OMDB Router

In order ease into React Router, we're going to use a familiar API: OMDB. We'll use this API to create a simple application with multiple routes.

Getting Started

Fork and clone the starter repo below to get started.

https://github.com/WDI-SEA/react-omdb

The App

• / - home page with a search form, to display results

• /results/:imdbID - page to see movie details

• /about - a static about page

OMDB Search Component

After verifying that the starter code runs, let's make a OMDBSearch component inside a new file src/components/OMDBSearch.jsx. It should contain the following:

• React

• A new React component

  • a render function to render some text

• Module export

import React, { Component } from 'react';

class OMDBSearch extends Component {
  render () {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1>Search for Movies</h1>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

module.exports = OMDBSearch;

About Component

Let's also make an About component for our About page. It will be very similar to the component above, inside a new file src/components/About.jsx, only it will say About.

import React, { Component } from 'react';

class About extends Component {
  render () {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1>About</h1>
        <p>Movie searching!</p>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

module.exports = About;

Modify src/app.jsx to render these components.

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import About from './About';
import OMDBSearch from './OMDBSearch';

class App extends Component {
  render () {
    return (
      <div>
        <OMDBSearch />
        <About />
      </div>
    );
  }
}

export default App;

Once finished, run npm start and navigate to the page. The two components should render on the page.

React Router

Now, let's make this a little more useful by installing react-router, in order to get the OMDBSearch and About components to appear on different pages.

npm install --save-dev react-router

Then, require the following dependencies from react-router in src/app.jsx.

const Router = require('react-router').Router
const Route = require('react-router').Route
const Link = require('react-router').Link
const browserHistory = require('react-router').browserHistory;

These will give us the necessary modules to add routing to the application. Let's add the Router and set up Routes in the render function inside App.

class App extends Component {
  render () {
    return (
      <Router history={browserHistory}>
        <Route path="/" component={OMDBSearch} />
        <Route path="/about" component={About} />
      </Router>
    );
  }
}

This is what we need to set up our Router. The Router component contains the routes and history for our frontend routes. Each Route component contains a path and a component to render for that route.

Try navigating to http://localhost:3000 and http://localhost:3000/about and see if the routes work.

Search Route

We're missing one route, the route for search results. We'll need one more component for that route, so let's make a component called ShowMovie in /src/components/ShowMovie.jsx.

import React, { Component } from 'react';

class ShowMovie extends Component {
  render () {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1>imdbID: {this.props.params.imdbID}</h1>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

module.exports = ShowMovie;

In the Router, we'll be able to pass parameters through the route, and they'll be available through props! Completing the Router:

The complete /src/app.jsx

import React, { Component } from 'react';

import About from './About';
import OMDBSearch from './OMDBSearch';
import ShowMovie from './ShowMovie';

const Router = require('react-router').Router
const Route = require('react-router').Route
const Link = require('react-router').Link
const browserHistory = require('react-router').browserHistory;

class App extends Component {
  render () {
    return (
      <Router history={browserHistory}>
        <Route path="/" component={OMDBSearch} />
        <Route path="/about" component={About} />
        <Route path="/results/:imdbID" component={ShowMovie} />
      </Router>
    );
  }
}

module.exports = App;

Before moving forward, make sure the routes we defined render components. Our next step will be adding movie search functionality to OMDBSearch and ShowMovie.