<Admin> and <Resource> Components

The <Admin> and <Resource> components form the basis of the configuration of an admin-on-rest application. Knowing each of their options will help you build admin apps faster.

The <Admin> component

The <Admin> component creates an application with its own state, routing, and controller logic. <Admin> requires only a restClient and at least one child <Resource> to work:

// in src/App.js
import React from 'react';

import { simpleRestClient, Admin, Resource } from 'admin-on-rest';

import { PostList } from './posts';

const App = () => (
    <Admin restClient={simpleRestClient('http://path.to.my.api')}>
        <Resource name="posts" list={PostList} />
    </Admin>
);

export default App;

Here are all the props accepted by the component:

restClient

The only required prop, it must be a function returning a promise, with the following signature:

/**
 * Execute the REST request and return a promise for a REST response
 *
 * @example
 * restClient(GET_ONE, 'posts', { id: 123 })
 *  => new Promise(resolve => resolve({ id: 123, title: "hello, world" }))
 *
 * @param {string} type Request type, e.g GET_LIST
 * @param {string} resource Resource name, e.g. "posts"
 * @param {Object} payload Request parameters. Depends on the action type
 * @returns {Promise} the Promise for a REST response
 */
const restClient = (type, resource, params) => new Promise();

The restClient is also the ideal place to add custom HTTP headers, authentication, etc. The Rest Clients Chapter of the documentation lists available REST clients, and how to build your own.

title

By default, the header of an admin app uses ‘Admin on REST’ as the main app title. It’s probably the first thing you’ll want to customize. The title prop serves exactly that purpose.

const App = () => (
    <Admin title="My Custom Admin" restClient={simpleRestClient('http://path.to.my.api')}>
        // ...
    </Admin>
);

dashboard

By default, the homepage of an an admin app is the list of the first child <Resource>. But you can also specify a custom component instead. To fit in the general design, use Material UI’s <Card> component:

// in src/Dashboard.js
import React from 'react';
import { Card, CardHeader, CardText } from 'material-ui/Card';

export default () => (
    <Card style={{ margin: '2em' }}>
        <CardHeader title="Welcome to the administration" />
        <CardText>Lorem ipsum sic dolor amet...</CardText>
    </Card>
);

// in src/App.js
import Dashboard from './Dashboard';

const App = () => (
    <Admin dashboard={Dashboard} restClient={simpleRestClient('http://path.to.my.api')}>
        // ...
    </Admin>
);

Custom home page

theme

Material UI supports theming. This lets you customize the look and feel of an admin by overriding fonts, colors, and spacing. You can provide a custom material ui theme by using the theme prop:

import darkBaseTheme from 'material-ui/styles/baseThemes/darkBaseTheme';
import getMuiTheme from 'material-ui/styles/getMuiTheme';

const App = () => (
    <Admin theme={getMuiTheme(darkBaseTheme)} restClient={simpleRestClient('http://path.to.my.api')}>
        // ...
    </Admin>
);

Dark theme

For more details on predefined themes and custom themes, refer to the Material UI Customization documentation.

appLayout

If you want to deeply customize the app header, the menu, or the notifications, the best way is to provide a custom layout component. It must contain a {children} placeholder, where admin-on-rest will render the resources. If you use material UI fields and inputs, it must contain a <MuiThemeProvider> element, and it should also import injectTapEventPlugin, as stated in the Material UI installation doc. And finally, if you want to show the spinner in the app header when the app fetches data in the background, the Layout should connect to the redux store.

Use the default layout as a starting point:

// in src/MyLayout.js
import React, { PropTypes } from 'react';
import { connect } from 'react-redux';
import { Link } from 'react-router';
import MuiThemeProvider from 'material-ui/styles/MuiThemeProvider';
import getMuiTheme from 'material-ui/styles/getMuiTheme';
import AppBar from 'material-ui/AppBar';
import CircularProgress from 'material-ui/CircularProgress';
import Notification from './Notification';
import injectTapEventPlugin from 'react-tap-event-plugin';
import Menu from './Menu';

injectTapEventPlugin();

const MyLayout = ({ isLoading, children, route }) => {
    const Title = <Link to="/" style={{ color: '#fff', textDecoration: 'none' }}>Admin on REST</Link>;
    const RightElement = isLoading ? <CircularProgress color="#fff" size={0.5} /> : <span />;

