[PUB-1552] Add Pub/Sub React getting started guide #2534

VeskeR · 2025-04-15T08:05:02Z

Description

This PR adds a new getting started guide for Ably Pub/Sub with React.

This getting started guide is intended to replace the existing one at https://ably.com/docs/getting-started/react, which can be found at content/getting-started/react.textile. Due to some issues explained in this comment currently this PR adds a new file react-new.textile for the Pub/Sub React getting started guide.

Resolves PUB-1552

Checklist

Commits have been rebased.
Linting has been run against the changed file(s).
The PR adheres to the writing style guide and contribution guide.

coderabbitai · 2025-04-15T08:05:09Z

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VeskeR · 2025-04-15T08:21:47Z

So there already exists content/getting-started/react.textile file which renders at https://ably.com/docs/getting-started/react. I couldn't straight up replace it with the new content as there are a bunch of places in the docs that reference that file:

30 results - 12 files

content\getting-started\quickstart.textile:
  53:     The JavaScript SDK can be used with React and React Native. We also provide a dedicated "React Hooks package.":/docs/getting-started/react

content\getting-started\setup.textile:
  42:     The JavaScript SDK can be used with React and React Native. We also provide a dedicated "React Hooks package.":/docs/getting-started/react

examples\pub-sub-channel-messages\react\README.md:
  15: - [`AblyProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#ably-provider): initializes and manages a shared pub/sub client instance, passing it down through React context to enable realtime pub/sub functionality across the application.
  16: - [`ChannelProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#channel-provider): manages the state and functionality of a specific channel, providing access to messages, members, and realtime interactions within that channel via React context.
  17: - [`useChannel()`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannel) hook: a hook to manage the state and interaction for a channel, allowing users to join, send messages, and listen for messages.
  18: - [`publish()`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannel) function: a function to publish messages to the specified channel.

examples\pub-sub-channel-state\react\README.md:
  13: - [`AblyProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#ably-provider): initializes and manages a shared pub/sub client instance, passing it down through React context to enable realtime pub/sub functionality across the application.
  14: - [`ChannelProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#channel-provider): initializes and manages a shared channel instance, passing it down through React context to enable realtime pub/sub functionality across the application.
  15: - [`useChannelStateListener`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannelStateListener): creates a subscriber to be notified of channel state changes.

examples\pub-sub-connection-state\react\README.md:
  13: - [`AblyProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#ably-provider): initializes and manages a shared pub/sub client instance, passing it down through React context to enable realtime pub/sub functionality across the application.

examples\pub-sub-history\react\README.md:
  15: - [`AblyProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#ably-provider): initializes and manages a shared pub/sub client instance, passing it down through React context to enable realtime pub/sub functionality across the application.
  16: - [`ChannelProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#channel-provider): manages the state and functionality of a specific channel, providing access to messages, history, presence, and realtime interactions within that channel via React context.
  17: - [`useChannel()`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannel) hook: a hook enabling users to subscribe to a channel and receive its messages.

examples\pub-sub-message-encryption\react\README.md:
  15: - [`AblyProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#ably-provider): initializes and manages a shared pub/sub client instance, passing it down through React context to enable realtime pub/sub functionality across the application.
  16: - [`ChannelProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#channel-provider): manages the state and functionality of a specific channel, providing access to messages, members, and realtime interactions within that channel via React context. Options are optional with `ChannelProvider`, options such as `cipher` to enable encryption.
  17: - [`useChannel()`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannel) hook: a hook to manage the state and interaction for a channel, allowing users to join, send messages, and listen for messages.
  18: - [`publish()`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannel) function: a function to publish messages to the specified channel.

examples\pub-sub-occupancy\react\README.md:
  13: - [`AblyProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#ably-provider): initializes and manages a shared pub/sub client instance, passing it down through React context to enable realtime pub/sub functionality across the application.
  14: - [`ChannelProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#channel-provider): manages the state and functionality of a specific channel, providing access to messages, history, presence, and realtime interactions within that channel via React context. By using channel options to enable occupancy, the channel will automatically update occupancy information.
  15: - [`useChannel()`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannel) hook: a hook enabling users to subscribe to a channel and receive its messages. Whenever the occupancy is updated, the `useChannel()` hook will update the occupancy information.

