TL;DR - Using D3 with React is awesome. I put an animated bubble chart React+D3 component on npm. You can find that here. The code for it is here. The initial code was developed for the “Election Insights” app that I built (blog post on that here, the app itself here). If you want to read more about how it was done, keep scrollin’.

…who doesn’t love bubbles?

let’s get down to business

When Connecting React+D3 I followed the three guidelines presented here. In case you don’t want to read that, they are:

One Source Of Truth: The D3 visualization should get all of the data it needs to render passed down to it. Stateless All The Things: This is related to (1). D3 and React components alike should be as stateless as possible, i.e. they shouldn’t hide/encapsulate something that makes them render differently given the same “input”. Don’t Make Too Many Assumptions: This is related to (1) and (2). Components shouldn’t make too many assumptions about how they will be used.

The goal is to keep our D3 component in the same lifecycle as our React component. This is surprisingly easy as both libraries follow similar mentalities - there’s some kind of initial set up, and as your data changes the updates are described declaratively.

This means the structure of the React component itself needs to look like:

import ReactBubbleChartD3 from './ReactBubbleChartD3' ; import React from 'react' ; class ReactBubbleChart extends React . Component { render () { return < div className = "bubble-chart-container" >< /div> ; } componentDidMount () { ReactBubbleChartD3 . create ( this . getDOMNode (), this . getChartState ()); } componentDidUpdate () { ReactBubbleChartD3 . update ( this . getDOMNode (), this . getChartState ()); } getChartState () { return { data : this . props . data , colorLegend : this . props . colorLegend , fixedDomain : this . props . fixedDomain , selectedColor : this . props . selectedColor , selectedTextColor : this . props . selectedTextColor , onClick : this . props . onClick || () => {} } } componentWillUnmount () { ReactBubbleChartD3 . destroy ( this . getDOMNode ()); } getDOMNode () { return React . findDOMNode ( this ); } } export default ReactBubbleChart ;

Pretty simple so far - when our React component is mounted we create our D3 component, when our React component updates we update our D3 component, when our React component is removed we destroy our D3 component. We also give our D3 component access to all of the props in our React component. This keeps them both stateless with access to one “universal truth.”

The skeleton of our D3 component looks like:

import d3 from 'd3' ; var ReactBubbleChartD3 = {}; var svg , html , bubble ; /* Initialization */ ReactBubbleChartD3 . create = function ( el , props ) { props = props || {}; // reference to svg element containing circles svg = d3 . select ( el ). append ( 'svg' ) . attr ( 'class' , 'bubble-chart-d3' ); // reference to html element containing text html = d3 . select ( el ). append ( 'div' ) . attr ( 'class' , 'bubble-chart-text' ); // create the bubble layout that we will use to position our bubbles bubble = d3 . layout . pack () . sort ( null ) . size ([ diameter , diameter ]) . padding ( 3 ); this . update ( el , props ); } /* Update */ ReactBubbleChartD3 . update = function ( el , props ) { var data = props . data ; if ( ! data ) return ; // generate data with calculated layout values var nodes = bubble . nodes ({ children : data }) . filter (( d ) => ! d . children ); // filter out the outer bubble // assign new data to existing DOM for circles and labels var circles = svg . selectAll ( 'circle' ) . data ( nodes , ( d ) => 'g' + ( d . displayText || d . _id )); var labels = html . selectAll ( '.bubble-label' ) . data ( nodes , ( d ) => 'g' + ( d . displayText || d . _id )); // code to handle update // code code code code code // code to handle initial render // code code code code code // code to handle exit // code code code code code } /** Any necessary cleanup */ ReactBubbleChartD3 . destroy = function ( el ) {} export default ReactBubbleChartD3 ;

Again, the full code can be found here.

We’ll dive in to the omitted sections in a bit… but the update method is really where the magic happens. It’s broken in to 3 (well… 4) sections:

0. Initialization - build an array of “data nodes” using our bubble layout. This uses D3 magic that figures out the size and position of the bubbles based on our data array. We also grab a reference to all of our existing circles and labels.

