Redux allows individual components connect to the store and apply changes to it by dispatching actions. Actions are created via an action creator, which in simple terms is a function that returns an action. And actions are executed using the store.dispatch() method which sends the action to the store. However, when Redux-connected components are reloaded, they will immediately read the current data from the Redux store, and render that data with the updated code. This gives you the ability to effectively “live-edit” your UI, and makes the development process much faster. An “action” is just a JavaScript object that contains two parts.
Ideally, the data in a component should live in just one component, so sharing data among sibling components becomes difficult. One simple answer to this question is you will realize for yourself when you need Redux. If you’re still confused as to whether you need it, you don’t. This why redux usually happens when your app grows to the scale where managing app state becomes a hassle; and you start looking out for making it easy and simple. With Redux, the state of your application is kept in a store, and each component can access any state that it needs from this store.
Okay but what does this have to do with Redux?
Redux happens to be a predictable state container and has been created to help you write JavaScript applications consistently across server, client, and native environments. To conclude this introductory guide, let’s build a very simple application using Redux and React. To make it easier for everyone to follow, I will stick to plain old JavaScript, using ECMAScript 2015 and 2016 as little as possible.
Redux is a great tool for building large-scale applications requiring global state management. For simpler cases, there are more lightweight tools, like MobX, PushState, or React Context. Redux was initially created by Dan Abramov and Andrew Clark in 2015 to simplify the state management in React apps built at Facebook.
What are the advantages of using Redux with ReactJS ?
Redux creates a single ‘data store’ for managing state that can be accessed throughout the entire application. Whenever a state change occurs in the components, it triggers an action creator. Actions are plain javascript objects of information that send data from your application to your store.
The object itself is the “action”, and the function used to create the action is the “action creator”. If you have six accounts, then maybe you will still be able to track them manually, but what would happen if you had 20 accounts and six of them were in different countries? In this case, a centralized system like Redux will make your life much easier. If you happen to be a beginner, it will be a sensible choice to go for Redux.