mix of text and tags
Children can include lists or sequences which will be flattened:
[:div (list [:i "A"] [:b "B"])] === [:div [:i "A"] [:b "B"]]
By default all text nodes are escaped. To embed an unescaped string into a tag, add the :dangerouslySetInnerHTML
attribute and omit children:
[:div { :dangerouslySetInnerHTML {:__html "<span></span>"}}]
Given this code:
(require [rum.core :as rum])
(rum/defc repeat-label [n text]
[:div (repeat n [:.label text])])
First, we need to create a component instance by calling its function:
(repeat-label 5 "abc")
Then we need to pass that instance to (rum.core/mount comp dom-node)
:
(rum/mount (repeat-label 5 "abc") js/document.body)
And we will get this result:
<body>
<div>
<div class="label">abc</div>
<div class="label">abc</div>
<div class="label">abc</div>
<div class="label">abc</div>
<div class="label">abc</div>
</div>
</body>
Usually, mount
is used just once in an app lifecycle to mount the top of your component tree to a page. After that, for a dynamic applications, you should either update your components or rely on them to update themselves.
The simplest way to update your app is to mount it again:
(rum/defc timer []
[:div (.toISOString (js/Date.))])
(rum/mount (timer) js/document.body)
(js/setInterval
#(rum/mount (timer) js/document.body)
1000)
Rum offers mixins as a way to hook into a component’s lifecycle and extend its capabilities or change its behaviour.
One very common use-case is for a component to update when some reference changes. Rum has a rum.core/reactive
mixin just for that:
(def count (atom 0))
(rum/defc counter < rum/reactive []
[:div { :on-click (fn [_] (swap! count inc)) }
"Clicks: " (rum/react count)])
(rum/mount (counter) js/document.body)
Two things are happening here:
- We’re adding the
rum.core/reactive
mixin to the component. - We’re using
rum.core/react
instead ofderef
in the component body.
This will set up a watch on the count
atom and will automatically call rum.core/request-render
on the component each time the atom changes.
Sometimes you need to keep track of some mutable data just inside a component and nowhere else. Rum provides the rum.core/local
mixin. It’s a little trickier to use, so hold on:
- Each component in Rum has internal state associated with it, normally used by mixins and Rum internals.
rum.core/local
creates a mixin that will put an atom into the component’s state.rum.core/defcs
is used instead ofrum.core/defc
. It allows you to get hold of the components’s state in the render function (it will be passed as a first argument).- You can then extract that atom from the component’s state and
deref
/swap!
/reset!
it as usual. - Any change to the atom will force the component to update.
In practice, it’s quite convenient to use:
(rum/defcs stateful < (rum/local 0 ::key)
[state label]
(let [local-atom (::key state)]
[:div { :on-click (fn [_] (swap! local-atom inc)) }
label ": " @local-atom]))
(rum/mount (stateful "Click count") js/document.body)
If your component accepts only immutable data structures as arguments, it may be a good idea to add the rum.core/static
mixin:
(rum/defc label < rum/static [n text]
[:.label (repeat n text)])
rum.core/static
will check if the arguments of a component’s constructor have changed (using Clojure’s -equiv
semantic), and if they are the same, avoid re-rendering.
(rum/mount (label 1 "abc") body)
(rum/mount (label 1 "abc") body) ;; render won’t be called
(rum/mount (label 1 "xyz") body) ;; this will cause a re-render
(rum/mount (label 1 "xyz") body) ;; this won’t
Note that this is not enabled by default because a) comparisons can be expensive, and b) things will go wrong if you pass a mutable reference as an argument.
Many applications have very specific requirements and custom optimization opportunities, so odds are you’ll be writing your own mixins.
Let’s see what a Rum component really is. Each Rum component has:
- A render function
- One or more mixins
- An internal state map
- A corresponding React component
For example, if we have this component defined:
(rum/defc input [label value]
[:label label ": "
[:input { :value value }]])
(input "Your name" "")
It will have the following state:
{ :rum/args ["Your name" ""]
:rum/react-component <react-component> }
You can read the internal state by using the rum.core/defcs
(short for “define component [and pass] state”) macro instead of rum.core/defc
. It will pass state
to the render function as the first argument:
(rum/defcs label [state label value]
[:div "My args:" (pr-str (:rum/args state))])
(label "A" 3) ;; => <div>My args: ["A" 3]</div>
The internal state cannot be directly manipulated, except at certain stages of a component’s lifecycle. Mixins are functions that are invoked at these stages to give you and opportunity to modify the state and/or do side effects to the world.
