Atoms

Atoms contain the source of truth for our application state. In our todo-list, the source of truth will be an array of objects, with each object representing a todo item.

We'll call our list atom todoListState and create it using the atom() function:

const todoListState = atom({
  key: 'todoListState',
  default: [],
});

We give our atom a unique key and set the default value to an empty array. To read the contents of this atom, we can use the useRecoilValue() hook in our TodoList component:

function TodoList() {
  const todoList = useRecoilValue(todoListState);

  return (
    <>
      {/* <TodoListStats /> */}
      {/* <TodoListFilters /> */}
      <TodoItemCreator />

      {todoList.map((todoItem) => (
        <TodoItem key={todoItem.id} item={todoItem} />
      ))}
    </>
  );
}

The commented-out components will be implemented in the sections that follow.

To create new todo items, we need to access a setter function that will update the contents of the todoListState. We can use the useSetRecoilState() hook to get a setter function in our TodoItemCreator component:

function TodoItemCreator() {
  const [inputValue, setInputValue] = useState('');
  const setTodoList = useSetRecoilState(todoListState);

  const addItem = () => {
    setTodoList((oldTodoList) => [
      ...oldTodoList,
      {
        id: getId(),
        text: inputValue,
        isComplete: false,
      },
    ]);
    setInputValue('');
  };

  const onChange = ({target: {value}}) => {
    setInputValue(value);
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <input type="text" value={inputValue} onChange={onChange} />
      <button onClick={addItem}>Add</button>
    </div>
  );
}

// utility for creating unique Id
let id = 0;
function getId() {
  return id++;
}

Notice we use the updater form of the setter function so that we can create a new todo list based on the old todo list.

The TodoItem component will display the value of the todo item while allowing you to change its text and delete the item. We use useRecoilState() to read todoListState and to get a setter function that we use to update the item text, mark it as completed, and delete it:

function TodoItem({item}) {
  const [todoList, setTodoList] = useRecoilState(todoListState);
  const index = todoList.findIndex((listItem) => listItem === item);

  const editItemText = ({target: {value}}) => {
    const newList = replaceItemAtIndex(todoList, index, {
      ...item,
      text: value,
    });

    setTodoList(newList);
  };

  const toggleItemCompletion = () => {
    const newList = replaceItemAtIndex(todoList, index, {
      ...item,
      isComplete: !item.isComplete,
    });

    setTodoList(newList);
  };

  const deleteItem = () => {
    const newList = removeItemAtIndex(todoList, index);

    setTodoList(newList);
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <input type="text" value={item.text} onChange={editItemText} />
      <input
        type="checkbox"
        checked={item.isComplete}
        onChange={toggleItemCompletion}
      />
      <button onClick={deleteItem}>X</button>
    </div>
  );
}

function replaceItemAtIndex(arr, index, newValue) {
  return [...arr.slice(0, index), newValue, ...arr.slice(index + 1)];
}

function removeItemAtIndex(arr, index) {
  return [...arr.slice(0, index), ...arr.slice(index + 1)];
}

And with that we've got a fully functional todo list! In the next section we'll see how we can use selectors to take our list to the next level.