What's New in React 18? New Features and Updates

From the most excellent React libraries to the invention of cross-platform frameworks called React Native, React has been creating waves in the development arena. It’s again causing a stir with the latest React version - React 18.

This blog will go through the newly added React 18 features and how they will resolve developers’ problems.

About React 18 - Is It Worth the Hype?

In 2021, Andrew Clark, one of the talented React engineers, said that React 18 bridges the gap between designers and developers by being UI-focused.

According to the official React site, React 18's primary focus is that their new concurrent has been an opt-in feature, which is only enabled when you use a modern part. However, it will hugely affect how React apps are built in the future.

Now, let's explore React 18 features below.

React 18 New Features That You Must Know

#1. Development Only Strict mode

Many times, software projects are built by a team of developers. An inexperienced React developer might have needed to follow the best practices while writing the code. In such cases, Strict Mode will help.

Strict mode is a React tool that checks your code and warns when the React rules are not followed. Since it shows the flaws in the code, it ensures that the result is more understandable and organized code.

While the Strict Mode has been a part of React for a long time, React 18 updates have added tons of capacity to these features. Some of them are:

1. Strict mode can now catch bugs when two or more tasks run simultaneously.
2. The mode runs only in development, thus not hindering production time.
3. Compared to the previous version, the current Strict mode gives added warnings and errors. Also, it loads functions twice to ensure the expected results always occur.

#2. Suspense on the server

To learn the suspense of the server world, it's essential to understand server-side rendering in React. SSR is the process of rendering (displaying) React components to HTML on the server. So, first, HTML is generated on the server and then loaded on the browser. This way, users still see the apps on the screen. The only difference is that they can only interact with the app or site if it's entirely rendered.

To understand this update, let's first understand what suspense is. <suspense> in React is used to delay the rendering of React components. Before React 18, <suspense> couldn't be used on the server. So, in React 18, <suspense> is available on the server to improve server-side rendering.

#3. Automatic Batching

React language uses the batching feature to group the updates. The benefit of batching is that each component does not render individually, improving performance.

However, in React 17, only webhooks and browsers had a batching feature. The major disadvantage was that as the application grows, the code increases as developers have to add batching code individually.

Hence, automatic batching was introduced in React 18. So regardless of which components need a state update, React will automatically batch the updates without adding them to the code.

In effect, automatic batching in React 18 is like picking up a bunch of blocks at once and stacking them together instead of doing it one by one. It helps make your app work faster and more efficiently!

#4. A New Concurrent Rendering Engine

To understand concurrent rendering, let's take an example. Suppose you have two meetings in one day. In a non-concurrent situation, you would first take the meeting with one person, then cut the call and join another meeting.

This situation is okay if the call is short. But what if the first meeting ran longer than expected? The second person would have to wait for extra time, which means time wastage.

In previous versions of React, the rendering was a single, synchronous, and non-interrupted event. This means that unless the first event is rendered completely, the second event won’t render.

So, to avoid time sinks as described in the above scenario, React 18 introduced a concurrent rendering engine that can interrupt, pause or kill the event to render the second one. The advantage is that users don't have to wait, thus improving the overall user experience.

#5. Transition

React introduced a transition function to distinguish between urgent and non-urgent tasks. The primary motive is to help prioritize updates developers expect their consumers to interact with more frequently.

The transition concept has two main functions:

• Move the user interface from one view to another.
• Urgent updates reflect direct inputs such as clicking, pressing, typing, etc.

Upgrade to React 18 - Hire ReactJS Developers

React is changing the way we see development. React 18 has introduced exciting features such as concurrency and transitions that will save developers from headaches. Clarion Technologies has your back if you ask how to update React 18 and need professional help. Hire ReactJS developers to help you transition to React 18 seamlessly.