The following mixin will record the component’s mount time:
(rum/defcs time-label < { :will-mount (fn [state]
(assoc state ::time (js/Date.))) }
[state label]
[:div label ": " (str (::time state))])
As you can see, :will-mount
is a function from state
to state
. It gives you a chance to populate, clean or modify state map the moment before the component has been mounted.
Another useful thing you can do in a mixin is to decide when to update a component. If you can get ahold of React component (notice that that’s different from Rum component, unfortunately; sorry), you can call rum.core/request-render
to schedule this component’s update at next frame (Rum uses requestAnimationFrame
to batch and debounce component update calls). To get React component, just look up :rum/react-component
key in a state.
This mixin will update a component each second:
(def periodic-update-mixin
{ :did-mount (fn [state]
(let [comp (:rum/react-component state)
callback #(rum/request-render comp)
interval (js/setInterval callback 1000)]
(assoc state ::interval interval)))
:will-unmount (fn [state]
(js/clearInterval (::interval state))
(dissoc state ::interval)) })
(rum/defc timer < periodic-update-mixin []
[:div (.toISOString (js/Date.))])
(rum/mount (timer) js/document.body)
Here’s a full list of callbacks you can define in a mixin:
{ :init ;; state, props ⇒ state
:will-mount ;; state ⇒ state
:before-render ;; state ⇒ state
:wrap-render ;; render-fn ⇒ render-fn
:render ;; state ⇒ [pseudo-dom state]
:did-mount ;; state ⇒ state
:after-render ;; state ⇒ state
:did-remount ;; old-state, state ⇒ state
:should-update ;; old-state, state ⇒ boolean
:will-update ;; state ⇒ state
:did-update ;; state ⇒ state
:will-unmount } ;; state ⇒ state
Each component can have any number of mixins:
(rum/defcs component < rum/static
rum/reactive
(rum/local 0 ::count)
(rum/local "" ::text)
[state label]
(let [count-atom (::count state)
text-atom (::text state)]
[:div])
One gotcha: don’t forget to return state
from the mixin functions. If you’re using them for side-effects only, just return an unmodified state
.
Since Rum relies a lot at components being able to efficiently update themselves in reaction to events, it includes two facilities to build architectures around Atoms and watchers.
Cursors
If you have a complex state and need a component to interact with only a part of it, create a cursor using (rum.core/cursor-in ref path)
. Given atom with deep nested value and path inside it, cursor-in
will create an atom-like structure that can be used separately from main atom, but will sync changes both ways:
(def state (atom { :color "#cc3333"
:user { :name "Ivan" } }))
(def user-name (rum/cursor-in state [:user :name]))
@user-name ;; => "Ivan"
(reset! user-name "Oleg") ;; => "Oleg"
@state ;; => { :color "#cc3333"
;; :user { :name "Oleg" } }
Cursors implement IAtom
and IWatchable
and interface-wise are drop-in replacement for regular atoms. They work well with rum/reactive
and rum/react
too.
Derived atoms
Use derived atoms to create “chains” and acyclic graphs of dependent atoms. derived-atom
will:
- Take N “source” refs
- Set up a watch on each of them
- Create “sink” atom
- When any of source refs changes:
- re-run function
f
, passing N dereferenced values of source refs reset!
result off
to the sink atom
- re-run function
- return sink atom
(def *a (atom 0))
(def *b (atom 1))
(def *x (derived-atom [*a *b] ::key
(fn [a b]
(str a \":\" b))))
(type *x) ;; => clojure.lang.Atom
@*x ;; => 0:1
(swap! *a inc)
@*x ;; => 1:1
(reset! *b 7)
@*x ;; => 1:7
Derived atoms are like cursors, but can “depend on” multiple references and won’t sync changes back to the source if you try to update derived atom (don’t).
