Form Action

[00:00] Let's come over here to our form and add a prop called action that is set to API onboarding. If we save this now and I type in a username, submit that, then that's going to send us over to the API onboarding. And it's going to serialize the form in the URL here.

[00:16] And our back end API thing just sends back an HTML document that has all the serialized values. So we can take a look at that. So there you go. That's really it. The action determines the route where this will appear.

[00:32] And of course, you can make this a non-relative or absolute path. So we could say app playground slash API slash onboarding. And this will work exactly the same. And so yeah, we're just doing a relative here so that we don't have to worry about adding

[00:52] the app playground nonsense. But in any case, that is how you add or configure the URL that you want this request to be sent to when the user submits the form.

[00:00] So, you know how we're doing a full-page refresh? Well, the reason that is happening is because we are making a server request. We need to send the data that the user enters into this form over to the server.

[00:13] And the default behavior for that is to make a request at the current URL. And so, that is why if I put my username as Kent C. Dodds and hit submit, then we're going to get this question mark username. So, we serialize the values of the form into the URL, trigger full-page refresh, and now

[00:31] the server knows what those submitted values are based on what the URL looks like. So, you can control where that ends up going, like what route on your server that ends up

[00:47] going to with the action proper attribute in HTML, the action attribute on that form. And so, you can say, I want it to go to this URL, whatever. So, your task in this exercise is to change that because we have a little mini-backend, this API.server.

[01:07] The workshop app is going to serve this for us, and it already has a loader. This is to handle the get request that is being made. The workshop app will take care of taking that request that comes in and then passing it on to your loader here. And so, here we are grabbing the search params, and then we're going to respond with a data

[01:26] table. This backend stuff is out of scope for this workshop. That's why it's already done for you. But I think it is important for you to understand how to set this action and how that all flows together. So, that is your job in this exercise. Add an action and see what happens when you submit. It should be pretty quick. See you when you're done.

Learn everything you need to be effective with the fundamental building blocks of React applications. 

The path of this workshop takes you from the fundamental API of appending DOM nodes, through React's raw APIs, to how JSX compiles into React's methods.

Once you have a firm grasp of what React is doing with creating elements, you'll learn the other tools you need to build webpages like: styling, forms, and inputs. 

But, this isn't just a native web course. 

**You'll be building a strong foundation in React.** 

Learn how to: 

- build reusable components
- leverage TypeScript with React
- catch errors with Error Boundaries
- render arrays properly with the `key` prop. 

When you’re finished, you’ll be prepared to create and use React components to build excellent experiences for your app's users.

## Hello World in JS

You'll start your journey by learning some of the history of how we went from generating HTML on the server and adding JS on top to full-fledged frameworks. 

To learn React you'll be following a similar path and begin by learning how to manually append your own DOM nodes.

I call this "going down to level up." You'll find yourself much more efficient with React if you understand the fundamentals of the DOM and JavaScript!

## Raw React APIs

Before getting into JSX, you'll learn how to work with React and ReactDOM's raw APIs. 

You'll create React elements with `React.createElement` and learn how compose your elements with calls to this function. Then, you'll render the React elements you create using ReactDOM.

## Using JSX

Once you know what React is doing under the hood, you'll be prepared to learn JSX.

This section covers more than just how to write it, you'll also use babel to experiement with how JSX gets compiled to the raw React APIs!

## Custom Components

Just like in regular JavaScript, when you want to reuse code, you write functions. If you want to share JSX, you can do that as well. 

In this section you'll learn about how in React, we call these functions "components", the special properties of these functions, and how to 

## TypeScript

> TypeScript is not making your life terrible. It's just showing you how terrible your life already is. 
 
*- Kent C. Dodds*

Getting a solid hold of TypeScript from the get-go will set you up for success. Since React components are just functions, there aren't any special considerations when applying type annotations. 

So, you'll be working on two things:

1. Improving your TypeScript skills
2. Learning the React-specific types available

## Styling

In this section you'll learn about the two primary ways to style React components:

1. Inline styles with the `style` prop
2. Regular CSS with the `className` prop

You'll also learn why React uses a `className` prop instead of `class`. 👀

## Forms

In React, there actually aren't a ton of things you have to learn to interact with forms beyond what you can do with regular DOM APIs and JavaScript.

Here, you'll learn the form markup, build an onSubmit handler, and then create a form action. 

## Inputs

There's a ton of different input types and you're going to learn a lot about them here!

You'll learn about the different text inputs, check boxes, radios, hidden inputs, how to make sure everything is properly labeled and accessible, and setting default values and default checked boxes. 

## Error Boundaries

This is something you want to learn early on. Sometimes things go wrong and we need to handle errors and display useful information to the user. 

An ErrorBoundary component doesn't ship with React by default. So, you'll be importing one from react-error-boundry and then learning how to compose it, and then give the option to the user to reset. 

## Rendering Arrays

In React you can render arrays of elements. One of the tricky parts about it is the `key` prop. 

In this section, you'll learn in detail why React needs the `key` prop to keep track of elements and the nuances of the value that is used. 

Finally, you'll learn a cool trick where the `key` prop is used as a mechanism for resetting elements in the DOM!


Starting with an HTML file and a script, you'll learn React API to build components and manage forms. Learn the fundamentals of building on the web with React.

React Fundamentals

React Fundamentals

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Form Action

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