🧠 Mastering React Hooks: From Basics to Building Tic Tac Toe with Game History

Welcome to this hands-on React Hooks workshop! Whether you’re just starting out or looking to deepen your understanding, this guide will walk you through the essential hooks in React—and show you how they power modern, dynamic UIs.

By the end of this workshop, you’ll not only understand how React handles state and side-effects but also build a fully functional Tic Tac Toe game, complete with game history saved in local storage.

🌀 Understanding the React Lifecycle

Before diving into the hooks, it’s helpful to understand how React apps function under the hood:

Initial Render → Create the DOM → User Interacts → State Changes → Re-render → Update the DOM → Repeat

This cycle is the heartbeat of every React application—and hooks are how we plug into this cycle to manage state, effects, DOM interaction, and more.

🔧 Managing UI State with useState

Every interactive React app begins with state management.

With the useState hook, you can:

• Store user input
• Track clicks, toggles, counters, and more
• Trigger UI updates on state change

This section will help you understand how state drives your UI and how the re-rendering cycle works in response to user interactions.

🌍 Handling Side-Effects with useEffect

Some things live outside of your React component world, such as:

• Browser APIs (like localStorage, geolocation, media devices)
• Third-party libraries (like Chart.js, D3)

That’s where useEffect comes in. It lets you synchronize your components with the outside world—fetching data, setting timers, or reading from local storage, all after your component has rendered.

🪜 Lifting and Colocating State

Want two sibling components to share data? You’ll need to lift the state up to their common parent.

But React is flexible. If state is too far up the tree and only one component uses it, you can colocate it (move it back down). This helps keep your code clean and components focused.

This section teaches you how to share state wisely while avoiding overcomplication.

🧱 DOM Side-Effects with useRef

Sometimes, React isn’t enough on its own—you might need to directly interact with the DOM. For instance:

• Manually setting focus
• Integrating a vanilla JavaScript library
• Measuring element size or position

The useRef hook (along with ref callbacks) lets you access DOM elements directly, without re-rendering. You’ll learn how to work with these tools when React’s declarative style isn’t quite enough.

🆔 Generating Unique IDs with useId

When building accessible forms in React, every input needs a unique id that matches a label’s htmlFor. But what if you’re building reusable components used multiple times on a page?

That’s where the useId hook shines. It generates globally unique, consistent IDs so your forms remain accessible, even when reused or rendered dynamically.

🎮 Capstone Project: Tic Tac Toe with Game History

Time to bring it all together! In the final challenge of this workshop, you’ll build a Tic Tac Toe game with:

• State management (useState)
• DOM effects like resetting focus (useRef)
• Side-effect handling (useEffect for saving history to localStorage)
• Accessibility (via useId)

This is a tougher project than the rest—but it’s where your understanding really solidifies.

🚀 Final Thoughts

React hooks give you the power to manage state, effects, DOM interactions, and more in a clean and declarative way. By practicing with useState, useEffect, useRef, and useId, you’ll gain confidence in building powerful, accessible, and interactive UIs.

Take your time, experiment, and enjoy the process. Happy coding!