theatre/packages/dataverse/docs/GET_STARTED.md

Into the dataverse - Get started with @theatre/dataverse

This guide will help you to get started with dataverse, the reactive dataflow library that Theatre.js is built on. It is inspired by ideas in functional reactive programming and it is optimised for interactivity and animation.

Main concepts

A good analogy for dataverse would be a spreadsheet editor application. In a spreadsheet editor you have cells that store values, cells that store functions, that manipulate the values of other cells. The cells have identifiers (e.g. A1, B3, etc...) that are used to reference them in the functions. These are similar to the set of tools that dataverse provides for manipulating data. Here's a quick comparison:

dataverse	Spreadsheet editor analogy	role
sources (Box, Atom)	a cell that holds a value	Box: holds a simple value, Atom: holds an object with (sub)props to be tracked
derivations	functions	changes recorded on the value of an Box or Atom
pointers	addresses of the cells (A1, B3)	they point to a (sub)prop of an Atom

Note that some concepts in dataverse go beyond the spreadsheet analogy.

Practical Introduction

Here we collected a few examples that introduce the main concepts/tools in dataverse through practical examples. We strongly recommend running the examples on your local machine (see the Setup section to see how to configure your local environment before running the examples).

0. Setup your local environment for running the examples
1. Box
2. Observe values
3. map()
4. prism()
   • A basic example
   • prism.state() and prism.effect()
   • Other methods of prism()
5. usePrism() (from @theatre/react)
6. Atom
   • Atom vs Box
   • Pointers
   • Update the value of an Atom
7. Ticker

Setup

You are encouraged to follow the examples on your machine by cloning the theatre-js/theatre repo and creating a new directory and file called dataverse/index.tsx in theatre/packages/playground/src/personal/ (this directory is already added to .gitignore, so you don't have to worry about that).

Box: store simple values

Let's start with creating a variable that holds a simple value, which we can change and observe later:

import {Box} from '@theatre/dataverse'

// `theatre/packages/playground/src/personal/dataverse/index.tsx`

const variableB = new Box('some value')
console.log(variableB.get()) // prints 'some value' in the console

As you can see there's a naming convention here for boxes (variableB), pointers (variableP), derivations (variableP), etc...

Now we can change the value:

variableB.set('some new value')
console.log(variableB.get()) // prints 'some new value' in the console

Observe values

Let's say you want to watch the value of variableB for changes and execute a callback when it does change.

import {Box} from '@theatre/dataverse'

const variableB = new Box('some value')
// Change the value of variableB to a random number in every 1000 ms
const interval = setInterval(() => {
  variableB.set(Math.random().toString())
  console.log('isHot?', variableB.derivation.isHot)
}, 1000)

// Watch `variableB` changes and print a message to the console when the value of
// `variableB` changes
const untap = variableB.derivation.changesWithoutValues().tap(() => {
  console.log('value of variableB changed', variableB.derivation.getValue())
})

// Stop observing `variableB` after 5000 ms
setTimeout(untap, 5000)

// Clear the interval after 7000 ms
setTimeout(() => {
  clearInterval(interval)
  console.log('Interval cleared.')
}, 7000)

A few notes about the example above:

• variableB.derivation.changesWithoutValues() returns a tappable that we can tap into (observe).
• The tap() method returns the untap() function which unsubscribes the observer function
• As long as variableB is tapped (observed) variableB.derivation.isHot will bet set to true automatically

What if you want to keep a derivation hot manually even if there's no tappable attached to it anymore? In this case you can use the keepHot() method as seen below: out this modified version of the previous example:

variableB.set('some new value')
console.log(variableB.get()) // prints 'some new value' in the console

// Change the value of variableB to a random number in every 1000 ms
const interval = setInterval(() => {
  variableB.set(Math.random().toString())
  // This will print 'isHot? true' every time, since we kept
  // the derivation hot by calling the 'keepHot()' method
  console.log('isHot?', variableB.derivation.isHot)
}, 1000)

// Watch `variableB` changes and print a message to the console when the value of
// `variableB` changes
const untap = variableB.derivation.changesWithoutValues().tap(() => {
  console.log('value of variableB changed', variableB.derivation.getValue())
})

// Stop observing `variableB` after 5000 ms
setTimeout(untap, 5000)

// Keep the derivation hot
variableB.derivation.keepHot()

// Clear the interval after 7000 ms
setTimeout(() => {
  clearInterval(interval)
  console.log('Interval cleared.')
}, 7000)

map()

It is also possible to create a derivation based on an existing derivation:

const niceNumberB = new Box(5)
const isNiceNumberEvenD = niceNumberB.derivation.map((v) => v % 2 === 0)

