In Morph, we use Markdown to build the frontend. By placing components in Markdown files, you can build the UI of your web application.

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Development Flow

Here’s the process for frontend development in Morph:
1

Create an .mdx file

Create a .mdx file in the src/pages directory to create a page in your web application. The URL is generated based on the file path.
# Create a page at /new-page-1
touch src/pages/new-page-1.mdx
2

Add page title

Add a title to your .mdx file. The first heading in the page is treated as the title.
src/pages/new-page-1.mdx
# New Page
3

Place components

Refer to the Component Reference while placing components suitable for your data app.
# New Page

Displaying spreadsheet data 👇

<DataFrame name="data_google_sheet" height={500} />
4

Start development server

Start the development server to preview your web application locally.
morph serve

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File-based Routing

The application’s URLs are generated based on the mdx file paths. Examples:
  • src/pages/new-page-1.mdx -> /new-page-1
  • src/pages/new-page-2/index.mdx -> /new-page-2
  • src/pages/new-page-3/sub-page.mdx -> /new-page-3/sub-page
Additionally, the following are reserved words with special meanings:
  • src/pages/_app.tsx You can set up global layouts. Child routes are placed in <Outlet>.
  • 404.tsx You can set up a global 404 page.

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State Management

When developing the frontend, you may want to save user input or selected values as state and send them as variables to the server. In such cases, follow the guide below for implementation.

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Declaring State: defineState()

Use defineState() to declare state. defineState() takes an object as an argument and sets it as the initial value. 
import { defineState } from "@morph-data/components";

export const topPageState = defineState({
  dateRangeStart: new Date(),
  dateRangeEnd: new Date(),
  industry: "All",
});

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Accessing State Values: .value

You can access the values of declared state by calling the .value property as follows: 
<>
  now: {topPageState.dateRangeStart.value.toLocaleString()}
  industry: {topPageState.industry.value}
<>
Tips If you find it tedious to specify the variable name declared with defineState() every time like in this example, you can shorten it by destructuring the variables.
const { dateRangeStart, dateRangeEnd, industry } = defineState({
  dateRangeStart: new Date(),
  dateRangeEnd: new Date(),
  industry: 'All',
});

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Updating State: .update()

Use the update() method to update state. 
<Button onClick={() => topPageState.dateRangeStart.update(new Date())}>
  Reset date
</Button>

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Using Input Components

The Morph framework provides components for reflecting user input to states declared with defineState(). For more details, refer to Input Components. Using input components makes it easy to reflect user input to state. 
import { defineState } from '@morph-data/components';

export const topPageState = defineState({
  dateRangeStart: new Date(),
  dateRangeEnd: new Date(),
});

# My Data App page

Showing stock prices from {topPageState.dateRangeStart.value.toLocaleString()} to {topPageState.dateRangeEnd.value.toLocaleString()};

<DateRangePicker
  state={[
    topPageState.dateRangeStart,
    topPageState.dateRangeEnd
  ]}
/>

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Passing Values to Data Components

Data components can accept a variables property. By passing the values of states declared with defineState() to this property, you can pass user input values to Python functions or SQL files. 
import { defineState } from '@morph-data/components';

export const topPageState = defineState({
  dateRangeStart: new Date(),
  dateRangeEnd: new Date(),
});

# My Data App page

Showing stock prices from {topPageState.dateRangeStart.value.toLocaleString()} to {topPageState.dateRangeEnd.value.toLocaleString()};

<DateRangePicker
  state={[
    topPageState.dateRangeStart,
    topPageState.dateRangeEnd
  ]}
/>

<DataTable
  alias="stocks"
  // Specify variables to pass to the data component.
  variables={{
    start_date: topPageState.dateRangeStart,
    end_date: topPageState.dateRangeEnd
  }}
/>

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[Advanced] Using Data API

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Getting Execution Results: loadData()

You can use the loadData() function to get execution results from Python or SQL. 
loadData<T>(
  name: string,
  type: "json" | "markdown" | "html" | "image",
  variables?: Record<string, unknown>
): QueryState<T>
​
name
string
required
Specify the name of Python or SQL.
​
type
"json" | "html" | "markdown" | "image"
required
Specify the format of data to retrieve.
​
variables
Record<string, any>
Variables object to pass to Python or SQL. You can also pass State defined with defineState(). When State is passed, data is retrieved again when the State value changes.
import { defineState } from "@morph-data/components";

// name is a State object
export const { name } = defineState({ name: "" });

export const employeeData = loadData("get_employees", "json", {
name,
age: 30,
});

<Input state={name} />
A QueryState<T> object is returned.