How can I extend a "connected" component?

Question

My situation is, I have the Navigation component, which is the base, and is listening to the Navigations state(Redux). It should be extended to HorizontalNavigation and VerticalNavigation, for easy reusable code in the future.

My problem is, right now I already have the "final" version of Navigation.jsx and I can extend it, as a class, but can't override it's methods. It triggers the super(Navigation) method and not the final one. I need to override the methods in Horizontal or Vertical components.

There is no code erros on console, so it isn't something breaking, but that I don't know how to handle how to extend it.

Navigation.jsx

import React, {Component} from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import { connect } from 'react-redux';

import { itemAction, stageAction } from 'Store/Actions/Actions';

class Navigation extends Component {
    // ACTIONS
    leftAction () {
        this.onLeftAction();
    }
    onLeftAction () {}

    rightAction () {
        this.onRightAction();
    }
    onRightAction () {}

    downAction () {
        this.onDownAction();
    }
    onDownAction () {}

    upAction () {
        this.onUpAction();
    }
    onUpAction () {}

    // STAGES
    nextStage (slug) {
        this.goToStage(slug);
    }

    previousStage (slug) {
        this.goToStage(slug);
    }

    goToStage (slug) {
        // Just for illustration purpose
        // let { dispatch } = this.props;
        // dispatch(stageAction(slug));
    }

    // ITEMS
    nextItem (index) {
        this.goToItem(index);
    }

    previousItem (index) {
        this.goToItem(index);
    }

    goToItem (index) {
        // Just for illustration purpose
        // let { dispatch } = this.props;
        // dispatch(itemAction(index));
    }

    render () {
        return ();
    }
}

function mapStateToProps (state, props) {
    navigation: state.Navigations[props.slug]
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps)(Navigation);

Horizontal.jsx

import React from 'react';
import Navigation from 'Components/Navigation/Navigation';

class HorizontalNavigation extends Navigation {
    onLeftAction (previousItemIndex) {
        this.previousItem(previousItemIndex);
    }

    onRightAction (nextItemIndex) {
        this.nextItem(nextItemIndex);
    }

    onTopAction (slug) {
        this.previousStage(slug);
    }

    onDownAction (slug) {
        this.nextStage(slug);
    }
}

export default HorizontalNavigation;

The VerticalNavigation would be the opposite. Left and right for stage; up and down for items.

I don't want to reuse the Navigation component each time I could use Horizontal or Vertical, and rewrite the same exact logic over and over again.

Answer 1

I'm using the Higher-Order Component pattern, exporting a function to connect the extended component, eg:

import { connect as reduxConnect } from 'react-redux'
...

export class Navigation extends Component{
...

export function connect(Component){
  return reduxConnect(
    (state, props)=>({...})
  )(Component);
}

export default connect(Navigation)

And in the Horizontal.jsx you could do

import { Navigation, connect } from './Navigation';

class Horizontal extends Navigation{
...

export default connect(Horizontal);

This way, you keep the connect(mapStateToProps) in one place.

Answer 2

This is a fun one. At the bottom of Navigation, you're exporting the connecting component, which in essence is exporting the class created in connect, which is not the same class as Navigation. So, when you extend the default exported class, you're actually extending the connect class. That's a mouthful.

To get this to work, you could also export your class (in addition to export default connect(mapStateToProps)(Navigation); at the bottom:

export class Navigation extends Component {

Then to extend it, you can do:

import { Navigation } from './Navigation';

class Horizontal extends Navigation {
  // ...

However, you would also need connect the Horizontal component as well in order to get the right props from redux.

If you don't want to use connect, you could take in props to your Navigation component that changes how those up/down/left/right actions work, then you could create a Horizontal/Vertical component that passes in the right props. Something like:

class Horizontal extends React.Component {
  constructor(props, context) {
    super(props, context);

    this.onUp = this.onUp.bind(this);
    this.onDown = this.onDown.bind(this);
    this.onLeft = this.onLeft.bind(this);
    this.onRight = this.onRight.bind(this);
  }
  onUp() {}
  onDown() {}
  onLeft() {}
  onRight() {}
  render() {
    return (
      <Navigation onUp={this.onUp} onDown={this.onDown} onLeft={this.onLeft} onRight={this.onRight} />
    );
  }
);