Considerations for Creating a Card Component

This article explores the design considerations for creating a flexible and reusable React Card component. The journey starts with a simple implementation and gradually examines various approaches to enhance its adaptability.

Initially, a basic Card component is presented:

const Card = props => {
  return(
    <div classname="card">
      <h2 id="props-title">{props.title}</h2>
      <p>{props.content}</p>
    </div>
  )
}

While functional for simple use cases, this design quickly reveals limitations. The need for varying header levels (h2, h4, etc.) and content structures necessitates a more sophisticated API. Several alternatives are explored:

• Conditional Rendering: Using props to control the header level:

const Card = props => {
  return(
    <div classname="card">
      {props.type === "big" && <h2 id="props-title">{props.title}</h2>}
      {props.type !== "big" && <h4 id="props-title">{props.title}</h4>}
      <p>{props.content}</p>
    </div>
  )
}

• Dynamic Header Tag: Programmatically generating the header tag based on a level prop:

const Card = props => {
  const HeaderTag = `h${props.level}`;
  return(
    <div classname="card">
      {props.title}{HeaderTag}>
      <p>{props.content}</p>
    </div>
  )
}

• Separate Header Component: Extracting the header into its own component for better organization.

• Flexible Content Wrapper: Using a <div> to allow arbitrary HTML content. <li> <p><strong>Children Prop:</strong> Accepting children as content instead of a <code>content prop, enabling more complex content structures.

• Customizable Class Names: Allowing users to add custom class names via a className prop.

• Customizable Outer Tag: Allowing the outer tag (currently a <div>) to be configurable. <p>Ultimately, the article argues for a highly flexible, yet minimally opinionated approach:</p> <pre class="brush:php;toolbar:false">const Card = ({ tag = 'div', className = 'card', ...props }) =&gt; { const Tag = tag; return ( &lt;tag classname=&quot;{className}&quot;&gt; {props.children} &lt;/tag&gt; ); };</pre> <p>This final iteration prioritizes flexibility by allowing users to control the outer tag, class names, and content entirely through children. The article cautions against over-engineering the API, highlighting the potential for excessive complexity and the importance of finding a balance between flexibility and usability. The author concludes by emphasizing that the ideal level of flexibility is a matter of careful consideration and depends heavily on the anticipated use cases.</p> </div>