- build an array of “data nodes” using our bubble layout. This uses D3 magic that figures out the size and position of the bubbles based on our data array. We also grab a reference to all of our existing circles and labels. 1. Set up our transitions - the transition is only applied to updating nodes. We create the transition on the updating elements before the entering elements because enter.append merges entering elements into the update selection.

- the transition is only applied to updating nodes. We create the transition on the updating elements before the entering elements because enter.append merges entering elements into the update selection. 2. Handle incoming nodes - we enter our circles and labels references and append either a circle or div in the correct place.

- we our circles and labels references and append either a circle or div in the correct place. 3. Handle exiting nodes - we exit our circles and labels references, animate them out, and then remove them from the DOM.

Before our dive in to some more codes - let’s answer a question:

Why do you have a <svg> block containing only <circle> elements, and a sibling <html> block containing <div> s with all of the text?

Short answer: easier for text wrapping and animation.

Long answer: read this article. It’s tricky to get text to wrap with svgs (you have to do it manually by measuring how long the text is going to be and break it up yourself), but with html… you can do the same thing with some simple CSS.

ok, back to some more code

Some of the animation math was inspired from the animated bubble chart in this article. Definitely give it a read… it’s quite easy to parse even if you’ve never done any D3 before.

Initialization

This is arguably the trickiest part to get “right.” I had a few frustrating hours of referencing incorrect elements… or my scope being wrong…

We want our transition code to affect nodes changing positions, our entry code to only affect new nodes, and our exit code to only affect leaving nodes. I was primarily seeing new bubbles created and never moved - only my entry code was being hit, not my transition or exit code.

The key for me was to make sure that my reference to the svg node and html node were the same ones initialized in the create() method. Once these were the same doing svg.selectAll('circle')... worked as expected. In context:

// define a color scale for our bubble chart var color = d3 . scale . quantize () . domain ([ props . fixedDomain ? props . fixedDomain . min : d3 . min ( data , d => d . colorValue ), props . fixedDomain ? props . fixedDomain . max : d3 . max ( data , d => d . colorValue ) ]) . range ( colorRange ); // generate data with calculated layout values var nodes = bubble . nodes ({ children : data }) . filter (( d ) => ! d . children ); // filter out the outer bubble // assign new data to existing DOM for circles and labels var circles = svg . selectAll ( 'circle' ) . data ( nodes , ( d ) => 'g' + d . _id ); var labels = html . selectAll ( '.bubble-label' ) . data ( nodes , ( d ) => 'g' + d . _id );

So there’s a few things going on here. We initialize our color scale ( colorRange is passed in) and allow it to be a fixedDomain or determined by the min and max values in our data array.

We then build our layout (using the earlier discussed D3 magic).

Now that we have our nodes, we pass them in as data to both the circles and labels. D3 uses the _id property to determine which bubbles will be changing places, which ones are entering, and which ones are leaving.

Set up transitions

Once we have the correct references to the correct nodes with the correct _id values, the rest is a piece of cake… ish.

// for circles we transition their transform, r, and fill circles . transition () . duration ( duration ) . delay (( d , i ) => { delay = i * 7 ; return delay ;}) . attr ( 'transform' , ( d ) => 'translate(' + d . x + ',' + d . y + ')' ) . attr ( 'r' , ( d ) => d . r ) . style ( 'opacity' , 1 ) . style ( 'fill' , d => d . selected ? selectedColor : color ( d . colorValue )); // for the labels we transition their height, width, left, top, and color labels . transition () . duration ( duration ) . delay (( d , i ) => { delay = i * 7 ; return delay ;}) . style ( 'height' , d => 2 * d . r + 'px' ) . style ( 'width' , d => 2 * d . r + 'px' ) . style ( 'left' , d => d . x - d . r + 'px' ) . style ( 'top' , d => d . y - d . r + 'px' ) . style ( 'opacity' , 1 ) . style ( 'color' , d => d . selected ? selectedTextColor : '' );

This code reads pretty much 1:1 with what’s actually going on. The bubble layout method appends an x , y , and r property on to our data set, allowing us to know where they should go and how big they should be. Each D3 chained method is applied to each node in our dataset. This transitions the existing nodes from their current location to their new location. It is only applied to nodes whose _id is both in the current set, and the new set.

