ReactJS

Introducing TanStack Query v5: A Leap Forward in Simplicity and Functionality

Nov 16, 2023

3 min read

TanStack Query v5: A Leap Forward in Simplicity and Functionality

Introduction:

Here at ThisDot we totally love TanStack Query, so we are really excited to share the news about the release of TanStack Query v5, the latest version of the powerful data-fetching library. The TanStack Query team has been hard at work, making significant improvements to enhance the library's usability and functionality. This blog post will explore the exciting new features and changes introduced in v5.

Breaking Changes:

One of the most notable changes in TanStack Query v5 is the removal of most overloads from the codebase. Previously, different overloads were used when calling useQuery and other hooks, resulting in inconsistent usage patterns and subpar TypeScript error messages. With the introduction of TypeScript 4.7, the team was able to unify the usage of these hooks, resulting in a more consistent and streamlined API. Now, developers only need to pass a single object, making the API more intuitive and developer-friendly. To assist with the transition, the team has updated the documentation, released an auto-fixable eslint rule, and provided a codemod tool.

New Features:

TanStack Query v5 introduces a range of exciting new features that enhance the data-fetching experience. Let's explore some of them:

Simplified Optimistic Updates: Performing optimistic updates is now easier than ever with the useMutation hook. Developers can leverage the returned variables without manually updating the cache. This streamlined approach simplifies the process and improves efficiency.
Sharable Mutation State: A highly requested feature, the useMutationState hook allows developers to access the state of all mutations across components. This shared state simplifies coordination and management of mutation-related data.

import { useMutation, useMutationState } from 'tanstack-query';

const mutationKey = ['example']

const mutation = useMutation({
	mutationKey,
	mutationFn: (...) => {
		...
	},
})

// In another component
const data = useMutatationState({
// this mutation key needs to match the one of the given mutation ('example' in our case)
	filters: { mutationKey },
	select: (mutation) => mutation.state.data, 
})

1st Class Suspense Support: TanStack Query v5 fully supports suspense for data fetching. Hooks like useSuspenseQuery, useSuspenseInfiniteQuery, and useSuspenseQueries enable seamless integration of suspense in applications, providing a more efficient and intuitive way to handle data fetching.
Streaming with React Server Components: The new version introduces an experimental integration for suspense on the server in Next.js. By leveraging the react-query-next-experimental adapter, developers can initiate data fetching during server-side rendering (SSR) and stream the result to the client, combining interactivity and data synchronization.
Improved Infinite Queries: Infinite Queries now supports prefetching multiple pages simultaneously, allowing developers to optimize performance. Additionally, the maximum number of pages stored in the cache can be specified, providing more control over memory usage.

// infinite query can be prefetched as a normal query
const prefetchExample = async () => 
	await queryClient.prefetchInfiniteQuery({
		queryKey: ['...key name...'],
		queryFn: fetchFn,
		initialPageParam: 0,
		getNextPageParam: (lastPage, pages) => lastPage.nextCursor, // this is needed when you want to prefetch more than one page
		pages: 5 // prefetch the first 5 pages
	})

New Devtools: The Query devtools have been completely rewritten in a framework-agnostic manner, making them accessible to all adapters. With a revamped UI and new features like cache inline editing and light mode, developers can benefit from enhanced debugging capabilities.
Fine-Grained Persistence: Addressing a long-standing discussion, v5 introduces fine-grained persistence with the experimental_createPersister plugin. This plugin enables developers to persist queries individually, offering just-in-time restore capabilities, particularly beneficial for mobile development.
The queryOptions API: With the unified useQuery API, v5 introduces the queryOptions function, enabling type-safe sharing of query definitions between useQuery and imperative methods like queryClient.prefetchQuery. This enhancement improves code maintainability and type safety.

import { queryOptions } from 'tanstack-query'

function groupOptions(){
	return queryOptions({
		queryKey: ['...key name...'],
		queryFn: fetchFn,
		staleTime: ...
	}) 
}

useQuery(groupOptions())
queryClient.prefetchQuery(groupOptions())

Conclusion:

TanStack Query v5 marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the data-fetching library. The breaking changes and new features introduced in this version enhance the developer experience, simplify usage, and open up exciting possibilities for data management. We encourage fellow developers to explore the migration guide, check the docs and leverage the examples provided to make the most of TanStack Query v5. Upgrade today and experience the future of data fetching with TanStack Query!

