redux Actions must be plain objects but I defined plain object

Question

I use redux + react to build my website, and I want to use redux to control a sidebar visible.The sidebar is defined by semantic-ui-react.Because I want to control it across another component, so I defined the props in sidebar's parent component const { visible, dispatch } = this.props, there is a onClick function to handle this. I will show my code.

Uncaught Error: Actions must be plain objects. Use custom middleware for async actions.

This error confused me one afternoon, and I don't know why! This is my action code:

**action**

export const SIDEBARISVISIBLE = 'sidebarVisible'

export function sidebarVisibleAction() {
  return { type: SIDEBARISVISIBLE }
}

As you can see, I defined an action creator returned a plain object.

And this is my reducer code:

**reducer**

import SIDEBARISVISIBLE from '../actions/outside.js'

function sidebarVisible(state = {
  sidebarIsVisible: false
}, action) {

    switch (action.type) {
        case SIDEBARISVISIBLE:
            return Object.assign({}, state, {
                sidebarIsVisible: !state.sidebarIsVisible
            })
        default:
            return state
    }
}

export default sidebarVisible

Also my store code:

**store**

import { createStore, applyMiddleware, compose } from 'redux'
import thunk from 'redux-thunk'
import sidebarVisible from '../reducers/outside.js'

export default initialState => {
  return createStore(
    sidebarVisible,
    initialState,
    applyMiddleware(thunk)
  )
}

Then, my component code(part of):

class OutsideView extends Component {

    constructor(props) {
        super(props)
        this.state = { activeItem: '' }
    }

    handleItemClick = (e, { name }) => this.setState({ activeItem: name })

    render() {
        const { activeItem } = this.state
        const { visible, dispatch } = this.props

        return (
            <div>
                <SidebarNav visible={ visible } />

                ......

                   <Menu.Item
                    name='sidebar'
                    active={ activeItem === 'sidebar'}
                    onClick={ (e, {name}) => {
                                this.setState({ activeItem: name })
                                dispatch(sidebarVisibleAction)
                            } }>
                    <Icon color='red' name='list' />
                </Menu.Item>

OutsideView.PropTypes = {
    visible: PropTypes.bool.isRequired,
    dispatch: PropTypes.func.isRequired
}

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return {
    visible: state.sidebarIsVisible,
  }
}

export default connect(
    mapStateToProps
)(OutsideView)

The last, my Router:

import configureStore from './store/index.js'
const store = configureStore()

export default class Root extends Component {

    render() {
        return (
            <Provider store={ store }>
            <Router history={ browserHistory }>
                <Route path="/" component={ OutsideRedux }>
                    <Route path='register' component={ Register } />
                    <Route path='login' component={ Login } />
                    <Route path='blog' component={ Blog } />
                    <Route path='about' component={ About } />
                    <Route path='home' component={ Home } />
                    <Route path='ask' component={ Ask } />
                    <Route path='panel' component={ Panel } />
                    <Route path='setting' component={ Setting } />
                    <Route path='user' component={ User } />
                </Route>
            </Router>
            </Provider>
        )
    }
}

So, I search for answer for this error, most of them say, you have to setup redux-thunk and with ApplyMiddleware to use it, the simplest way.But the action I defined is plain object.If I don't use redux-thunk, I think I will not encounter this error either.So, I'm very confused, how to solve this?

Thanks for all the help

Answer 1

Here:

dispatch(sidebarVisibleAction)

you are passing function sidebarVisibleAction to dispach. You should call it and pass result, so the code will look like:

dispatch(sidebarVisibleAction())

(now dispatch will get object, not a function).