Handle incoming nodes

Apart from .enter().append(...) , this section is very similar to the previous section. For each node we append both a <circle> under the <svg> block and a <div> under the <html> block. We use attributes to position the circles in the correct spot and styles to position the divs in the correct spot. There’s also some fancy transition stuff going on here… just to make it look cooler.

// enter - only applies to incoming elements (once emptying data) if ( data . length ) { // initialize new circles circles . enter (). append ( 'circle' ) . attr ( 'transform' , ( d ) => 'translate(' + d . x + ',' + d . y + ')' ) . attr ( 'r' , ( d ) => 0 ) . attr ( 'class' , 'bubble' ) . style ( 'fill' , d => d . selected ? selectedColor : color ( d . colorValue )) . transition () . duration ( duration * 1.2 ) . attr ( 'transform' , ( d ) => 'translate(' + d . x + ',' + d . y + ')' ) . attr ( 'r' , ( d ) => d . r ) . style ( 'opacity' , 1 ); // intialize new labels labels . enter (). append ( 'div' ) . attr ( 'class' , 'bubble-label' ) . text ( d => d . displayText || d . _id ) . on ( 'click' , ( d , i ) => { d3 . event . stopPropagation (); props . onClick ( d )}) . style ( 'position' , 'absolute' ) . style ( 'height' , d => 2 * d . r + 'px' ) . style ( 'width' , d => 2 * d . r + 'px' ) . style ( 'left' , d => d . x - d . r + 'px' ) . style ( 'top' , d => d . y - d . r + 'px' ) . style ( 'opacity' , 0 ) . transition () . duration ( duration * 1.2 ) . style ( 'opacity' , 1 ); }

Handle exiting nodes

This could be as simple as just calling .remove() but we’re too fancy for that, aren’t we? Let’s animate them going out so that our circles don’t just disappear:

// exit - only applies to... exiting elements // for circles have them shrink to 0 as they're flying all over circles . exit () . transition () . duration ( duration ) . attr ( 'transform' , ( d ) => { var dy = d . y - diameter / 2 ; var dx = d . x - diameter / 2 ; var theta = Math . atan2 ( dy , dx ); var destX = diameter * ( 1 + Math . cos ( theta ) ) / 2 ; var destY = diameter * ( 1 + Math . sin ( theta ) ) / 2 ; return 'translate(' + destX + ',' + destY + ')' ; }) . attr ( 'r' , 0 ) . remove (); // for text have them fade out as they're flying all over labels . exit () . transition () . duration ( duration ) . style ( 'top' , ( d ) => { var dy = d . y - diameter / 2 ; var dx = d . x - diameter / 2 ; var theta = Math . atan2 ( dy , dx ); var destY = diameter * ( 1 + Math . sin ( theta ) ) / 2 ; return destY + 'px' ; }) . style ( 'left' , ( d ) => { var dy = d . y - diameter / 2 ; var dx = d . x - diameter / 2 ; var theta = Math . atan2 ( dy , dx ); var destX = diameter * ( 1 + Math . cos ( theta ) ) / 2 ; return destX + 'px' ; }) . style ( 'opacity' , 0 ) . style ( 'width' , 0 ) . style ( 'height' , 0 ) . remove ();

and in the end…

…the D3 you take, is equal to the D3 you make.

In case you didn’t catch the three articles I used to learn how to build this, I’ll paste ‘em right here:

And in case you missed these other fun links, here they are:

This was my first experience ever using D3… and jumping in with React made for quite the learning curve. Let me know if you want any clarification on any part of the code, or if something in this post wasn’t quite clear.

React + D3 = <3