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Mattia Magi

Building interactive forms with TanStack Form

TanStack Form is a new headless form library that makes building more complex and interactive forms easy. TanStack has understood the power of ‘headless’ UI libraries for quite some time with some really incredible tools like TanStack Table and TanStack Query. Given the high quality of all the other libraries in the TanStack suite, I was excited to give this new form library a try. If you’ve used react-hook-form before the two libraries have quite a bit in common. The transition should be mostly straightforward. Let's start by comparing the two libraries and bit and then dig into the TanStack Form API with some examples and code. Comparison to react-hook-form At a high level, the two libraries are pretty similar: - Headless, hook-based API - Performance (both libraries minimize amount of renders triggered by state changes) - Lightweight, zero-dependencies (TanStack 4.4kb, react-hook-form 9.7kb) - Comprehensive feature set - Type-safety / TypeScript support - Form / Input validation and schemas There are a few things that set TanStack Form apart: - UI Agnostic - TanStack Form offers support for other UI libraries and frameworks through a plugin-style system. Currently, React & Solid is supported out of the box. - Simpler API and documentation - The API surface area is a bit smaller, and the documentation makes it easy to find the details on all the APIs. - First-class TypeScript support - TanStack Form provides really impressive type inference. It stays out of your way and lets you focus on writing code instead of wrangling types. Building forms Since the API for TanStack Form is pretty small, we can walk through the important APIs pretty quickly to see how they work together to help us build interactive client-side forms. useForm(options) useForm accepts an options object that accepts defaultValues, defaultState, and event handler functions like onSubmit, onChange, etc. The types are clear, and the source code is easy to read so you can refer to FormApi.ts file for more specifics. Currently, the examples on the website don’t provide a type for the generic TData that useForm accepts. It will infer the form types based on the defaultValues that are provided, but in this example, I will provide the type explicitly. ` The API for your form is returned from the useForm hook. We will use this API to build the fields and their functionality in our component. useField(opts) If you want to abstract one of your form fields into its own component we can use the useField hook. The useField generic parameters take the type definition of your form and the field name. ` Validation is as simple as returning a string from your field onChange handler. For our password field we return an error message if the length isn’t at least 8 characters long. We bind our field states and event handlers to the form input by passing them in as props. Component API form includes a component API with a Context Provider, a component for rendering Field components, and a Subscribe component for subscribing to state changes. I’ve added the remaining fields to our form using the Field component and included our PasswordField from above. Using the Field component is similar to using the useField hook - the difference is our field instance gets passed in via a render prop. ` We wrapped our submit button with the Subscribe component which has a pretty interesting API. Subscribe allows you to subscribe to state changes granularly. Whatever state items you return from the selector gets passed into the render prop and re-render it on changes. This will be really useful in places where render performance is critical. Async event handlers We can use the built-in async handlers and debounce options to implement a search input. This feature makes a common pattern like this trivial. ` Async event handlers can be used for other things like async validation as well. We could update our email input from our create account form to check to see if the account already exists. ` Validation adapters Since this post was first written, TanStack Form has added adapters for popular schema validation libraries like Yup and Zod. The actual API for using the schemas is a little bit different then what you might be used to from react-hook-form. Instead of passing a schema definition for all of the fields to the root form API, you provide schemas for each field individually. We’ll look at the Zod example from the documentation. ` To use the schema validation you need to pass the schema validation adapter into the validatorAdapter option in the useForm declaration. Looking at the FieldInfo component from the example we can see that the internal state and API for form validation is the same. The adapter takes care of wiring up the schema validation library to handle the underlying field validation. ` So we can easily check the state of our field to see if there are any errors or if it’s processing some async validation logic. We mentioned that without the schema adapter we can just return an error message string from a validation function to indicate an error. With the schema adapter, we instead just return the schema itself. This works for async validations as well. ` Initially, I wasn’t sure that I would like defining a schema at the field level instead of providing a schema up front for the entire form. After sitting with it for a bit, I think it’s a better solution. The validations are decoupled from the value of the field and it allows a clean and simple API to decide when they run. In the example above validations against the schema will run on every change to the field value but we could easily change this to onBlur or any of the other available event handlers. Conclusion If you don’t mind taking a chance on a newer library from a well-established author in the ecosystem, Tanstack Form is a solid choice. - The APIs are easy to understand, and it has some nice async event handling features that are extremely useful. - It includes adapters for using schema validation libraries like Zod. - It is UI library/framework agnostic (currently has plugins to support React, React Native, and Solid) - Quality TypeScript support In my opinion, it’s the most intuitive and flexible form library out there. TanStack and all of its libraries are amazingly well designed. 10/10...