examples\pub-sub-presence\react\README.md:
  15: - [`AblyProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#ably-provider): initializes and manages a shared pub/sub client instance, passing it down through React context to enable realtime pub/sub functionality across the application.
  16: - [`ChannelProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#channel-provider): manages the state and functionality of a specific channel, providing access to messages, presence, and realtime interactions within that channel via React context.
  17: - [`usePresenceListener()`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannel) hook: a hook to subscribe to presence events on a channel, notifying users when other users enter or leave a presence set, or updates their member data.
  18: - [`usePresence()`](/docs/getting-started/react#usePresenceListener) hook: a hook enabling users to enter the presence set.

examples\spaces-component-locking\react\README.md:
  21: This example also uses the [`ChannelProvider`](/docs/getting-started/react#channel-provider) and [`useChannel()`](/docs/getting-started/react#useChannel) hook from the core Pub/Sub product in order to publish and subscribe to the changing values of each component.

src\components\SDKsPage\data.ts:
   58:           setupLink: 'getting-started/react',
  163:           setupLink: 'getting-started/react',

src\data\nav\pubsub.ts:
  41:           link: '/docs/getting-started/react',

And even the new Chat getting started guide for React has a reference to it: https://github.com/ably/docs/pull/2521/files#diff-7236fae23c5195699eddce94eb3f8c2f307b171b5f7035c85f974f86db02e9c7R77.

By looking at these references, I can see that the existing React documentation is mostly used as an API reference for hooks and the AblyProvider/ChannelProvider components.

The Chat getting started guide handles similar cases nicely - it provides links such as "ChatClientProvider":https://sdk.ably.com/builds/ably/ably-chat-js/main/typedoc/functions/chat-react.ChatClientProvider.html that point directly to the TypeDoc documentation for Chat React hooks.

Currently, we don't publish ably-js React hooks to TypeDoc (see the latest TypeDoc for v2, which includes only ably and modular). However, if we start generating TypeDoc documentation for ably-js React hooks, we can replace all existing references to the current React guide with links to the new TypeDoc API references. Then, the React guide itself could be replaced with the new content added in this PR.

@ttypic @m-hulbert wdyt?

mschristensen

Thanks for this! Overall it looks really great. I have stepped through the guide myself and left some comments on where I think we could make the end to end journey a bit more seamless/fewer gotchas.

I do also wonder whether for this type of getting staerted guide it's worth having e.g. a repo in e.g. Ably labs that walks through each step commit by commit? cc @m-hulbert what do you think?

content/getting-started/react-new.textile

mschristensen · 2025-04-15T11:34:32Z

content/getting-started/react-new.textile

+
+Once installed, remove any existing styles from your @src/index.css@ file and ensure that it contains only the Tailwind CSS import:
+
+```[css]


Using [css] here means that it doesn't play nicely with the language selector:

@m-hulbert do you have any suggestions on how to handle this?

probably fixed in #2545.
the base branch for this PR (https://github.com/ably/docs/tree/edu-1845-pubsub-js-start) would need to be rebased on latest main to see if that fixed an issue

that PR won't help in this case: we need to display a code block for css which will never match currently selected language for the docs

content/getting-started/react-new.textile

paddybyers · 2025-04-15T14:40:18Z

I do also wonder whether for this type of getting staerted guide it's worth having e.g. a repo in e.g. Ably labs that walks through each step commit by commit?

We used to do this for tutorials but they became unmaintainable. Do you think many people would go through commit-by-commit in this way?

VeskeR · 2025-04-24T10:11:05Z

I also removed notes about AblyProvider and ChannelProvider being updated/added in ably-js 2.0 that are currently visible on https://ably.com/docs/getting-started/react:

ably-js 2.0 has been out for a ~year now, I don't think we should still have "new" and "updated" flags

mschristensen

Looks brilliant, really well put together, super clear and easy to follow. Minor comment but approving ahead of those small fixes. Thank you for this!

mschristensen · 2025-04-28T19:42:21Z

content/getting-started/react-new.textile

+
+h2(#next). Next steps
+
+Continue to explore the Ably Pub/Sub documentation with React as the selected language:


I think we can remove this line

The next steps section is basically identical across getting started guides and includes this line. No big reason to remove it I think

content/getting-started/react-new.textile

jamienewcomb · 2025-05-13T11:00:19Z

@VeskeR @m-hulbert do we plan to do anything with this?

m-hulbert · 2025-05-20T15:24:08Z

@jamienewcomb Andrii was going to update to move to Tailwind to match with what we decided with Chat. I don't think he had the chance before vacation.

jamienewcomb · 2025-05-23T13:48:48Z

@jamienewcomb Andrii was going to update to move to Tailwind to match with what we decided with Chat. I don't think he had the chance before vacation.