// the following line will print '5, false' to the console
console.log(niceNumberB.get(), isNiceNumberEvenD.getValue())

The new derivation will be always up to date with the value of the original derivation:

import {Box} from '@theatre/dataverse'

const niceNumberB = new Box(5)
const isNiceNumberEvenD = niceNumberB.derivation.map((v) =>
  v % 2 === 0 ? 'even' : 'odd',
)

const untap = isNiceNumberEvenD.changesWithoutValues().tap(() => {})

const interval1 = setInterval(untap, 5000)
const interval2 = setInterval(() => {
  niceNumberB.set(niceNumberB.get() + 1)
  console.log(
    `${niceNumberB.get()} is an ${isNiceNumberEvenD.getValue()} number.`,
  )
}, 1000)

// clear the intervals
setTimeout(() => {
  clearInterval(interval1)
  console.log('interval1 is cleared.')
}, 7000)

setTimeout(() => {
  clearInterval(interval2)
  console.log('interval2 is cleared.')
}, 7000)

prism()

At this point we can make derivations that track the value of an other derivation with the .map() method, but what if we want to track the value of multiple derivations at once for the new derivation? This is where the prism() function comes into play.

A basic example

Let's say that we have two derivations and we want to create a derivation that returns the product of their values. In the spreadsheet analogy it would be like having two cells with two functions and third cell that contains a function that calculates the product of the previous two cells. Whenever the first two cells recalculate their value, the third cell will also do the same.

Here's how we would solve this problem in dataverse:

import {Box, prism} from '@theatre/dataverse'

const widthB = new Box(1)
const heightB = new Box(2)
const padding = 5

const widthWithPaddingD = widthB.derivation.map((w) => w + padding)
const heightWidthPaddingD = heightB.derivation.map((h) => h + padding)

const areaD = prism(() => {
  return widthWithPaddingD.getValue() * heightWidthPaddingD.getValue()
})

console.log('area: ', areaD.getValue())
widthB.set(10)
console.log('new area: ', areaD.getValue())

prism.state() and prism.effect()

Prisms don't always follow the rules of functional programming: they can have internal states and perform side effects using the prism.state() and prism.effect() methods. Their concept and API is very similar to React's useState() and useEffect() hooks.

The important thing to know about them is that:

• prism.state() returns a state variable and a function that updates it.
• prism.effect() receives two arguments:
  1. The first one is a key (a string), which should be unique to this effect inside the prism
  2. The second one is a callback function as an argument that gets executed when the derivation is created (or the dependencies in the dependency array change). The callback function may return a clean up function that runs when the derivation gets updated or removed.

Let's say you want to create a derivation that tracks the position of the mouse. This would require the derivation to do the following steps:

1. Create an internal state where the position of the mouse is stored
2. Attach an event listener that listens to mousemove events to the document
3. Update the internal state of the position whenever the mousemove event is fired
4. Remove the event listener once the derivation is gone (clean up)

This is how this derivation would look like in code:

import {prism} from '@theatre/dataverse'

const mousePositionD = prism(() => {
  // Create an internal state (`pos`) where the position of the mouse
  // will be stored, and a function that updates it (`setPos`)
  const [pos, setPos] = prism.state('pos', {x: 0, y: 0})

  // Create a side effect that attaches the `mousemove` event listeners
  // to the `document`
  prism.effect(
    'setupListeners',
    () => {
      const handleMouseMove = (e: MouseEvent) => {
        setPos([e.screenX, e.screenY])
      }
      document.addEventListener('mousemove', handleMouseMove)

      // Clean up after the derivation is gone (remove the event
      // listener)
      return () => {
        document.removeEventListener('mousemove', handleMouseMove)
      }
    },
    [],
  )

  return pos
})

// Display the current position of the mouse using a `h2` element
const p = document.createElement('h2')
const {x, y} = mousePositionD.getValue()
p.textContent = `Position of the cursor: [${x}, ${y}]`
document.querySelector('body')?.append(p)

// Update the element's content when the position of the mouse
// changes
mousePositionD.changesWithoutValues().tap(() => {
  const {x, y} = mousePositionD.getValue()
  p.textContent = `Position of the cursor: [${x}, ${y}]`
})

Other methods of prism

Prism has other methods (prism.memo(), prism.scope(), prism.ref(), etc) inspired by React hooks, but they aren't used that much in @theatre/core and @theatre/studio. You can check out the tests or the source code to get more familiar with them.

usePrism()

You can also use derivations inside of React components with the usePrism() hook from the @theatre/react package, which accepts a dependency array for the second argument. If the prism uses a value that is not a derivation (such as a simple number, or a pointer), then you need to provide that value to the dependency array.

