Sandpack | CodeSandbox

Components

Several Sandpack prefixed components are available in the sandpack-react package. They can be used to build custom presets, as long as they render within the providers we talked about during the previous section.

Let's try to rebuild the Sandpack preset, using the sandpack components available in the sandpack-react package.

Layout

The first component inside the Provider is SandpackLayout. This component ensures the theming is applied and gives your sandpack instance the two column layout with the first child on the left and the second one on the right.

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackCodeEditor,
  SandpackPreview,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
      <SandpackPreview />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Further now we have pretty much the same component as the preset, minus the prop passing, which you can decide based on your specific needs.

You can easily swap the two components inside the SandpackLayout to get a different instance of Sandpack.

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackCodeEditor,
  SandpackPreview,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackPreview />
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

SandpackProvider accepts a theme prop, so you can pass in your custom theme object or a predefined theme.

Preview

The Preview component is running the sandpack bundler, so without rendering a Preview component you will not have any bundling and evaluation of the code in sandpack. However, the Preview is smart enough to start even if it is mounted later in the page. This is how the autorun=false mode is working.

<SandpackProvider template="react">
  <SandpackLayout>
    <SandpackPreview />
  </SandpackLayout>
</SandpackProvider>

There's nothing stopping you from rendering multiple previews in the same Provider. They will all be connected to the same state source, but they can for example point to different pages of the same application.

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackPreview,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackPreview />
      <SandpackPreview />
      <SandpackPreview />
      <SandpackPreview />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Options

Additional buttons

The <SandpackPreview /> component also allows you to add additional buttons to the preview area.

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackCodeEditor,
  SandpackPreview,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackPreview
        actionsChildren={
          <button onClick={() => window.alert("Bug reported!")}>
            Report bug
          </button>
        }
      />
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Additional content

For advanced use cases, children of <SandpackPreview> are rendered at the end of the preview container.

Getting the client instance from SandpackPreview

You can imperatively retrieve the Sandpack client from a SandpackPreview ref, and also consume or interact with the current state of the preview. Check out the type definitions for more details.

import { SandpackPreviewRef, useSandpack, SandpackPreview } from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react"
 
const SandpackPreviewClient: React.FC = () => {
  const { sandpack } = useSandpack();
  const previewRef = React.useRef<SandpackPreviewRef>();
 
  React.useEffect(() => {
    const client = previewRef.current?.getClient();
    const clientId = previewRef.current?.clientId;
 
    if (client && clientId) {
      console.log(client);
      console.log(sandpack.clients[clientId]);
    }
  /**
   * NOTE: In order to make sure that the client will be available
   * use the whole `sandpack` object as a dependency.
   */
  }, [sandpack]);
 
  return <SandpackPreview ref={previewRef} />;
};

Code editor

The SandpackCodeEditor component renders a wrapper over codemirror, a lightweight code editor we use inside sandpack. If you played with the Sandpack preset, you should be familiar already with the props that you can pass to the code editor component:

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackPreview,
  SandpackCodeEditor,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackCodeEditor
        showTabs
        showLineNumbers={false}
        showInlineErrors
        wrapContent
        closableTabs
      />
      <SandpackPreview />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Options

Extensions

Sandpack uses CodeMirror under the hood to provide a nice editor. You can extend the editor with any CodeMirror extensions, such as @codemirror/autocomplete.

import { 
  Sandpack, 
  SandpackProvider, 
  SandpackLayout, 
  SandpackCodeEditor 
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";
import { autocompletion, completionKeymap } from "@codemirror/autocomplete";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackCodeEditor
        extensions={[autocompletion()]}
        extensionsKeymap={[completionKeymap]}
      />
    </SandpackLayout> 
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Additional languages

Sandpack provides built-in support for a variety of common languages:

JavaScript, JSX
TypeScript, TSX
CSS, SCSS, Less
HTML
Vue

When an appropriate language can't be detected JavaScript is used.

