Not working when using React Hooks ?

[baptisteArno]

I can't figure out how to make this library work with React Hooks. It doesn't seem to append children to my div element.

To reproduce my "bug":
1 - Create a new React project using Create React App using the TypeScript template
2 - Paste my App component :

import React, { useRef } from "react";
import { ConversationalForm } from "conversational-form";

export const App = () => {
  const formFields = [
    {
      tag: "input",
      type: "text",
      name: "firstname",
      "cf-questions": "What is your firstname?",
    },
    {
      tag: "input",
      type: "text",
      name: "lastname",
      "cf-questions": "What is your lastname?",
    },
  ];

  let cf: any;

  const elem = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);

  const submitCallback = () => {
    var formDataSerialized = cf.getFormData(true);
    console.log("Formdata, obj:", formDataSerialized);
    cf.addRobotChatResponse(
      "You are done. Check the dev console for form data output."
    );
  };

  useRef(() => {
    const cf = ConversationalForm.startTheConversation({
      options: {
        submitCallback: submitCallback,
        preventAutoFocus: true,
        // loadExternalStyleSheet: false
      },
      tags: formFields,
    });
    elem.current!.appendChild(cf.el);
  });

  return (
    <div style={{ height: "100vh" }}>
      <div ref={elem} />
    </div>
  );
};

Any idea why it doesn't work?

[pfortes]

Hello,

I have a working example with react hooks, from my tests the conversational-form library has any bugs related to hooks.

https://react-conversational-form-example-oaijb2.stackblitz.io

@jenssogaard maybe it would be nice to add it to the examples in the docs?

import React, {useEffect, useRef} from 'react';
import { ConversationalForm } from 'conversational-form';

export default function MyForm() {
  let cf = null;
  const ref = useRef(null);
  const formFields = [
    {
      'tag': 'input',
      'type': 'text',
      'name': 'firstname',
      'cf-questions': 'What is your firstname?'
    },
    {
      'tag': 'input',
      'type': 'text',
      'name': 'lastname',
      'cf-questions': 'What is your lastname?'
    }
  ];

  useEffect(function mount() {
    cf = ConversationalForm.startTheConversation({
      options: {
        theme: 'blue',
        submitCallback: submitCallback,
        preventAutoFocus: true,
        // loadExternalStyleSheet: false
      },
      tags: formFields,
    });

    ref.current.appendChild(cf.el);

    return function unMount(){
      cf.remove();
    };
  }, []);

  function submitCallback() {
    var formDataSerialized = cf.getFormData(true);
    console.log("Formdata, obj:", formDataSerialized);
    cf.addRobotChatResponse("You are done. Check the dev console for form data output.")
  }

  return (
    <div>
      <div ref={ref} />
    </div>
  );
}