Native React component
You can access the raw React component by reading the state’s :rum/react-component
attribute:
{ :did-mount (fn [state]
(let [comp (:rum/react-component state)
dom-node (js/ReactDOM.findDOMNode comp)]
(set! (.-width (.-style dom-node)) "100px"))
state) }
React keys and refs
There’re three ways to specify React keys:
- If you need a key on Sablono tag, put it into attributes:
[:div { :key "x" }]
- If you need a key on Rum component, use
with-key
:
(rum/defc my-component [str]
...)
(rum/with-key (my-component "args") "x")
- or, you can specify
:key-fn
in a mixin to calculate key based on args at component creation time:
(rum/defc my-component < { :key-fn (fn [x y z]
(str x "-" y "-" z)) }
[x y z]
...)
(my-component 1 2 3) ;; => key == "1-2-3"
:key-fn
must accept same arguments your render function does.
Refs work the same way as options 1 and 2 for keys work:
[:div { :ref "x" }]
(rum/with-ref (my-component) "x")
Accessing DOM
There’re couple of helpers that will, given state map, find stuff in it for you:
(rum/dom-node state) ;; => top-level DOM node
(rum/ref state "x") ;; => ref-ed React component
(rum/ref-node state "x") ;; => top-level DOM node of ref-ed React component
Custom class properties
To define arbitrary properties and methods on a component class, specify a :class-properties
map in a mixin:
(rum/defc comp < { :class-properties { ... } }
[:div]))
To define static properties on a component class, specify a :static-properties
map in a mixin:
(rum/defc comp < { :static-properties { ... } }
[:div]))
React context
To define child context
- Add dependency
[cljsjs/prop-types "15.5.10-1"]
(require [cljsjs.prop-types])
- Specify a
:child-context
function taking state and returning context map in a mixin:
(rum/defc theme < { :child-context
(fn [state]
(let [[color] (:rum/args state)]
{ :color color }))
:static-properties
{ :childContextTypes {:color js/PropTypes.string} } }
[color child]
child)
If used from clj/cljc, Rum works as a traditional template engine à la Hiccup:
- Import
rum.core
as usual. - Define components using
rum/defc
or other macros as usual. - Instead of mounting, call
rum/render-html
to render into a string. - Generate the HTML page using that string.
- On the client side, mount the same component over the node where you rendered your server-side component.
(require '[rum.core :as rum])
(rum/defc my-comp [s]
[:div s])
;; on a server
(rum/render-html (my-comp "hello"))
;; => "<div data-reactroot=\"\" data-reactid=\"1\" data-react-checksum=\"-857140882\">hello</div>"
;; on a client
(rum/mount (my-comp "hello") js/document.body)
Use rum/render-static-markup
if you’re not planning to connect your page with React later:
(rum/render-static-markup (my-comp "hello")) ;; => <div>hello</div>
Rum server-side rendering does not use React or Sablono, it runs completely in JVM, without involving JavaScript at any stage.
As of [rum "0.8.3"]
and [hiccup "1.0.5"]
, Rum is ~3× times faster than Hiccup.
Server-side components do not have full lifecycle support, but :init
and :will-mount
from mixins would be called at the component’s construction time.
- Ask for help on Gitter chat
- Check out our wiki
- Rum workshop at Cognician, by me
- Norbert Wójtowicz talk at Lambda Days 2015 where he explains benefits of web development with ClojureScript and React, and how Rum emulates all main ClojureScript frameworks
- Hangout about Rum (in Russian)
- Reforms, Bootstrap 3 forms
- rum-mdl, Material design lite components
- derivatives, creates chains of derived values from an atom
- scrum, state coordination framework
- Antizer Ant Design component library
- In this repo see examples/rum/examples/. Live version
- DataScript Chat app
- DataScript ToDo app
- DataScript Menu app
Rum was build on inspiration from Quiescent, Om and Reagent.
All heavy lifting done by React, Ŝablono and ClojureScript.
Copyright © 2014–2016 Nikita Prokopov
Licensed under Eclipse Public License (see LICENSE).