A simple example

Here's a simple example: we have a Box that contains the width and height of a div (let's call it panel). Imagine that we want to have a button that changes the width of the panel to a random number when clicked.

import {Box} from '@theatre/dataverse'
import {usePrism} from '@theatre/react'
import React from 'react'
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'

// Set the original width and height
const panelB = new Box({
  dims: {width: 200, height: 100},
})

function changePanelWidth() {
  const oldValue = panelB.get()
  // Change `width` to a random number between 0 and 200
  panelB.set({dims: {...oldValue.dims, width: Math.round(Math.random() * 200)}})
}

const Comp = () => {
  const render = usePrism(() => {
    const {dims} = panelB.derivation.getValue()
    return (
      <>
        <button
          style={{
            display: 'block',
            height: 25,
            width: 200,
          }}
          onClick={() => changePanelWidth()}
        >
          Change the width
        </button>
        <div
          style={{
            display: 'block'
            width: dims.width,
            height: dims.height,
            backgroundColor: '#bd6888',
          }}
        ></div>
      </>
    )
  }, [panelB]) // Note that `panelB` is in the dependency array

  return render
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <div>
    <Comp />
  </div>,
  document.querySelector('body'),
)

The dependency array

If you remove panelB from the dependency array in the previous example you might see that there's no change in the functionality of the Change the width button. It surprisingly still works:

// ...
const Comp = () => {
  const render = usePrism(() => {
    // ...
  }, []) // Here we removed `panelB` from the dependency array

  return render
}
// ...

The reason behind this behavior is that even though the value of panelB - the Box instance - is cached, the cached Box instance's value is still tracked inside the callback function (which uses prism() under the hood, and handles every derivation inside as its dependency). However, if you change the value of the panelB variable to another Box instance, then that change won't be recognized inside the callback function if panelB is not included in the dependency array of usePrism(). Let's look at another example to make things a bit more clear:

// ...

// Set the original width and height
const panelB = new Box({
  dims: {width: 200, height: 100},
})

// Create two new `Box` instances
const theme1B = new Box({backgroundColor: '#bd6888', opacity: 1})
const theme2B = new Box({backgroundColor: '#5ac777', opacity: 1})

function changePanelWidthAndThemeOpacity() {
  const oldValue = panelB.get()
  // Change `width` to a random number between 0 and 200
  const width = Math.round(Math.random() * 200)
  panelB.set({dims: {...oldValue.dims, width}})
  // Change opacity in the themes:
  const opacity = width > 100 ? width / 200 : width / 100
  theme1B.set({...theme1B.get(), opacity})
  theme2B.set({...theme2B.get(), opacity})
}

// DEPENDENCY ARRAYS DEMO
const Comp = () => {
  // Get the width of the panel
  const {width} = panelB.derivation.getValue().dims
  // If the width of the panel is greater than 100, then
  // set the value of the `theme` variable to `theme1B`,
  // otherwise use `theme2B`
  const theme = width > 100 ? theme1B : theme2B

  const render = usePrism(() => {
    const {dims} = panelB.derivation.getValue()
    const {backgroundColor, opacity} = theme.get()
    return (
      <>
        <button
          style={{
            display: 'block',
            height: 25,
            width: 200,
          }}
          onClick={() => changePanelWidthAndThemeOpacity()}
        >
          Change the width
        </button>
        <div
          style={{
            display: 'block',
            width: dims.width,
            height: dims.height,
            opacity,
            backgroundColor,
          }}
        ></div>
      </>
    )
    // Note that if the `theme` variable weren't included in the
    // dependency array, then the background color of the div
    // wouldn't be updated (the opacity still would).
    // (Feel free to try  it out.)
  }, [theme])

  return render
}

// ...

If you omit the theme variable from the previous example, then the background color of the div element will not be updated when the value of the theme variable does, while the opacity would track the changes of the width. This happens, because in that case the callback function in usePrism() caches the value of theme, which is theme1B when usePrims() is called for the first time, and updates whenever theme1B changes. If you pass down theme as a dependency to usePrism(), then the callback function will always use new new value of theme (which is set to theme2B if the div's width is smaller than or equal to 100), whenever it changes.

Atom

Remember how we compared Box-es to cells in the spreadsheet-analogy? Atom-s are also like cells in the sense that they also hold a value (although they only work with objects), but there's a huge difference in how their value gets updated.

