Looking for advice on React-lua / Roact

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#1

Hi,

I’ve just started to work on a new game that is going to be quite UI heavy, with different lobbies and places, so I wanted to start looking into using Roact, only to discover it has recently been deprecated.

The github page links me to React-lua, but that repository does not seem to be regularly updated. There’s dead links in the readme and a bit of a lacking documentation. So I’m wondering if anybody can give me some advice on this.

Is this library recommended to use or should I steer clear/wait for the project to mature? Are there some other UI libraries that I should look into?

I’m sorry if this is asked before. I haven’t been able to find too much recent information on this.

Note; I’m okay putting some time into getting to know an api/library and it having a bit of a steep learning curve. I just want to make sure it is worth the time.

Thanks in advance!

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#2

The react-lua repo that roblox hosts on their github has dead links because it is a mirror of their internal branch. The links aren’t dead, they’re just not available to you.

Here’s the community fork: GitHub - jsdotlua/react-lua: A comprehensive, but not exhaustive, translation of upstream ReactJS 17.x into Lua.

React is fully mature and ready to use in production projects. I personally use it myself.

If you want an alternative, there’s Fusion but it isn’t mature and is prone to bugs and breaking changes: GitHub - dphfox/Fusion: A modern reactive UI library, built specifically for Roblox and Luau.

#3

That makes sense, thank you!

I’ll keep off fusion for now, as the devs indeed recommend against it until it’s fully released. But good to keep my eye on too!

#4

I’d say that Roblox’s build is mature, they use it in their hero products (roblox universal app)

+1 on this, unfortunately the branch being a mirror of internal branches means that documentation gets lost along the way.
Some of the documentation is scattered here: Luau Libraries available for use

The docs for react-lua are here: Roact Documentation

Hope this helps!

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#5

Hi @Ninsky_12 we just put out a staff article on how to use react-lua. Please check it out!

As you’ve experienced, the existing resources and documentation are very lacking!! I think this is for an umber of reasons that aren’t important :P. I ran into all the same problem that you outlined and I wrote the article above precisely to address those frustrations.

React-lua is very mature and is used in several places internally at Roblox. It does have a steeper learning curve than other approaches. It’s much easier and better than it use to be though!

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