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React, Gatsby, and SplitText

Lee Campbell test
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Warning: Please note

This thread was started before GSAP 3 was released. Some information, especially the syntax, may be out of date for GSAP 3. Please see the GSAP 3 migration guide and release notes for more information about how to update the code to GSAP 3's syntax. 

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I've been a long time user of GSAP and have used the SplitText plugin on many projects. I've been learning React and more specifically the Gatsby library and have run into an issue I cannot solve. I setup this SplitText in my Gatsby project and it worked fine - then all of a sudden today it broke giving me a Type Error. I've downloaded the most recent GSAP library and Gatsby/ React is up to date as well. 

 

TypeError: null is not an object (evaluating 'parent.insertBefore')

 

(I know this code below is partial - I ripped out a lot of excess code)

 

import React, { Component } from "react"

import { TweenMax } from "gsap/TweenMax";
import SplitText from "../utils/gsap/SplitText"

export default class IndexPage extends Component {
  componentDidMount() {

    const split = new SplitText(
      'h1, p',
      {
        type: "lines",
        linesClass: "ts-line"
      }
    )

    TweenMax.staggerFrom(
      '.ts-line',
      1,
      {
        y: "125%",
        opacity: 0,
      },
      0.25,
    );
  }
  render() {
    return (
      <Layout>
        <h1>Heading Text</h1>
        <p>
      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. 
        </p>
      </Layout>
    )
  }
}

 

Here is the error I'm getting: 

 

×
TypeError: null is not an object (evaluating 'parent.insertBefore')
_splitRawText
src/utils/gsap/SplitText.js:428
  425 | 	container = _doc.createElement("div"),
  426 | 	parent = element.parentNode;
  427 | 
> 428 | parent.insertBefore(container, element);
  429 | container.textContent = element.nodeValue;
  430 | parent.removeChild(element);
  431 | element = container;
View compiled
_split
src/utils/gsap/SplitText.js:505
  502 | 		element._isSplit = true;
  503 | 		return;
  504 | 	}
> 505 | 	_splitRawText(element, vars, wordStart, charStart);
  506 | 
  507 | },
  508 | p = SplitText.prototype;
View compiled
_split
src/utils/gsap/SplitText.js:498
  495 | 			child.style.position = "relative";
  496 | 		}
  497 | 		child._isSplit = true;
> 498 | 		_split(child, vars, wordStart, charStart); //don't split lines on child elements
  499 | 	}
  500 | }
  501 | vars.absolute = absolute;
View compiled
split
src/utils/gsap/SplitText.js:527
  524 | 	this._originals[i] = e.innerHTML;
  525 | 	origHeight = e.clientHeight;
  526 | 	origWidth = e.clientWidth;
> 527 | 	_split(e, vars, wordStart, charStart);
  528 | 	_setPositionsAfterSplit(e, vars, this.chars, this.words, this.lines, origWidth, origHeight);
  529 | }
  530 | this.chars.reverse();
View compiled
SplitText
src/utils/gsap/SplitText.js:132
  129 | 	this.lines = [];
  130 | 	this._originals = [];
  131 | 	this.vars = vars || {};
> 132 | 	this.split(vars);
  133 | },
  134 | _swapText = function(element, oldText, newText) {
  135 | 	var type = element.nodeType;
View compiled
componentDidMount
src/pages/index.js:41
  38 | export default class IndexPage extends Component {
  39 |   componentDidMount() {
  40 | 
> 41 |     const split = new SplitText(
  42 |       'h1, p',
  43 |       {
  44 |         type: "lines",
View compiled
 18 stack frames were collapsed.
(anonymous function)
/Users/leecampbell/Projects/Portfolio/Development/.cache/app.js:56
  53 | const preferDefault = m => (m && m.default) || m
  54 | let Root = preferDefault(require(`./root`))
  55 | domReady(() => {
> 56 |   renderer(<Root />, rootElement, () => {
  57 |     postInitialRenderWork()
  58 |     apiRunner(`onInitialClientRender`)
  59 |   })
View compiled
This screen is visible only in development. It will not appear if the app crashes in production.
Open your browsers developer console to further inspect this error.

 

Does anyone have an idea why this would be happening?

Screen Shot 2019-04-03 at 9.59.08 PM.png

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Hm, that's really tough to diagnose blind. Any chance you could put together a reduced test case in codepen or something? It kinda sounds like the elements aren't actually in the DOM when you're doing the split, although I know you've got it in the componentDidMount(). What do you see when you do console.log(document.querySelector("h1"))? Is it attached all the way up to the root <body>? 

 

Oh, and by the way, I'd recommend using yPercent:125 instead of y:"125%" because it can avoid some ambiguities and problematic edge cases. Either one should work fine in your case, but it's a good habit to develop. 

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Thanks so much for the response, In typical fashion I figured out my issue after posting the question. I was querying h1, and p at the same time and React did not like that at all. I'm sure there's a specific reason I can't do that, but for now it's working so that's good enough for me. 

 

As for yPercent - thanks for the recommendation, definitely want to develop good habits when working with GSAP so will definitely change. 

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Mhhh... yeah the issue might be the fact that Gatsby's <layout> complains about some operation being done by SplitText. Unfortunately in Codesandbox, using the Gatsby set up for a new sample, has some issues with adding SplitText using the S3 link for live samples. A simple React setup using CRA works as expected:

 

https://codesandbox.io/s/8kprw408yl

 

Anyway, you could try using React.fragment around your tags and see if it works.

 

Happy tweening!!

 

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