Social media timeline with pocketbase and react frontend : replies and nested sub replies

Timeline and posts implementaion

After changing up the backend layout and removing the replies table and just saving everything in the posts table with different depth levels to differentiate original posts from replies and also easily represent all the levels of nested replies

the initial request n the timeline will have null parent field and depth as 0

http://127.0.0.1:8090/custom_posts?id=undefined&depth=0&parent=&user=v7o41qltt4ttyy&created=YYYYescape+2023-01-16T06:47:26+03:00Z

and the replies /sub replies will require a parent: the id of the post/reply t fetch replies for

 http://127.0.0.1:8090/custom_replies?id=undefined&depth=1&parent=1o599tvtue3ghwa&user=6wdrg4lavbr&created=YYYYescape+2023-01-16T06:47:26+03:00Z

we can now covert the routing strategy in this app is to have this little slice be responsible for all the posts , replies and sub replies

 return createBrowserRouter([
        {
          path: '/',
          element: <RootLayout user={user}  test_mode={test_mode}/>,
          // loader:userLoader(queryClient),
          errorElement: <ReactRouterError />,
          children: [
            { 
              element: <TimelineLayout user={user}/>,
              children:[
              {
                index:true,
                element:<Timeline user={user}/>
              }
            ]
            },
            {
              path: '/post',
              element: <PostLayout user={user} />,
              children: [
                {
                  path: ':id',
                  element: <Post user={user} />,
                  // loader: deferredBlogPostsLoader,
                },
              ],
            },]}
            ])

complete routes.tsx

The timeline component has a list of posts and clicking on one navigates you you to the post component with it's id as the query parameter and depth and search parameter

           {data?.pages?.map((page) => {
                return page.map((item) => {
                        return (<div
                        onClick={() => {
                            navigate({
                            pathname: 'post/' + item.post_id,
                            search: createSearchParams({
                                depth:(item.post_depth===""?0:item.post_depth).toString()
                            }).toString()
                                    })}
                                }
                        key={item.post_id}
                        className="w-[90%] md:w-[50%]  p-2 flex flex-col  border-black border-2 
                        dark:border-[1px]  dark:border-white rounded-lg gap-3">   
                        <PostsCard item={item}  user={user} />
                        </div>

                        )
                    })

To like/comment on the post without triggering the navigate event add a stop propagation to the parent with the click event to stop the event from propagating to the parent component

<div  onClick={(event) => event.stopPropagation()}>
        ....
</div>

The Post.tsx component will fetch the posts and fetch all associated replies

the depth searchParam and id queryParam will allow us to use this component recursively and open any clicked on reply as a post

instinctively I tried using

    navigate({
    pathname: 'post/' + item.post_id,
    search: createSearchParams({
    depth:(item.post_depth===""?0:item.post_depth).toString()
    }).toString()
    })

but in a result in a URL that looks like

http://localhost:3000/post/0radtgd42swe3n8?depth=0/post/0radtdtdtdtn8?depth=1

so we have to hop back a route and pass in a new id into the post id param to get it to work

 navigate({
pathname: '../' + item.post_id,
search: createSearchParams({
    depth: (item.post_depth === "" ? 0 : item.post_depth).toString()
    }).toString(),
    },
    )

To get

http://localhost:3000/post/0radtdtdtdtn8?depth=1

helpful resources

react router v6 features

Blog

Social media timeline with pocketbase and react frontend : replies and nested sub replies

Dennis kinuthia

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