If you want to support additional languages you can extend the editor by supplying a CodeMirror language and associating it with one or more file extensions.

import { python } from "@codemirror/lang-python";
 
<SandpackProvider>
  <SandpackCodeEditor
    additionalLanguages={[
      {
        name: "python",
        extensions: ["py"],
        language: python(),
      },
    ]}
  />
</SandpackProvider>
 
<Sandpack
  options={{
    codeEditor: {
      additionalLanguages: [
        {
          name: "python",
          extensions: ["py"],
          language: python(),
        },
      ]
    },
  }}
  template="react"

When using a stream language mode you'll need to convert it into a LanguageSupport instance.

import { LanguageSupport, StreamLanguage } from "@codemirror/language";
import { shell } from "@codemirror/legacy-modes/mode/shell";
 
<SandpackProvider>
  <SandpackCodeEditor
    additionalLanguages={[
      {
        name: "shell",
        extensions: ["sh", "bat", "ps1"],
        language: new LanguageSupport(StreamLanguage.define(shell)),
      },
    ]}
  />
</SandpackProvider>;

Advanced usage

If you want to interact directly with CodeMirror, use the component ref to access the getCodemirror function, which will return the CodeMirror instance. Check out how to use it:

import { EditorSelection } from "@codemirror/state";
 
const App = () => {
  const codemirrorInstance = useRef();
 
  useEffect(() => {
    // Getting CodeMirror instance
    const cmInstance = codemirrorInstance.current.getCodemirror();
 
    if (!cmInstance) return;
 
    // Current position
    const currentPosition = cmInstance.state.selection.ranges[0].to;
 
    // Setting a new position
    const trans = cmInstance.state.update({
      selection: EditorSelection.cursor(currentPosition + 1),
      changes: {
        from: 0,
        to: cmInstance.state.doc.length,
        insert: code,
      },
    });
 
    cmInstance.update([trans]);
  }, []);
 
  return (
    <SandpackProvider template="react">
      <SandpackCodeEditor ref={codemirrorInstance} />
    </SandpackProvider>
  );
};

This is especially useful to get the cursor's current position, add custom decorators, set the selection in a specific position, etc.

File Explorer

The SandpackFileExplorer provides a minimal but very powerful experience to navigate through files. You can open and close folders, and open new files.

import { 
  SandpackProvider, 
  SandpackLayout, 
  SandpackCodeEditor, 
  SandpackFileExplorer 
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackFileExplorer />
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Options

If you're looking for extra feature we recommend using AaronPowell96/sandpack-file-explorer package which support things such as:

Add and remove files or directories,
Drag and drop to move files or directories,
Allow users to customise the entire folder structure right within your website!
Works out of the box with all of Sandpack's templates.

Tests

The SandpackTests component renders a thin wrapper around Jest to run tests directly in the browser. This means you can run tests but additional configuration may not possible given the browser environment.

Usage

There are two ways to run tests and check out the output:

Sandpack Preset

Using test-ts template preset, which contains an example test.

import { Sandpack } from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => <Sandpack template="test-ts" />;

SandpackTests component

Standalone and configurable component to run tests, which you can combine with test-ts template or supply custom files. For more details about its usage and implementation, check out the API reference.

import { 
  SandpackProvider, 
  SandpackLayout, 
  SandpackCodeEditor, 
  SandpackTests 
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="test-ts">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackTests />
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Options

Extending expect

Add the matchers either as a dependency or as a file and then import the matchers into your tests and invoke expect.extend with your matchers.

import { 
  SandpackProvider, 
  SandpackLayout, 
  SandpackCodeEditor, 
  SandpackTests 
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

const extendedTest = `import * as matchers from 'jest-extended';
import { add } from './add';

expect.extend(matchers);

describe('jest-extended matchers are supported', () => {
test('adding two positive integers yields a positive integer', () => {
expect(add(1, 2)).toBePositive();
});
});
`;

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider
    customSetup={{ dependencies: { "jest-extended": "^3.0.2" } }}
    files={{ "/extended.test.ts": extendedTest }}
    template="test-ts"
  >
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
      <SandpackTests />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Hiding Tests

You can hide the test files using the visibleFiles prop. Additionally, if you want to suppress test content and only show the test results, you can use the hideTestsAndSuppressLogs option. This option will hide the test files, suppress the console logs, and disable the verbose button.

