Split Transclusion React

Question

What I'm wanting to do is have children components influence children components of its parent. Tangibly: I want my content components to be able to inject components into my header and sidebar elements that are pre-defined.

Router:

<Router history={browserHistory}>
  <Route path="/" component={AppRoot}>
    <Route path="/home" component={Home}/>
    <Route path="/list" component={List}/>
    <Route path="/profile/:uid" component={Profile}/>
  </Route>
</Router>

App Root:

class AppRoot extends Component {
  constructor() {
    super();
    this.state = {
      header_elements: <div>HELLO???</div>
    };
    console.log(this);
  }
  render() {
    return (
        <div>
          <AppBar className="app_bar" title="Soulhart" showMenuIconButton={false}>
            <div id="nested_content">
              {this.state.header_elements}
            </div>
          </AppBar>
          <div>
            {this.props.children}
          </div>
        </div>
    );
  }
}

Home:

class Home extends Component {
  render() {
    return (<strong>Home</strong>);
  }
}

My navigation and header are defined inside AppRoot, but I'm not sure how to have Home set the AppRoot.header_elements value. Is there a simpler way of doing this, or is what I want impossible?

Answer 1

The way you do this is to have a property of type func on your child component -

Home.propTypes = {
    updateRoot : React.PropTypes.func
};

And then call that from home. Ofcouse, you would need to wire it up in the router

 <Route path="home" component={() => <Home updateRoot={this.handleUpdateRoot}/>}/>