Digital Clock Extension In SPFX

Introduction

react-live-clock is an react plugin to show a digital clock. In this article we will leverage this plugin as an extension to make this visible in the entire site.

Steps

Open a command prompt and create a directory for the SPFx solution.

md spfx-ReactClockExtension

Navigate to the above-created directory.

cd spfx-ReactClockExtension

Run the Yeoman SharePoint Generator to create the solution.

yo @microsoft/sharepoint

Solution Name

Hit Enter for the default name (spfx-ReactClockExtension in this case) or type in any other name for your solution.

Selected choice - Hit Enter

Target for the component

Here, we can select the target environment where we are planning to deploy the client web part; i.e., SharePoint Online or SharePoint OnPremise (SharePoint 2016 onwards).

Selected choice - SharePoint Online only (latest).

Place of files

We may choose to use the same folder or create a subfolder for our solution.

Selected choice - same folder.

Deployment option

Selecting Y will allow the app to be deployed instantly to all sites and be accessible everywhere.

Selected choice - N (install on each site explicitly).

Permissions to access web APIs

Choose if the components in the solution require permission to access web APIs that are unique and not shared with other components in the tenant.

Selected choice - N (solution contains unique permissions)

Type of client-side component to create

We can choose to create client-side webpart or an extension.

Selected choice: Extension

Type of client-side extension to create

We can choose to create Application customizer, Field customizer, or ListView Command Set.

Selected choice: Application Customizer

Application customizer name

Hit Enter to select the default name or type in any other name.

Selected choice: ReactClockExtension

Application customizer description

Hit Enter to select the default description or type in any other value.

Selected choice: Adds custom header and footer to a SharePoint site

Yeoman generator will perform scaffolding process to generate the solution. The scaffolding process will take a significant amount of time.

Once the scaffolding process is completed, lock down the version of project dependencies by running the below command.

npm shrinkwrap

In the command prompt type the below command to open the solution in code editor of your choice.

code .

NPM Packages used:

npm install react react-dom
npm i react-live-clock

in ReactClockExtensionApplicationCustomizer.ts

import { override } from '@microsoft/decorators';
import {
BaseApplicationCustomizer,
PlaceholderContent,
PlaceholderName
} from '@microsoft/sp-application-base';
import * as React from "react";
import * as ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import ReactHeader ,{IReactHeaderProps} from "./ReactHeader";
import * as strings from 'ReactClockExtensionApplicationCustomizerStrings';
export interface IReactClockExtensionApplicationCustomizerProperties {
// This is an example; replace with your own property
testMessage: string;
Top: string;
}
/** A Custom Action which can be run during execution of a Client Side Application */
export default class ReactClockExtensionApplicationCustomizer
extends BaseApplicationCustomizer<IReactClockExtensionApplicationCustomizerProperties> {
private _topplaceholder: PlaceholderContent | undefined;
@override
public onInit(): Promise<void> {
// Added to handle possible changes on the existence of placeholders.
this.context.placeholderProvider.changedEvent.add(this, this._renderPlaceHolders);
// Call render method for generating the HTML elements.
this._renderPlaceHolders();
return Promise.resolve();
}
private _renderPlaceHolders(): void {
console.log('Available placeholders: ',
this.context.placeholderProvider.placeholderNames.map(name => PlaceholderName[name]).join(', '));
// Handling the bottom placeholder
if (!this._topplaceholder) {
this._topplaceholder =
this.context.placeholderProvider.tryCreateContent(
PlaceholderName.Top,
{ onDispose: this._onDispose });
// The extension should not assume that the expected placeholder is available.
if (!this._topplaceholder) {
console.error('The expected placeholder (Top) was not found.');
return;
}
const elem: React.ReactElement<IReactHeaderProps> = React.createElement(ReactHeader);
ReactDOM.render(elem, this._topplaceholder.domElement);
}
}
private _onDispose(): void {
console.log('[ReactHeaderFooterApplicationCustomizer._onDispose] Disposed custom top and bottom placeholders.');
}
}

in mystyle.css

/* latin */
@font-face {
font-family: 'Orbitron';
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 400;
src: url(https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/orbitron/v15/yMJMMIlzdpvBhQQL_SC3X9yhF25-T1nyGy6BoWgz.woff2) format('woff2');
unicode-range: U+0000-00FF, U+0131, U+0152-0153, U+02BB-02BC, U+02C6, U+02DA, U+02DC, U+2000-206F, U+2074, U+20AC, U+2122, U+2191, U+2193, U+2212, U+2215, U+FEFF, U+FFFD;
}
.myclock {
font-family: 'Orbitron', sans-serif;
color: #ff6666;
font-size: 56px;
text-align: center;
padding-top: 40px;
padding-bottom: 40px;
}
#clockdiv{
text-align:center!important;
}

in ReactHeader.tsx

import * as React from "react";
import Clock from 'react-live-clock';
import './mystyle.css';
export interface IReactHeaderProps {}
import { SPComponentLoader } from '@microsoft/sp-loader';
export default class ReactHeader extends React.Component<IReactHeaderProps> {
constructor(props: IReactHeaderProps) {
super(props);
}
public render(): JSX.Element {
return (
<div id="clockdiv">
<h1><Clock format={'hh:mm:ssa'} ticking={true} timezone={'Asia/Kolkata'} className="myclock"/></h1>
</div>
);
} }

Properties

Properties	Type	Default Value	Description
date	timestamp or string	current date	Date to output, If nothing is set then it take current date.
format	string	'HH:MM'	Formatting from moment.js library.
filter	function	(date: String) => date	Filtering the value before the output .
timezone	string	null	If timezone is set, the date is show in this timezone. You can find the list. here, the TZ column.
ticking	boolean	FALSE	If you want the clock to be auto-updated every interval seconds.
interval	integer	1000	Auto-updating period for the clock. 1 second is a default value.
className	string	null	Extra class.
children	string	null	date can be set as a children prop.
onChange	function	({output, previousOutput, moment}) => {}	callback function on each output update

Test the extension

Open serve.json under config folder.

Update the properties section to include page URL to test.

{
"$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/core-build/serve.schema.json",
"port": 4321,
"https": true,
"serveConfigurations": {
"default": {
"pageUrl": "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/mySite/SitePages/myPage.aspx",
"customActions": {
"c633afef-a94d-4970-89ca-30f403612550": {
"location": "ClientSideExtension.ApplicationCustomizer",
"properties": {
"testMessage": "Test message"
}
}
}
},
"reactClockExtension": {
"pageUrl": "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/mySite/SitePages/myPage.aspx",
"customActions": {
"c633afef-a94d-4970-89ca-30f403612550": {
"location": "ClientSideExtension.ApplicationCustomizer",
"properties": {
"testMessage": "Test message"
}
}
}
}
}
}

On the command prompt, type the below command.

gulp serve

The SharePoint site will open. Click “Load debug scripts”.

Expected output

Conclusion

Hence we learned how to implement digital clock in spfx. I hope this helps someone. Happy coding :)