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackCodeEditor,
  SandpackTests,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider
    template="test-ts"
    options={{
      activeFile: "/add.ts",
      visibleFiles: ["/add.ts"],
    }}
  >
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
      <SandpackTests hideTestsAndSupressLogs />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Console

SandpackConsole is a Sandpack devtool that allows printing the console logs from a Sandpack client. It is designed to be a light version of a browser console, which means that it's limited to a set of common use cases you may encounter when coding.

Sandpack runs the console directly into the iframe. As a result, all console messages pass through the Sandpack protocol, where you can attach a listener to these messages in your own component or use the proper Sandpack React hook to consume them.

Usage

There are three ways to print the logs:

<Sandpack options={{ showConsole: true }} />: shows a panel right after the SandpackPreview;
<SandpackConsole />: standalone component to render the logs;
useSandpackConsole: React hook to consume the console logs from a Sandpack client;

import { Sandpack } from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <Sandpack
    options={{
      showConsole: true,
      showConsoleButton: true,
    }}
  />
);

SandpackConsole Options

Limitation

Considering that SandpackConsole is meant to be a light version of a browser console, there are a few limitations in its implementation in order to keep it modular and light:

It needs to have a Sandpack client running (iframe) to execute the logs.
It only supports four types of consoles: info, warning, error, and clear.
It doesn't render nested objects due to recursive issues.

However, if you need to support more advanced cases, useSandpackConsole hook is compatible with console-feed, which provides a closer browser-console experience without any of the limitations mentioned above.

Code Viewer

For situations when you strictly want to show some code and run it in the browser, you can use the SandpackCodeViewer component. It looks similar to the code editor, but it renders a read-only version of codemirror, so users will not be able to edit the code.

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackCodeEditor,
  SandpackCodeViewer,
  SandpackPreview,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackCodeViewer />
      <SandpackPreview />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

Options

CodeMirror decorations

This API provides a way to draw or style a piece of code in the editor content. You can implement it in the following ways:

Entire line: add className or elements attributes to an entire line;
Range: add className or elements attributes to a piece of content, given a line, startColumn and endColumn;

export default [
  { className: "highlight", line: 1 },
  { className: "highlight", line: 9 },
  {
    className: "widget",
    elementAttributes: { "data-id": "1" },
    line: 12,
    startColumn: 26,
    endColumn: 38,
  },
  {
    className: "widget",
    elementAttributes: { "data-id": "2" },
    line: 13,
    startColumn: 8,
    endColumn: 17,
  },
];

OpenInCodeSandboxButton

You can build a custom button that creates a new sandbox from the sandpack files. It will include any edits made in the Sandpack editor, so it is a great way to persist your changes. The created sandbox will open on CodeSandbox in a new tab.

Let's use the UnstyledOpenInCodeSandboxButton as an example:

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackCodeEditor,
  UnstyledOpenInCodeSandboxButton,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
    </SandpackLayout>
    
    <UnstyledOpenInCodeSandboxButton>
      Open in CodeSandbox
    </UnstyledOpenInCodeSandboxButton>
  </SandpackProvider>
);

The UnstyledOpenInCodeSandboxButton is a basic component that does not carry any styles. If you want a ready-to-use component, use the OpenInCodeSandboxButton instead, which has the same functionality but includes the CodeSandbox logo.

Other components

You can also bring other components in the mix: SandpackTranspiledCode, FileTabs, SandpackFileExplorer, Navigator and so on.

For example, you can create an editor instance that gives you the transpiled code of your active component instead of the preview page:

import {
  SandpackProvider,
  SandpackLayout,
  SandpackCodeEditor,
  SandpackTranspiledCode,
} from "@codesandbox/sandpack-react";

export default () => (
  <SandpackProvider template="react">
    <SandpackLayout>
      <SandpackCodeEditor />
      <SandpackTranspiledCode />
    </SandpackLayout>
  </SandpackProvider>
)

You will notice that the theming applies to all components in the same way, as the theme object is also distributed by the theme context.

Some of the components have configuration props that toggle subparts on/off or that configure behavior/look. All of them comunicate with sandpack through the shared context.

Overview Hooks