State

Typically we think of the user interface as the application itself. But the user interface is really just there to allow a user to interact with the application. This interface can be anything. A browser window, native, sensors etc. It does not matter what the interface is, the application is still the same.

The mechanism of communicating from the application to the user interface is called state. A user interface is created by transforming the current state. To communicate from the user interface to the application an API is exposed, called actions in Overmind. Any interaction can trigger an action which changes the state, causing the application to notify the user interface about any updated state.

State tree

Overmind is structured as a single state tree. That means all of your state can be accessed through a single object, called the state. This state tree will hold values which describes different states of your application. The tree branches out using plain objects, which can be considered branches of your state tree.

{ // branch
  modes: ['issues', 'admin'],
  currentModeIndex: 0,
  admin: { // branch
    currentUserId: null,
    users: { // branch
      isLoading: false,
      data: {},
      error: null
    },
  },
  issues: { // branch
    sortBy: 'name',
    isLoading: false,
    data: {},
    error: null
  }
}

State tree values

The following are values to be used with the state tree.

Objects

The plain objects are what branches out the tree. It is not really considered a value in itself, it is a state branch holding values.

Arrays

Arrays are similar to objects in the sense that they hold other values, but instead of keys pointing to values you have indexes. That means it is ideal for iteration. But more often than not objects are actually better at managing lists of values. We can actually do fine without arrays in our state. It is when we produce the actual user interface that we usually want arrays. You can learn more about this in the MANAGING LISTS guide.

Strings

Strings are of course used to represent text values. Names, descriptions and whatnot. But strings are also used for ids, types, etc. Strings can be used as values to reference other values. This is an important part in structuring state. For example in our objects example above we chose to use an array to represent the modes, using an index to point to the current mode, but we could also do:

{
  modes: {
    issues: 0,
    admin: 1 
  },
  currentMode: 'issues'
  ...
}

Now we are referencing the current mode with a string. In this scenario you would probably stick with the array, but it is important to highlight that objects allow you to reference things by string, while arrays reference by number.

Numbers

Numbers of course represent things like counts, age, etc. But just like strings, they can also represent a reference to something in a list. Like we saw in our objects example, to define what the current mode of our application is, we can use a number. You could say that referencing things by number works very well when the value behind the number does not change. Our modes will most likely not change and that is why an array and referencing the current mode by number, is perfectly fine.

Booleans

Are things loading or not, is the user logged in or not? These are typical uses of boolean values. We use booleans to express that something is activated or not. We should not confuse this with null, which means “not existing”. We should not use null in place of a boolean value. We have to use either true or false.

Null

All values, with the exception of booleans, can also be null. Non-existing. You can have a non-existing object, array, string or number. It means that if we haven’t selected a mode, both the string version and number version would have the value null.

Derived

When you need to derive state you can add a function to your tree. Overmind treats these functions like a getter, but the returned value is cached and they can also access the root state of the application. A simple example of this would be:

export const state: State = {
  title: 'My awesome title',
  upperTitle: state => state.title.toUpperCase()
}

The first argument of the function is the state the derived function is attached to. A second argument is also passed and that is the root state of the application, allowing you to access whatever you would need.

Even though derived state is defined as functions you consume them as plain values. You do not have to call the derived function to get the value. Derived functions can also be dynamically added.

You may use a derived for all sorts of calculations. But sometimes it's better to just use a plain action to create some state than using a derived. Why? Imagine a table component having a lot of rows and columns. We assume the table component also takes care of sorting and filtering and is capable of adding new rows. Now if you solve the sorting and filtering using a derived the following could happen: User adds a new row but it is not displayed in the list because the derived immediately kicked in and filtered it out. Thats not a good user experience. Also in this case the filtering and sorting is clearly started by a simple user interaction (setting a filter value, clicking on a column,...) so why not just start an action which creates the new list of sorted and filtered keys? Also the heavy calculation is now very predictable and doesn't cause performance issues because the derived kickes in too often (Because it could have many dependencies you might didn't think of)

Class instances

Overmind also supports using class instances as state values. Depending on your preference this can be a powerful tool to organize your logic. What classes provide is a way to co locate state and logic for changing and deriving that state. In functional programming the state and the logic is separated and it can be difficult to find a good way to organize the logic operating on that state.

