Do I want react_on_rails for this case?

Rails react_on_rails
1

Hello ShakaCode and all involved,
this is my first post here so hello there and thanks for your work on the gem! Few words about myself: I do have experience building SPA but never touched React.js before and maybe the time has come, - I already start reading stuff but before diving into it just would like to confirm things with people who understand it firmly.

During my free time I’m working on an own realty aggregator project which search page uses JS heavily as you can imagine.
The interface is quite similar to the airbnb and all it clones:
On the main page user selects apartment type and district to look in and is then redirected to the search results page. It’s important to notice that page url contains all needed information to replicate search results if one user decide to send that url to another user. I.e. /searches/type&=apartment&district=D1

Search page is divided in 3 main areas: filters panel, realty details list, and the map with the markers.

Logic here is:

  • filters affects search results and thus replicated in the url, i.e: /searches/type&=apartment&district=D1&price_min=500&price_max=800&bedrooms=2
  • there is a connection between realties list and a map: when user hovers realty on the list it’s marker on the map is highlighted, that way user can see a realty location instantly

All other pages are static and thus doesn’t anything like that. They are just fine with ActionView (at least for now).

Is react_on_reals a good fit for this case? Isn’t it an overkill? Do I want to use router? Is it possible to rails generate react_on_rails:install w/o bootstrap?

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Sorry for long time with no response, not sure how this slipped through:

If you’re using Rails as a back end, then whether or not React on Rails is a good fit really depends on whether React itself is necessary or not. This depends on how ambitious you are with respect to your app’s JavaScript interactiveness. The more dependencies/technologies involved, the more complex your app becomes, so there’s a tradeoff.

If you do decide to use React on Rails, then it’s fully compatible with React Router (see the tutorial app here).

To skip bootstrap with the generator: rake generate react_on_rails:install --skip-bootstrap