How to use React Hooks with video.js?

Question

I am using video.js in React. I try to migrate to React Hooks.

My React version is 16.8.3

This is original working code:

import React, { PureComponent } from 'react';
import videojs from 'video.js';

class VideoPlayer extends PureComponent {
  componentDidMount() {
    const { videoSrc } = this.props;
    const { playerRef } = this.refs;

    this.player = videojs(playerRef, { autoplay: true, muted: true }, () => {
      this.player.src(videoSrc);
    });
  }

  componentWillUnmount() {
    if (this.player) this.player.dispose()
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div data-vjs-player>
        <video ref="playerRef" className="video-js vjs-16-9" playsInline />
      </div>
    );
  }
}

After adding React Hooks

import React, { useEffect, useRef } from 'react';
import videojs from 'video.js';

function VideoPlayer(props) {
  const { videoSrc } = props;
  const playerRef = useRef();

  useEffect(() => {
    const player = videojs(playerRef.current, { autoplay: true, muted: true }, () => {
      player.src(videoSrc);
    });

    return () => {
      player.dispose();
    };
  });

  return (
    <div data-vjs-player>
      <video ref="playerRef" className="video-js vjs-16-9" playsInline />
    </div>
  );
}

I got the error

Invariant Violation: Function components cannot have refs. Did you mean to use React.forwardRef()?

But I am using React Hooks useRef instead of refs actually. Any guide will be helpful.

Answer 1

You are passing a string to the video element's ref prop. Give it the playerRef variable instead.

You can also give useEffect an empty array as second argument as you only want to run the effect after the initial render.

function VideoPlayer(props) {
  const { videoSrc } = props;
  const playerRef = useRef();

  useEffect(() => {
    const player = videojs(playerRef.current, { autoplay: true, muted: true }, () => {
      player.src(videoSrc);
    });

    return () => {
      player.dispose();
    };
  }, []);

  return (
    <div data-vjs-player>
      <video ref={playerRef} className="video-js vjs-16-9" playsInline />
    </div>
  );
}