It can be a good idea to think about your classes as models. They model some state.

class LoginForm {
  constructor() {
    this.username = ''
    this.password = ''
  }
  get isValid() {
    return Boolean(this.username && this.password)
  }
  reset() {
    this.username = ''
    this.password = ''
  }
}

import { LoginForm } from './models'

export const state = {
  loginForm: new LoginForm()
}

It is import that you do NOT use arrow functions on your methods. The reason is that this binds the context of the method to the instance itself, meaning that Overmind is unable to proxy access and track mutations

You can now use this instance as normal and of course create new ones.

Serializing class values

If you have an application that needs to serialize the state, for example to local storage or server side rendering, you can still use class instances with Overmind. By default you really do not have to do anything, but if you use Typescript or you choose to use toJSON on your classesOvermind exposes a symbol called SERIALIZE that you can attach to your class.

import { SERIALIZE } from 'overmind'

class User {
  constructor() {
    this.username = ''
    this.jwt = ''
  }
  toJSON() {
    return {
      [SERIALIZE]: true,
      username: this.username
    }
  }
}

If you use Typescript you want to add SERIALIZE to the class itself as this will give you type safety when rehydrating the state.

import { SERIALIZE } from 'overmind'

class User {
  [SERIALIZE] = true
  username = ''
  jwt = ''
}

The SERIALIZE symbol will not be part of the actual serialization done with JSON.stringify

Rehydrating classes

The rehydrate **utility of Overmind allows you to rehydrate state either by a list of mutations or a state object, like the following:

import { rehydrate } from 'overmind'

export const updateState = ({ state }) => {
  rehydrate(state, {
    user: {
      username: 'jenny',
      jwt: '123'
    }
  })    
}

Since our user is a class instance we can tell rehydrate what to do, where it is typical to give the class a static fromJSON method:

import { SERIALIZE } from 'overmind'

class User {
  [SERIALIZE]
  constructor() {
    this.username = ''
    this.jwt = ''
  }
  static fromJSON(json) {
    return Object.assign(new User(), json)
  }
}

import { rehydrate } from 'overmind'

export const updateState = ({ state }) => {
  rehydrate(
    state,
    {
      user: {
        username: 'jenny',
        jwt: '123'
      }
    },
    {
      user: User.fromJSON
    }
  )    
}

It does not matter if the state value is a class instance, an array of class instances or a dictionary of class instances, rehydrate will understand it.

That means the following will behave as expected:

import { User } from './models'

export const state = {
  user: null, // Can be existing class instance or null
  usersList: [], // Expecting an array of values
  usersDictionary: {} // Expecting a dictionary of values
}

import { rehydrate } from 'overmind'

export const updateState = ({ state }) => {
  rehydrate(
    state,
    {
      user: {
        username: 'jenny',
        jwt: '123'
      },
      usersList: [{...}, {...}],
      usersDictionary: {
        'jenny': {...},
        'bob': {...}
      }
    },
    {
      user: User.fromJSON,
      usersList: User.fromJSON,
      usersDictionary: User.fromJSON
    }
  )    
}

Note that rehydrate gives you full type safety when adding the SERIALIZE symbol to your classes. This is a huge benefit as Typescript will yell at you when the state structure changes, related to the rehydration

Statemachines

Very often you get into a situation where you define states as isLoading, hasError etc. Having these kinds of state can cause impossible states. For example:

const state = {
  isAuthenticated: true,
  isAuthenticating: true
}

You can not be authenticating and be authenticated at the same time. This kind of logic very often causes bugs in applications. That is why Overmind allows you to define statemachines. It sounds complicated, but is actually very simple.

