[dovel]

Do you store all UI state in redux as well as all 'resource state'? Phrased as an example... If you store a JSON object that can be edited in your store do you also store a Boolean value for whether the dialog is open that can be used for editing that JSON object?

[pests]

My determination is:

Do I want this state to survive a page reload, new browser session, or coming from a bookmark?

The value in a drop-down box in some random form? Non-global state.

The main page active tab that they were probably reading? Global state.

Scroll position? Global.

Tooltip Position? Probably not useful, non-global.

Something like a dialog or modal depends on the situation of how important it was and if the user would expect it to be there.

[lioeters]

I agree with that logic, I think I've encountered every one of those cases.

That makes me see that there isn't a "god" object like the article calls it, that holds all of the app state. There's the root state shared throughout the app, and then each page or component can have its own encapsulated state.

Ideally I like to also keep page- or component-specific state+actions decoupled from their views, functional and testable independently - but often I start/keep them in the component class (and maybe soon hooks).

[smoyer]

You can also apply the command pattern in some cases and store the undo redo state globally.this at the global store can be generic and the previous specific state will be part of the saved commands. (More applicable to SPAs).

[lioeters]

Hmm, typically, I do store "UI state" (or parts of it) in the top app state if that UI state is shared among pages/routes. In your example, if I want that dialog state to be "persistent" - say, the user goes to another route then comes back, if the dialog state should be kept. Otherwise, I store them in the route component's state, which gets created anew every time.

But your question makes me think, if I store any UI state in the app state, have I really decoupled state and view? I'd say yes - since I'd be able to build and test UI state and actions, independent from the view.

[pests]

Unless you have code that depends on state that supposed to be kept UI-only.

Then when you expand to an API or CLI interface the web state being tracked no longer makes sense and might be extra ram or loading time.

[lioeters]

Well, at least theoretically, the way I organize state management allows me to pull in "slices" of app state/actions (or even moved into shared libs/modules), to compose a smaller subset for an API or CLI. So the latter can choose to not include any of the UI-related state.

In practice I haven't used it so much, but I like the idea of treating the UI as just another render target / consumer of app state/actions. It enables "remote control" of the app logic, makes testing simpler, and allows reuse for various interfaces like CLI, API, maybe React Native too.

[pests]

I do agree for the consistent mental model.

I've been playing around switching web-apps and other user programs between devices on a single-ususer facing kubernetes system. Part of that relies on all state being sent to the server for distribution if a device switch happens.

I also have played around with a wrapper functions and that can bubble any callback/hook up to the data for further processing. The client no longer worries about sending actions. The server spys on client actions and performs actions on their behalf.

I plan on posting a blog post about the his soon.