Registering Custom Components

Want a shortcut? Get going right away with Builder's Devtools, where you can register components with the flip of a switch. For details, visit Using Builder Devtools for Automated Integration.

To use your custom components in the Builder Visual Editor, you need to take a couple of minimal steps in your codebase.

Prerequisites

To get the most our of this tutorial, you should have the following:

Integrated Pages or Sections
The Builder SDK installed for your framework

Tip: This tutorial is for custom components in all Builder's supported frameworks except for the HTML API.

Builder can register any of your components for use in the Visual Editor. Just provide a reference to the component and describe the inputs—or the props—that you would like to be editable in the Visual Editor as in the following example:

type MyProps = { content: string; link: string }

// Any component in your codebase
function MyButton(props: MyProps) {
  return <Button href={props.link}>{props.content}</Button>
}

// Register this component for use in the Visual Editor
Builder.registerComponent(MyButton,{
  name: 'MyButton',
  inputs: [
    // 'name' is the name of your prop
    { name: 'content', type: 'text' },
    { name: 'link', type: 'url' },
  ],
)

Setting up your code

To use your custom component with Builder, you need to let Builder know about it by registering your component. Registering your component makes the component appear in the Visual Editor as a custom block. Follow the steps according to framework.

Using your component in Builder's Visual Editor

Now your component should show up in the Visual Editor with no further configuration in the code.

The following video shows the Custom Thing block in the Custom Components section of the Insert tab.

CustomThing has an input registered with Builder called name. To use a registered component's input, do the following:

Drag and drop your custom component into the work area.
Select your component by clicking on it.
Click the Edit button.
Add a value for the the input, in this example, the input is called name, and the value added is the text, "Sunshine".

Setting component options

When you register a component, you must provide a name. Optionally, you can also specify:

component default styling
whether Builder wraps the component in a <div>
whether the component displays in the Insert tab

The following table describes each of the additional component options:

Name	Type	Description
`defaultStyles`	`object`	Use for showing an example value in the input form when creating a new instance of this component, to users understand its purpose. Users in the Visual Editor can edit these styles. `Builder.registerComponent(HelloWorldComponent, { ... defaultStyles: { textAlign: "center", fontSize: "20px", }, ... });`
`hideFromInsertMenu`	`Boolean`	Hide your component from the Insert tab within Builder's Visual Editor. Use this feature for deprecating a component when you want to reduce its use, but still need the component registered with Builder so that older content that uses the component continues to function properly. For more information on versioning, refer to Versioning Custom Components. `hideFromInsertMenu: true`
`noWrap`	`Boolean`	By default, Builder wraps your components in a `<div>`. You can opt out of this wrapping by using the `noWrap` option. For a full code example, see Builder's built-in form input component. The following example shows `noWrap` with a Material UI `TextField` in Builder.io. Tip: When using `noWrap: true`, it is important to pass `{...props.attributes}` to ensure class names are assigned correctly as in the following example. import { TextField } from '@material-ui/core' export const BuilderTextField = props => ( // Important! Builder.io must add a couple classes // and attributes via props.attributes // Important! If you add your own classes, // do it after ...props.attributes <TextField variant={props.variant} {...props.attributes} className={`my-class ${props.attributes.className}`} /> ) Builder.registerComponent(BuilderTextField, { name: 'TextField', noWrap: true, // Important! inputs: [{ name: 'variant', type: 'string' }] })

The following code snippet features a number of options in the context of registerComponent():

const HeloWorldComponent = (props) => <div>{props.text}</div>;

Builder.registerComponent(HelloWorldComponent, {
  // Begin component options
  // Name your component (required)
  name: "Hello World",
  // Optional: provide CSS in an object to defaultStyles
  defaultStyles: {
    textAlign: "center",
    fontSize: "20px",
  },
  // Optional: specify whether your component is wrapped in a <div>
  noWrap: true,
  // Optional: specify if your component shows in the Insert tab
  hideFromInsertMenu: false,
  // End component options

  // Begin inputs:  
  inputs: [{ ... }],
});

For more detail on all available registerComponent() options, read registerComponent Options.

Programmatically setting bindings

You can programmatically set bindings on custom components so you can apply multiple bindings simultaneously. This is helpful when, for example, applying styles from an existing design system. The snippet below registers a custom component with default bindings for the product title and a theme background color:

 Builder.registerComponent(MyComponent, {
    name: 'MyComponent',
    defaults: {
      bindings: {
        'component.options.title': 'state.product.title',
        'style.background': 'state.theme.colors.primary'
      },
    },
  },

Fetching data async

Unless you're using a React-based framework, your components can fetch data async out-of-the-box.

If you are using a React-based framework and want your component to fetch data async, use Builder's getAsyncProps helper.

In the following example, the page loads after the all the data arrives:

export async function getStaticProps(context) {
  const content = await builder.get('page', { url: context.resolvedUrl }).promise();

  await getAsyncProps(content, {
    async Products(props) {
      return {
        data: await fetch(`${apiRoot}/products?cat=${props.category}`).then(res => res.json()),
      };
    },
  });

  return { props: { content } };
}

For more information about getAsyncProps see the Builder Utils README on GitHub.

Making a component available only in specified models

When you use Builder.registerComponent() to register custom components in Builder.io, you can provide various options to customize the behavior of your component.

One of these options is the models property, where you can specify a list of model names. By doing so, you can restrict the usage of the component to only those models listed, ensuring that the component is available only for specific purposes. If the models property is not provided, the component will be available for all models in Builder.io.

To control exactly which models your component is available in, use the models array when registering your component as in the following example:

Builder.registerComponent(RelatedProducts, {
  name: 'RelatedProducts',
  models: ['product-editorial', 'page'],
  ....
})

In this example, the RelatedProducts component is only accessible in the Visual Editor when editing content entries made with the product-editorial or page models.

For more detail on all available registerComponent() options, read registerComponent Options.

What's next

To learn how to test and customize how your component appears in the Visual Editor, continue on to Using Your Custom Components in the Visual Editor.

To limit visual editing to only your custom components, use Components-only mode.

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