React v15.4.0

Today we are releasing React 15.4.0.

We didn’t announce the previous minor releases on the blog because most of the changes were bug fixes. However, 15.4.0 is a special release, and we would like to highlight a few notable changes in it.

Separating React and React DOM

More than a year ago, we started separating React and React DOM into separate packages. We deprecated React.render() in favor of ReactDOM.render() in React 0.14, and removed DOM-specific APIs from React completely in React 15. However, the React DOM implementation still secretly lived inside the React package.

In React 15.4.0, we are finally moving React DOM implementation to the React DOM package. The React package will now contain only the renderer-agnostic code such as React.Component and React.createElement().

This solves a few long-standing issues, such as errors when you import React DOM in the same file as the snapshot testing renderer.

If you only use the official and documented React APIs you won’t need to change anything in your application.

However, there is a possibility that you imported private APIs from react/lib/*, or that a package you rely on might use them. We would like to remind you that this was never supported, and that your apps should not rely on internal APIs. The React internals will keep changing as we work to make React better.

Another thing to watch out for is that React DOM Server is now about the same size as React DOM since it contains its own copy of the React reconciler. We don’t recommend using React DOM Server on the client in most cases.

Profiling Components with Chrome Timeline

You can now visualize React components in the Chrome Timeline. This lets you see which components exactly get mounted, updated, and unmounted, how much time they take relative to each other.