    return (
        <MuiThemeProvider muiTheme={getMuiTheme()}>
            <div style={{ display: 'flex', flexDirection: 'column', minHeight: '100vh' }}>
                <AppBar title={Title} iconElementRight={RightElement} />
                <div className="body" style={{ display: 'flex', flex: '1', backgroundColor: '#edecec' }}>
                    <div style={{ flex: 1 }}>{children}</div>
                    <Menu resources={route.resources} />
                </div>
                <Notification />
            </div>
        </MuiThemeProvider>
    );
};

MyLayout.propTypes = {
    isLoading: PropTypes.bool.isRequired,
    children: PropTypes.node,
    route: PropTypes.object.isRequired,
};

function mapStateToProps(state) {
    return { isLoading: state.admin.loading > 0 };
}

export default connect(
  mapStateToProps,
)(MyLayout);

// in src/App.js
import MyLayout from './MyLayout';

const App = () => (
    <Admin appLayout={MyLayout} restClient={simpleRestClient('http://path.to.my.api')}>
        // ...
    </Admin>
);

customReducers

The <Admin> app uses Redux to manage state. The state has the following keys:

{
    admin: { /*...*/ }, // used by admin-on-rest
    form: { /*...*/ }, // used by redux-form
    routing: { /*...*/ }, // used by react-router-redux
}

If your components dispatch custom actions, you probably need to register your own reducers to update the state with these actions. Let’s imagine that you want to keep the bitcoin exchange rate inside the bitcoinRate key in the state. You probably have a reducer looking like the following:

// in src/bitcoinRateReducer.js
export default (previousState = 0, { type, payload }) => {
    if (type === 'BITCOIN_RATE_RECEIVED') {
        return payload.rate;
    }
    return previousState;
}

To register this reducer in the <Admin> app, simply pass it in the customReducers prop:

// in src/App.js
import React from 'react';
import { Admin } from 'admin-on-rest';

import bitcoinRateReducer from './bitcoinRateReducer';

const App = () => (
    <Admin customReducers={{ bitcoinRate: bitcoinRateReducer }} restClient={jsonServerRestClient('http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com')}>
        ...
    </Admin>
);

export default App;

Now the state will look like:

{
    admin: { /*...*/ }, // used by admin-on-rest
    form: { /*...*/ }, // used by redux-form
    routing: { /*...*/ }, // used by react-router-redux
    bitcoinRate: 123, // managed by rateReducer
}

customSagas

The <Admin> app uses redux-saga to handle side effects.

If your components dispatch custom actions, you probably need to register your own side effects as sagas. Let’s imagine that you want to show a notification whenever the BITCOIN_RATE_RECEIVED action is dispatched. You probably have a saga looking like the following:

// in src/bitcoinSaga.js
import { put, takeEvery } from 'redux-saga/effects';
import { showNotification } from 'admin-on-rest';

export default function* bitcoinSaga() {
    yield takeEvery('BITCOIN_RATE_RECEIVED', function* () {
        yield put(showNotification('Bitcoin rate updated'));
    })
}

To register this saga in the <Admin> app, simply pass it in the customSagas prop:

// in src/App.js
import React from 'react';
import { Admin } from 'admin-on-rest';

import bitcoinSaga from './bitcoinSaga';

const App = () => (
    <Admin customSagas={[ bitcoinSaga ]} restClient={jsonServerRestClient('http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com')}>
        ...
    </Admin>
);

export default App;

customRoutes

To register your own routes, create a function returning a react-router <Route> component:

// in src/customRoutes.js
import React from 'react';
import { Route } from 'react-router';
import Foo from './Foo';
import Bar from './Bar';

export default () => (
    <Route>
        <Route path="/foo" component={Foo} />
        <Route path="/bar" component={Bar} />
    </Route>
);

Then, pass this function as customRoutes prop to the <Admin> component:

// in src/App.js
import React from 'react';
import { Admin } from 'admin-on-rest';

import customRoutes from './customRoutes';

const App = () => (
    <Admin customRoutes={customRoutes} restClient={jsonServerRestClient('http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com')}>
        ...
    </Admin>
);

export default App;

Now, when a user browses to /foo or /bar, the components you defined will appear in the main part of the screen.