Jan 12, 2024

5 mins

TanStack QueryReact

Next.js Route Groups

Starting from Next.js 13.4, Vercel introduced the App Router with a whole set of new and exciting features. The way we organize the routing in our application has changed radically compared to previous versions of Next.js, as well as the definition and usage of Layouts for our pages. In this article, we will focus on what is called Route Groups, their use cases, and how they can help us in our developer experience. Basic introduction to the new App Router In version 13, Next.js introduced a new App Router built on React Server Components, which supports shared layouts, nested routing, loading states, error handling, and more. The App Router works in a new directory named app Creating a page.tsx file inside the app/test-page folder allows you to define what users are going to see when they navigate to /test-page. So folder’s names inside app directory define your app routes. You can also have nested routes like this: In this case, the URL of your page will be /test-page/nested-page By default, components inside app are React Server Components. This is a performance optimization and allows you to easily adopt them, and you can also use Client Components. Layouts In Next.js, a Layout file is a special component that is used to define the common structure and layout of multiple pages in your application. It acts as a wrapper around the content of each page, providing consistent styling, structure, and functionality. The purpose of a Layout file is to encapsulate shared elements such as headers, footers, navigation menus, sidebars, or any other components that should be present on multiple pages. By using a Layout file, you can avoid duplicating code across multiple pages and ensure a consistent user experience throughout your application. To create a Layout file in Next.js, you typically create a separate component file, such as Layout.tsx, and define the desired layout structure within it. This component can then be imported and used on individual pages where you want to apply the shared layout. By wrapping your page content with the Layout component, Next.js will render the shared layout around each page, providing a consistent look and feel. This approach simplifies the management of common elements and allows for easy updates or modifications to the layout across multiple pages. Here is an example of how to use a Layout file with the new App Router Route Groups In Next.js, the folders in your app directory usually correspond to URL paths. But if you mark a folder as a Route Group, it won't be included in the URL path of the route. This means you can organize your routes and project files into groups without changing the URL structure. Route groups are helpful for: 1. Organizing routes into groups based on site sections, intent, or teams. 2. Creating nested layouts within the same route segment level: - You can have multiple nested layouts in the same segment, even multiple root layouts. - You can add a layout to only a subset of routes within a common segment. To create a route group inside your app folder you just need to wrap the folder’s name in parenthesis: (folderName) Since route groups won’t change the URL structure your page.tsx content will be shown under the/inside-route-group path. Use cases Route groups are amazing when you want to create multiple layouts inside your page: Or if you want to specify a layout for a specific group of pages You need to be careful because all the examples above can lead you to some misunderstanding. *What is root layout? The top-most layout is called the Root Layout. This required layout is shared across all pages in an application.* As you can see, the route folder in the two examples above always has a well-defined root layout. This means that the specific layouts we have defined for the various groups will not replace the root layout, but will be added to it. However, Route Groups also allow us to redefine the root layout. Specifically, they allow us to define different root layouts for different segments of pages. All we have to do is remove the common Root Layout file, create some Route groups, and re-define the different Root layout files for every group in the route folder: In this way, we will have pages with different root layouts, and our paths will once again not be affected by the folder name used in parentheses. Conclusion In conclusion, Next.js route groups offer a powerful and flexible solution for organizing and managing routes in your Next.js applications. By grouping related routes together, you can improve code organization, enhance maintainability, and promote code reusability. Route groups allow for the use of shared layout components, and the customization of root layouts for different segments of pages. With Next.js route groups, you can streamline your development process, create a more intuitive routing structure, and ultimately deliver a better user experience....

Feb 7, 2024

6 mins

NextJSReact

Revolutionizing Pharma using Cutting-Edge Digital Innovation with Lee Dash

Lee Dash, SVP of Digital Innovation at Medistrava, sheds light on the pivotal role of user experience (UX) within pharmaceuticals. Lee underscores the importance of effectively delivering scientific content to healthcare professionals and the inherent challenges in innovating UX within an industry steeped in traditional systems. This episode navigates the complexities of adapting user-friendly interfaces to pharmaceutical contexts and the ongoing endeavors to elevate UX. Lee stresses the significance of optimizing the content supply chain and user testing to ensure a seamless user experience. In an arena where scientific information holds paramount importance, presenting it in an easily accessible and comprehensible manner for healthcare professionals is essential. By integrating user feedback and conducting thorough testing, pharmaceutical companies can refine their digital platforms to meet the diverse needs of stakeholders, encompassing medical science liaisons, patients, researchers, and physicians. A notable takeaway from the dialogue is the necessity for customized solutions tailored to the distinct requirements of various stakeholders within the pharmaceutical industry. Each faction possesses unique needs and preferences concerning the access and utilization of scientific content. By comprehending these specific needs, pharmaceutical entities can develop user-friendly interfaces that resonate with the preferences of each stakeholder group. This approach not only enhances user experience but also bolsters the overall efficacy of digital platforms. Lee Dash shares the significance of assembling a versatile development team equipped with multifaceted skills. In an industry characterized by rapid evolution, having a team capable of adapting to shifting technologies and user expectations is imperative. Additionally, Lee talks about the importance of infusing technical acumen into leadership teams. By cultivating leaders well-versed in the technical intricacies of digital innovation, pharmaceutical companies can drive efficient and effective development processes. Download this episode here....

Apr 30, 2024

2 mins

CRMEngineering LeadershipSoftware Engineering

Introducing TanStack Query v5: A Leap Forward in Simplicity and Functionality

TanStack Query v5: A Leap Forward in Simplicity and Functionality

Introduction:

Breaking Changes:

New Features:

Conclusion:

Mattia Magi

You might also like

Building interactive forms with TanStack Form

Next.js Route Groups

Revolutionizing Pharma using Cutting-Edge Digital Innovation with Lee Dash

You might also like

Building interactive forms with TanStack Form

Next.js Route Groups

Revolutionizing Pharma using Cutting-Edge Digital Innovation with Lee Dash