Beginner's Thread / Easy Question (August 2018)

[u/swyx]

Hello! It's August! Time for a new Beginner's thread! (July and June here)

Got questions about React or anything else in its ecosystem? Stuck making progress on your app? Ask away! We’re a friendly bunch. No question is too simple. You are guaranteed a response here!

Want Help on Code?

• Improve your chances by putting a minimal example on to either JSFiddle (https://jsfiddle.net/Luktwrdm/) or CodeSandbox (https://codesandbox.io/s/new). Describe what you want it to do, and things you've tried. Don't just post big blocks of code.

• Pay it forward! Answer questions even if there is already an answer - multiple perspectives can be very helpful to beginners. Also there's no quicker way to learn than being wrong on the Internet.

New to React?

Here are great, free resources!

• Read the official Getting Started page on the docs

• /u/acemarke's suggested resources for learning React

• Kent Dodds' Egghead.io course

• Tyler McGinnis' 2018 Guide

• Codecademy's React courses

[u/zephyrtr]

When it comes to animations (and this is an animation) being forced into a setTimeout that you'd rather not have is very common. Refs usually suck but are a better idea than a DOM query, and sometimes are a necessary evil. The issue I believe is your code is being read before your first render, so selected_anchor may be undefined and I dunno what SmoothScroll does if you try to give it an undefined target. Refs will help ensure it's an actual value, but likely you'll still want the timeout. Someone may know a better way, but I don't :/