React and React Native Setup Guide

Prerequisites

• You’ll need a TelemetryDeck account. Sign up for free if you don’t have one yet.
• You’ll need a TelemetryDeck App ID. Create a new app if you don’t have one yet.
• Install TelemetryDeck React SDK using NPM or Yarn

npm install -S @typedigital/telemetrydeck-react

Setup

Once you have your App ID, create a TelemetryDeck instance with the factory createTelemetryDeck and pass it to the TelemetryDeckProvider, which should sit relatively high up in your component tree.

import * as React from "react";
import * as ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import {
  TelemetryDeckProvider,
  createTelemetryDeck,
} from "@typedigital/telemetrydeck-react";
import { Dashboard } from "./Dashboard";

const td = createTelemetryDeck({ app: process.env.APP_ID, user: "anonymous" });

const App = () => {
  return (
    <div>
      <TelemetryDeckProvider telemetryDeck={td}>
        <Dashboard />
      </TelemetryDeckProvider>
    </div>
  );
};

ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById("root"));

Basic usage

To send signals, use the useTelemetryDeck hook and destructure the various methods that can be used to modify the instance or send signals to TelemetryDeck. For more information, see the JS documentation.

import * as React from "react";
import { useTelemetryDeck } from "@typedigital/telemetrydeck-react";

function Dashboard() {
  const { signal } = useTelemetryDeck();

  const clickHandler = async () => {
    const res = await signal("click", {
      event: "button-click",
      target: "Call to Action",
    });
    console.log(res); // the response of the TelemetryDeck API
  };

  // If you want to track if a user saw a certain page or component just use an effect
  React.useEffect(() => {
    (async () => {
      const { pathname } = window.location;
      await signal("pageview", { component: "dashboard", path: pathname });
    })();
  }, []);

  return (
    <React.Fragment>
      <h1>My Dashboard</h1>
      <button onClick={async () => await clickHandler()}>Click me</button>
    </React.Fragment>
  );
}

export { Dashboard };

React Native & Expo Support

telemetrydeck-react also supports React Native or Expo. If no global implementation is available because you are not on the web, TelemetryDeck needs a subtle implementation which can be either injected by extending globalThis or added to the TelemetryDeck instance.

In the React Native context, a TextEncoder is also needed for it to work properly.

If you are developing an Expo project, you should install the following dependencies in addition to this library.

npm i -S expo-crypto text-encoding

Monkey-Patching crypto and TextEncoder

To patch the functionalities, a file named globals.js should be created first. The following code should be added to this file. This code extends the global object for the React Native Context with the TextEncoder and the crypto.subtle.digest function, which converts a message to a hash.

// globals.js

import * as Crypto from "expo-crypto";

globalThis.crypto = {
  subtle: {
    digest: (algorithm, message) => Crypto.digest(algorithm, message),
  },
};
global.TextEncoder = require("text-encoding").TextEncoder;

Finally, the created file should be imported into the index.js or any other root file for the bundler.

// index.js

import { registerRootComponent } from "expo";
import "./globals.js";
import App from "./App";

registerRootComponent(App);

Sponsors

The development of the TelemetryDeck React SDK was graciously provided by our friends at Augsburg-based web development agency typedigital. Thanks a lot, and check them out for your web application development needs. 🧡

Follow the development on GitHub