How to Dynamically Add Options to a Dropdown with Button Click in React Chat Application

Learn how to seamlessly add custom options to a dropdown in a React chat application when a button is clicked. This guide walks you through the concept of shared state for efficient interaction between components.
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Adding Dynamic Options to a Dropdown in a React Chat Application

Are you building a chat application in React and looking to dynamically add options to a dropdown menu? If your app has multiple pages – one showing available chat rooms and another for creating new custom rooms – this can be a frequent requirement. In this guide, we'll explore how you can effectively manage the dropdown to display these new custom options without running into errors like "Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'appendChild' of null".

Understanding the Problem

In a typical chat application, you might have two primary components:

RoomsDropdown: Displays a list of available chat rooms (including the custom ones you want to add).

CustomRoom: Provides functionality to create new chat rooms.

When a user creates a new chat room, we want to add the name of that room to the RoomsDropdown. The key here is to share the newly created room name between the two components, ensuring that whenever a new room is created, the dropdown updates accordingly.

The Solution: Using Shared State

The most effective way to achieve this in React is through the concept of shared state. By using state management, we can store the name of the custom room in a parent component, allowing both RoomsDropdown and CustomRoom to react to changes dynamically.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Create a Parent Component: This parent component will maintain the state for the customRoomName.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Implement the RoomsDropdown Component: Using the customRoomName received from the parent, this component can dynamically render the dropdown options.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Implement the CustomRoom Component: This component will have a button to submit the custom room name. When the button is clicked, it updates the shared state in the parent component.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Conclusion

With this structure, you can easily add custom options to the dropdown when the user creates a new chat room. When the button in CustomRoom is clicked, it updates the state in the Rooms parent component, which triggers a re-render of RoomsDropdown and displays the updated list.

This approach not only solves the problem you're facing but also adheres to React's principles of component reusability and state management. Happy coding and enjoy building your chat application!