Rails project with React Rails directories? - ruby-on-rails

Question

Image showing my rails structure for react
I have a lot of react components and wish to simply keep them better organized. So I'll cut to the chase and just ask. Is it possible to put my react components in directories and if so- how do I select them in a view and other react components?
I've already tried a few variatians like the one below without success and fear that it's simply not possible? Can't find any documentation about this either.
<%= react_component('OutfitCreate.Images') %>
Edit: To clarify, I want to make it clear that I'm using a typical rails project structure, and for react I am making use of the react-rails gem to handle my components as well as generating them.
Edit2: To clarify further, what I'm seeking is a way to target a react component by directory as such:
<%= react_component('<directory>/<classname>') %>
where each directory will be sub directories of "components".

Answer 1

I know this is an old question but maybe it helps anyone. You can do it like this:
<%= react_component "ComponentFolder/ComponentClassName" %>
It works just fine with rails-react and webpacker.

Answer 2

I recently used the react-rails gem and had a good experience. It takes care of accessing your components in Rails templates and does a few other nice things.
To answer your question specifically, you can put your components inside as many directories as you like as long as you follow the gem docs. The gem provides a view helper that allows you to render a specific component, and to pass data to it as props (the helper takes a hash which becomes the component's props).
Edit -- I'm not sure if you're already using the gem, the helper method you are using looks like it, but you don't specifically mention it. Perhaps there is a problem with the gem installation and/or setup. You need to edit application.js and also to run the generator task: rails g react:install
Edit -- To make sure you can access components in the components subdirectory, you should do the following things:
*run the generator: rails g react:install
*make sure the generated components.js file contains: //= require_tree ./components
*make sure your application.js file contains:
//= require react
//= require react_ujs
//= require components

Answer 3

React components will be considered global, because all .js will be minified in one single big .js file. So, you will have to take some considerations.
First, in your sprockets file (Normally application.js) you need to tell Rails to serve the React Components you want. The easy way would be to require all folders and files in components folder, because all your components will be there, but organized in subfolders. This is made adding the next line:
// File: app/assets/javascripts/application.js
//= require_tree ./components
Second, if you want to use your React component named for example Images, which could be defined in ../components/folder/images.js, you just could use in your Rails View the helper react_component('Images') like usual.
React will find the Images component if it match with the Images component you defined inside some served .js (But a sane human will expect you defined the Image Component inside some images.js) because this name Images is global (Remember? One big .js file will be served).
With this approach, the client will download only one big .js file with all your React Components. Bad for download speed, but could be cached.
So, here, you would have to take care to name all components with a different name each one.
Now, if you have for example a component named Foo inside ../components/folder/doesnt_matter.js and another component with the same name Foo, but inside ../components/another_folder/this_neither.js, you will have to tell Rails which file do you want to serve for the specific View you want to render to evade collision name problems.
This means, you could make the client to download only the needed js code (and the needed React Components) for the rendered page. It will be downloading .js files for each page, losing the cache possibility.
One intermediate way to do this, would be to serve a middle sized .js file for all the views in the same controller.
To do this, you could organize your js (or jsx, or ...) in a way you could have a place for common Components (which are used in two or more controllers), and a specific folder for each controller with specific React Components in there.
First, you will have to replace the previously added //require_tree ./components in application.js with //require ./components/common/ for serving only the common React components to All Views.
Second, in your layout, you could serve two js files; an application.js and a #{controller_name}.js (This means, one specific .js file per controller).
Third, for each controller, you will have a .js file with the same name. So, supose you have a controller called home_controller, then, you will need to have a home.js (controller_name helper in layout view will make rails to look for this file) and in it, using sprockets again, you will serve specific React Components with //require ./components/home/
In this way, you will have to take care of your organization, and the React Components Names need to differ with the ones inside .../components/common/.
If you want to be more specific yet, you could use the same technique in layout in combination with controller_name and action_name helpers. Or you could use content_for asking for the specific .js files that have the React Components the View needs.
However, you need to be carefull because i don't know how crazy the Assets Pipeline could turn against you. Specially using content_for.