Defining

import { statemachine } from 'overmind'

export const state = {
  mode: statemachine({
    initial: 'unauthenticated',
    states: {
      unauthenticated: ['authenticating'],
      authenticating: ['unauthenticated', 'authenticated'],
      authenticated: ['unauthenticating'],
      unauthenticating: ['unauthenticated', 'authenticated']
    }
  }),
  user: null,
  error: null
}

You set an initial state and then you create a relationship between the different states and what states they can transition into. So when unauthenticated is the state, only logic triggered with an authenticating transition will run, any other transition triggered will not run its logic.

Transitioning

export const login = async ({ state, effects }) => {
  return state.mode.authenticating(async () => {
    try {
      const user = await effects.api.getUser()
      return state.mode.authenticated(() => {
        state.user = user
      })
    } catch (error) {
      return state.mode.unauthenticated(() => {
        state.error = error
      })    
    }
  })
}

export const logout = async ({ state, effects }) => {
  return state.mode.unauthenticating(async () => {
    try {
      await effects.api.logout()
      return state.mode.unauthenticated()
    } catch (error) {
      return state.mode.authenticated(() => {
        state.error = error
      })    
    }
  })
}

There are two important rules for predictable transitions:

The transition should be returned if the logic or logic runs asynchronously. This is the same as with actions in general
Only synchronous transitions can mutate the state, any async mutation will throw an error

What is important to realize here is that our logic is separated into allowable transitions. That means when we are waiting for the user on line 4 and some other logic has changed the state to unauthenticated in the meantime, the user will not be set, as the authenticated transition is now not possible. This is what state machines do. They group logic into states that are allowed to run, preventing invalid logic to run.

Current state

The current state is accessed, related to this example, by:

state.mode.current

Exit

It is also possible to run logic when a transition exits. An example of this is for example if a transition sets up a subscription. This subscription can be disposed when the transition is exited.

export const login = async ({ state, effects }) => {
  return state.mode.authenticating(async () => {
    try {
      const user = await effects.api.getUser()
      let disposeSubscription
      state.mode.authenticated(
        () => {
          disposeSubscription = effects.api.subscribeNotifications()
          state.user = user
        },
        () => {
          disposeSubscription()
        }
      )
    } catch (error) {
      state.mode.unauthenticated(() => {
        state.error = error
      })    
    }
  })
}

Reset

You can reset the state of a statemachine, which also runs the exit of the current transition:

state.mode.reset()

References

When you add objects and arrays to your state tree, they are labeled with an “address” in the tree. That means if you try to add the same object or array in multiple spots in the tree you will get an error, as they can not have multiple addresses. Typically this indicates that you’d rather want to create a reference to an existing object or array.

So this is an example of how you would not want to do it:

export const state = {
  users: {},
  currentUser: null
}

export const setUser = ({ state }, id) => {
  state.currentUser = state.users[id]
}

You’d rather have a reference to the user id, and for example use a getter to grab the actual user:

export const state = {
  users: {},
  currentUserId: null,
  get currentUser(this) {
    return this.users[this.currentUserId]
  } 
}

export const setUser = ({ state }, id) => {
  state.currentUserId = id
}

Exposing the state

We define the state of the application in state files. For example, the top level state could be defined as:

export const state = {
  isLoading: false,
  user: null
}

To expose the state on the instance you can follow this recommended pattern:

import { state } from './state'

export const config = {
  state
}

import { createOvermind } from 'overmind'
import { config } from './overmind'

const overmind = createOvermind(config)

For scalability you can define namespaces for multiple configurations. Read more about that in Structuring the app

Summary

This short guide gave you some insight into how we think about state and what state really is in an application. There is more to learn about these values and how to use them to describe the application. Please move on to other guides to learn more.

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Last updated 4 years ago