Tip: It’s up to you to create a custom menu entry, or custom buttons, to lead to your custom pages.

Tip: Your custom pages take precedence over admin-on-rest’s own routes. That means that customRoutes lets you override any route you want!

authClient

The authClient prop expect a function returning a Promise, to control the application authentication strategy:

import { AUTH_LOGIN, AUTH_LOGOUT, AUTH_CHECK } from 'admin-on-rest';

const authClient(type, params) {
    // type can be any of AUTH_LOGIN, AUTH_LOGOUT, AUTH_CHECK
    // ...
    return Promise.resolve();
};

const App = () => (
    <Admin authClient={authClient} restClient={jsonServerRestClient('http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com')}>
        ...
    </Admin>
);

The Authentication documentation explains how to implement these functions in detail.

loginPage

If you want to customize the Login page, or switch to another authentication strategy than a username/password form, pass a component of your own as the loginPage prop. Admin-on-rest will display this component whenever the /login route is called.

import MyLoginPage from './MyLoginPage';

const App = () => (
    <Admin loginPage={MyLoginPage}>
        ...
    </Admin>
);

See The Authentication documentation for more explanations.

logoutButton

If you customize the loginPage, you probably need to override the logoutButton, too - because they share the authentication strategy.

import MyLoginPage from './MyLoginPage';
import MyLogoutButton from './MyLogoutButton';

const App = () => (
    <Admin loginPage={MyLoginPage} logoutButton={MyLogoutButton}>
        ...
    </Admin>
);

Internationalization

The locale and messages props let you translate the GUI. The Translation Documentation details this process.

The <Resource> component

A <Resource> component maps one API endpoint to a CRUD interface. For instance, the following admin app offers a read-only interface to the resources exposed by the JSONPlaceholder API at http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts and http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users:

// in src/App.js
import React from 'react';
import { jsonServerRestClient, Admin, Resource } from 'admin-on-rest';

import { PostList } from './posts';
import { UserList } from './posts';

const App = () => (
    <Admin restClient={jsonServerRestClient('http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com')}>
        <Resource name="posts" list={PostList} />
        <Resource name="users" list={UserList} />
    </Admin>
);

Under the hood, the <Resource> component uses react-router to create several routes:

  • / maps to the list component
  • /create maps to the create component
  • /:id maps to the edit component
  • /:id/show maps to the show component
  • /:id/delete maps to the remove component

The <Resource> props allow you to customize all the CRUD operations for a given resource.

name

Admin-on-rest uses the name prop both to determine the API endpoint (passed to the restClient), and to form the URL for the resource.

<Resource name="posts" list={PostList} create={PostCreate} edit={PostEdit} show={PostShow} remove={PostRemove} />

For this resource admin-on-rest will fetch the http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts endpoint for data.

The routing will map the component as follows:

  • /posts/ maps to PostList
  • /posts/create maps to PostCreate
  • /posts/:id maps to PostEdit
  • /posts/:id/show maps to PostShow
  • /posts/:id/delete maps to PostRemove

Tip: If you want to use a special API endpoint without altering the URL, write the translation from the resource name to the API endpoint in your own restClient

icon

Admin-on-rest will render the icon prop component in the menu:

// in src/App.js
import React from 'react';
import PostIcon from 'material-ui/svg-icons/action/book';
import UserIcon from 'material-ui/svg-icons/social/group';
import { jsonServerRestClient, Admin, Resource } from 'admin-on-rest';

import { PostList } from './posts';

const App = () => (
    <Admin restClient={jsonServerRestClient('http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com')}>
        <Resource name="posts" list={PostList} icon={PostIcon} />
        <Resource name="users" list={UserList} icon={UserIcon} />
    </Admin>
);

options

options.label allows to customize the display name of a given resource in the menu.

<Resource name="v2/posts" options={{ label: 'Posts' }}list={PostList} />

Using admin-on-rest without <Admin> and <Resource>

Using <Admin> and <Resource> is completely optional. If you feel like bootstrapping a redux app yourself, it’s totally possible. Head to Including in another app for a detailed how-to.