Atom vs Box

Box uses strict equality for comparing new and old values, while Atom tracks the individual properties and nested properties of an object. The following example illustrates this difference between the two pretty well:

import {Atom, Box, val, valueDerivation} from '@theatre/dataverse'

const originalValue = {width: 200, height: 100}

// Create a `Box` that holds an object
const panelB = new Box(originalValue)

console.log('old value (Box): ', panelB.derivation.getValue())
// Print the new value of `panelB` to the console
// every time it changes
panelB.derivation
  .changesWithoutValues()
  .tap(() => console.log('new value: (Box) ', panelB.derivation.getValue()))

// Set the value of the `panelB` to a new object that has
// the same properties with the same values as `panelB`.
// Note that this will get recognized as a change, since
// the two objects are not strictly equal.
panelB.set({...panelB.get()})

// Create an `Atom` that holds an object
const panelA = new Atom({width: 200, height: 100})

console.log('old value (Atom):', val(panelA.pointer))

// Create a derivation to track the value of `panelA`
// There are a lot of new information here, we'll come back
// to this line later.
const panelFromAtomD = valueDerivation(panelA.pointer)

// Print the new value of `panelA` to the console
// every time it changes
panelFromAtomD
  .changesWithoutValues()
  .tap(() => console.log('new value (Atom):', val(panelA.pointer)))

// Since the next line sets changes the value of `panelA` to what it
// already holds, it does not get recognized as a change.
// The `.setIn()` method is also new, we'll cover it later.
panelA.setIn(['width'], 200)

// The next line will trigger a change as expected
panelA.setIn(['width'], 400)

Pointers

You might have wondered what val(panelA.pointer) meant when you read this line:

console.log('old value (Atom):', val(panelA.pointer))

dataverse uses pointers that point to the properties and nested properties of the object that the Atom instance holds as its value.

You can use the pointers to get the value of the property they point to, or to convert them to a derivation using the val() and useDerivation() functions:

const panelA = new Atom({width: 200, height: 100})

// Create a derivation
const panelFromAtomD = valueDerivation(panelA.pointer)

// Print the value of the property that belongs to the pointer
// Note that `panelA.pointer` and `panelA.pointer.width` are both
// pointers.
console.log(val(panelA.pointer)) // prints `{width: 200, height: 100}`
console.log(val(panelA.pointer.width)) // prints `100`
console.log(val(panelA.pointer.height)) // prints `200`

Update the value of an Atom

If you want to update the value of an Atom, you have first choose the property/nested property that you want to update. Then you can use the names of its ancestor properties in an array to define the path to the property for the setIn() method:

const panelA = new Atom({dims: {width: 200, height: 100}})

// Sets the value of panelA to `{dims: {width: 400, height: 100}}`
panelA.setIn(['dims', 'width'], 400)

Ticker and studioTicker

The Ticker class helps us to schedule callbacks using a strategy. One such strategy could by synchronizing the execution of certain actions with the browser's repaint schedule to avoid changes that are invisible for the user and would only worsen the performance. This could be implemented using the studioTicker from the @theatre/studio package.

Here's an example: we want to increase the value of a counter variable by 1 in every 10 ms and print the current value on every repaint for 1 s:

import {Box} from '@theatre/dataverse'
import studioTicker from '@theatre/studio/studioTicker'

// Clear the console to make tracking the relevant logs easier
console.clear()

// Create a counter variable
const counterB = new Box(0)
// Create a variable to track the number of repaints
let numberOfRepaints = 0

// Increase the value of the counter variable by 1
// in every 10 ms
const interval = setInterval(() => {
  counterB.set(counterB.get() + 1)
  console.log(counterB.get())
}, 10)

// Increase the number of repaints by one every time
// a repaint happens
const untap = counterB.derivation
  .changes(studioTicker)
  .tap((newCounterValue) => {
    ++numberOfRepaints
    console.log(`VALUE ON REPAINT: ${newCounterValue}`)
  })

// Clean up everything after 1 s
setTimeout(() => {
  clearInterval(interval)
  untap()
  console.log('interval is cleared.')
  console.log(`Number of times when the counter got updated: ${counterB.get()}`)
  console.log(`Number of repaints: ${numberOfRepaints}`)
}, 1000)

When I run the example above using a 60 Hz refresh rate monitor (or when the browser itself limits the repaints to 60 times per second), I see something like this in the console:

Number of times when the counter got updated: 98
Number of repaints: 60

What happens is that the counter gets updated about 1000ms / 10ms = 100 times, but only 60 of these changes can be shown on screen due to the refresh rate of my monitor. The values of the counter when the repaints happen are also printed to the console:

...
94
VALUE ON REPAINT: 94
95
96
VALUE ON REPAINT: 96
97
98
...

Summary

We only covered the basics, there are much more to Box-es, Atom-s and everything else in dataverse. You can always check the source code for more information.