I was making a drop-down menu for a language selector - but I needed the dropdown menu to display the current language upon page load. I would either be getting my initial language from a URL param example.com?user_language=fr, or detecting it from the user’s browser settings. Then when the user interacted with the dropdown, the selected language would be updated and the language selector dropdown would display the currently selected language.
Since this whole thread has been giving fruit examples, I got all sorts of fruit goodness for you.
First up, answering the initially asked question with a basic React functional component - two examples with and without props, then how to import the component elsewhere.
Next up, the same example - but juiced up with Typescript.
Then a bonus finale - A language selector dropdown component using Typescript.
Basic React (16.13.1) Functional Component Example. Two examples of FruitSelectDropdown , one without props & one with accepting props fruitDetector
import React, { useState } from 'react'
export const FruitSelectDropdown = () => {
const [currentFruit, setCurrentFruit] = useState('oranges')
const changeFruit = (newFruit) => {
setCurrentFruit(newFruit)
}
return (
<form>
<select
onChange={(event) => changeFruit(event.target.value)}
value={currentFruit}
>
<option value="apples">Red Apples</option>
<option value="oranges">Outrageous Oranges</option>
<option value="tomatoes">Technically a Fruit Tomatoes</option>
<option value="bananas">Bodacious Bananas</option>
</select>
</form>
)
}
Or you can have FruitSelectDropdown accept props, maybe you have a function that outputs a string, you can pass it through using the fruitDetector prop
import React, { useState } from 'react'
export const FruitSelectDropdown = ({ fruitDetector }) => {
const [currentFruit, setCurrentFruit] = useState(fruitDetector)
const changeFruit = (newFruit) => {
setCurrentFruit(newFruit)
}
return (
<form>
<select
onChange={(event) => changeFruit(event.target.value)}
value={currentFruit}
>
<option value="apples">Red Apples</option>
<option value="oranges">Outrageous Oranges</option>
<option value="tomatoes">Technically a Fruit Tomatoes</option>
<option value="bananas">Bodacious Bananas</option>
</select>
</form>
)
}
Then import the FruitSelectDropdown elsewhere in your app
import React from 'react'
import { FruitSelectDropdown } from '../path/to/FruitSelectDropdown'
const App = () => {
return (
<div className="page-container">
<h1 className="header">A webpage about fruit</h1>
<div className="section-container">
<h2>Pick your favorite fruit</h2>
<FruitSelectDropdown fruitDetector='bananas' />
</div>
</div>
)
}
export default App
FruitSelectDropdown with Typescript
import React, { FC, useState } from 'react'
type FruitProps = {
fruitDetector: string;
}
export const FruitSelectDropdown: FC<FruitProps> = ({ fruitDetector }) => {
const [currentFruit, setCurrentFruit] = useState(fruitDetector)
const changeFruit = (newFruit: string): void => {
setCurrentFruit(newFruit)
}
return (
<form>
<select
onChange={(event) => changeFruit(event.target.value)}
value={currentFruit}
>
<option value="apples">Red Apples</option>
<option value="oranges">Outrageous Oranges</option>
<option value="tomatoes">Technically a Fruit Tomatoes</option>
<option value="bananas">Bodacious Bananas</option>
</select>
</form>
)
}
Then import the FruitSelectDropdown elsewhere in your app
import React, { FC } from 'react'
import { FruitSelectDropdown } from '../path/to/FruitSelectDropdown'
const App: FC = () => {
return (
<div className="page-container">
<h1 className="header">A webpage about fruit</h1>
<div className="section-container">
<h2>Pick your favorite fruit</h2>
<FruitSelectDropdown fruitDetector='bananas' />
</div>
</div>
)
}
export default App
Bonus Round: Translation Dropdown with selected current value:
import React, { FC, useState } from 'react'
import { useTranslation } from 'react-i18next'
export const LanguageSelectDropdown: FC = () => {
const { i18n } = useTranslation()
const i18nLanguage = i18n.language
const [currentI18nLanguage, setCurrentI18nLanguage] = useState(i18nLanguage)
const changeLanguage = (language: string): void => {
i18n.changeLanguage(language)
setCurrentI18nLanguage(language)
}
return (
<form>
<select
onChange={(event) => changeLanguage(event.target.value)}
value={currentI18nLanguage}
>
<option value="en">English</option>
<option value="de">Deutsch</option>
<option value="es">Español</option>
<option value="fr">Français</option>
</select>
</form>
)
}
An invaluable resource for React/Typescript