@m-hulbert I can't see any acknowledgement that he is going to do that on this PR. is that a hard requirement?

m-hulbert · 2025-05-28T08:33:46Z

@jamienewcomb Andrii was going to update to move to Tailwind to match with what we decided with Chat. I don't think he had the chance before vacation.

@m-hulbert I can't see any acknowledgement that he is going to do that on this PR. is that a hard requirement?

@jamienewcomb to keep them consistent, yes. There's a Slack thread where we've agreed this.

VeskeR · 2025-06-03T08:18:59Z

@m-hulbert went back to using Tailwind in 33835a1.

There is last outstanding question regarding existing content/getting-started/react.textile file

GregHolmes · 2025-06-09T12:31:44Z

I've made small changes to this getting started to bring things more inline with the existing JS getting started guide in terms of layout etc.

I've also moved our react hooks page to react-hooks and renamed the react getting started to react. We will in the near future be updating the docs so there's no need for the react-hooks page.

I would advise we don't merge just yet as need to discuss with marketing and other depts to determine any other links that link to the react hooks page.

GregHolmes

Approved, but not to be merged today.

mschristensen · 2025-06-10T10:32:54Z

@GregHolmes we will leave this with you in that case and mark this ticket as done on our side if that's okay, thanks

Resolves PUB-1552

Use raw css instead of tailwind, split components into separate files, and provide full contents for files that can be copied and pasted as is. Co-authored-by: Mike Christensen <[email protected]>

VeskeR force-pushed the PUB-1552/pubsub-react-start branch from 92e5e98 to a74cbf9 Compare April 15, 2025 08:05

VeskeR changed the title ~~Add Pub/Sub React getting started guide~~ [PUB-1552] Add Pub/Sub React getting started guide Apr 15, 2025

VeskeR marked this pull request as ready for review April 15, 2025 08:07

VeskeR requested review from m-hulbert, mschristensen and ttypic April 15, 2025 08:07

mschristensen requested changes Apr 15, 2025

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VeskeR force-pushed the PUB-1552/pubsub-react-start branch from 3fff3bd to 2b46717 Compare April 23, 2025 21:24

VeskeR requested a review from mschristensen April 24, 2025 09:02

mschristensen approved these changes Apr 28, 2025

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m-hulbert force-pushed the edu-1845-pubsub-js-start branch 2 times, most recently from 80a3b87 to d6aeb8a Compare April 29, 2025 15:05

Base automatically changed from edu-1845-pubsub-js-start to main April 29, 2025 15:10

VeskeR force-pushed the PUB-1552/pubsub-react-start branch from 2b46717 to 40623ea Compare May 2, 2025 08:47

VeskeR force-pushed the PUB-1552/pubsub-react-start branch 3 times, most recently from e3755c9 to 33835a1 Compare June 3, 2025 04:56

GregHolmes force-pushed the PUB-1552/pubsub-react-start branch from 33835a1 to b35cd82 Compare June 3, 2025 14:44

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GregHolmes force-pushed the PUB-1552/pubsub-react-start branch from b35cd82 to 7a0b321 Compare June 9, 2025 08:49

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VeskeR and others added 5 commits June 10, 2025 13:48

Add Pub/Sub React getting started guide

54f3ff0

Resolves PUB-1552

Update React getting started guide

5351dac

Use raw css instead of tailwind, split components into separate files, and provide full contents for files that can be copied and pasted as is. Co-authored-by: Mike Christensen <[email protected]>

Revert to using Tailwind CSS for styling

6340974

Improved wording on javascript getting started guide

d0448f1

Moved react hooks getting started page to and updated references

5006227

GregHolmes force-pushed the PUB-1552/pubsub-react-start branch from 7602c8d to 5006227 Compare June 10, 2025 12:48

GregHolmes merged commit 8004d3e into main Jun 10, 2025
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GregHolmes deleted the PUB-1552/pubsub-react-start branch June 10, 2025 12:54

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		Once installed, remove any existing styles from your @src/index.css@ file and ensure that it contains only the Tailwind CSS import:

		```[css]


		h2(#next). Next steps

		Continue to explore the Ably Pub/Sub documentation with React as the selected language:

[PUB-1552] Add Pub/Sub React getting started guide #2534

[PUB-1552] Add Pub/Sub React getting started guide #2534

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