About

This is a Webpack boilerplate for Typescript React Components to use as a module in other apps or other modules.

Develop, debug, test, Storybook, and distribute React component(s).

Usage

Replace the my-component with the name of your new module.

git clone http://github.com/aneldev/dyna-ts-react-module-boilerplate my-component
cd my-component
yarn run create

That's it.

Why is create-react-app different?

It is different because create-react-app creates React applications and includes everything an application needs.

The dyna-ts-react-module-boilerplate creates React modules (reusable components). It creates React components that will be used in React applications or other modules.

Compatibility

• React 16

For React 15 use the tag v4.1.5 of this repo.

Features

• Write in Typescript, .tsx, .ts, but also .jsx & .js are supported`
• Ready for react-router, dev server serves deep links and multiple ports
• Load inline images
• Configured font loader
• Lint
• Supports CSS, SCSS & LESS at the same time
• CSS modules (with *.module.less/scss filename pattern)
• Test with Jest, snapshots
• Analyse dependencies with Webpack Analyser
• Distribute as a module with TypeScript Definitions (ready to import)
• Distributed versions work in Javascript and Typescript projects
• Detect circular dependencies (where leads to import undefined or null values)

Environment

This boilerplate runs only under Linux.

Scripts of this package are not designed for Windows command line!

For windows users there are multiple ways:

• Git bash (probably you have this already installed on your machine)
• Win10 Ubuntu shell recommended for windows users
• Cygwin terminal
• Any other bash command line

Folder structure

The source code of your project is under the /src/ folder only. The distributed module is what exported from the /src/index.tsc only.

There are loaders for various files, like: .less, .scss, .svg, .jpg, etc.. Loaders are loaded in /webpack.loaders.js, where you can add your own loaders that will be used for all tasks (npm scripts).

Develop

You can develop using the Storybook or create your app. In any case on yarn release, only what is exported by src/index.tsx will be released.

If you want to add a dependency that will be used only in a Story or in your custom app install is as dev dependency.

Start the Storybook

Stories are all files with extension .stories.tsx. There is already a stories folder, but story files would be anywhere.

yarn storybook

Or yarn storybook-at <custom port> to open Storybook on custom port.

Start an app

If you don't want to use the Storybook, you can create your app.

Under the /dev/app/ folder, there is a small web application that can use your module component in different ways. This way, you can develop, debug, and create a demo of your component.

yarn start

or, if you want to start it to a different port yarn start-to -- 3232 to start in port 3232.

Like an App, this boilerplate uses the dyna-showcase where it is a very light StoryBook like solution. One of the benefits is that it is speedy compared with StoraBook, and you can see the actual edges of the components (for high fidelity dev). It is ideal for development, but you can easily replace it with yours, yarn remove dyna-showcase, and write your app under the /dev folder.

StoryBook is still available!

Lint

yarn lint

Update the tslint.json with your own preferences.

Analyse dependencies

Run yarn build-analyze and check which dependencies will be delivered in your module.

Test

Write tests

For tests, this boilerplate uses the Jest.

Test files can be anywhere but they should have a name *.(test|spec).(ts|tsx|js|jsx). There is a tests/ folder if you want to use it but this is not mandatory.

Run tests

Call yarn test to run your tests and coverage.

Call yarn test-watch to run your tests after any change, with no coverage.

Build

yarn build

Build creates your distributable version of your component under ./dist. Typescript's declaration will be there too.

You don't need to use the build, since the release script calls the build.

You will need this is if you have linked this package with another local package (like yarn link or so).

Release

yarn release

• builds the component
• bumps the patch version
• publishes to npm and
• it pushes the changes to your repo

The output is not compressed, while it is intended to be used in other apps where it will be bundled and compressed. This also makes your component debuggable.

For private packages, where you don't want to expose them to yarn, remove the yarn pulish call from the publish-push script.

Exclude dependencies from the output bundle

You can exclude dependencies from the distributed bundle by declaring them in the /webpack.dist.config.js. By default, all dependencies are declared there.

Features (tips)

Link your modules easily

In case that the yarn link doesn't work for any reason, this boilerplate offers a unidirectional sync mechanism. It updates other modules (npm packages) that depend on it.

0. Copy ./syncExternalsList.sample.js to ./syncExternalsList.js once only.
1. Update the ./syncExternalsList.js list with external apps you want to keep them sync.
2. Call yarn sync-externals

If you use the Ubuntu shell of Win10, in the ./syncExternalsList.js you can add a windows path prefixing it with the *tus*, which stands for to ubuntu shell.

For example, check the 2nd line of ./syncExternalsList.sample.js.

Note: the ./syncExternalsList.js is git ignored!

Known issues

• HMR is not implemented, fork me!

Typescript module without React?

If you are interested in a typescript module, with other words if you want to implement everything as we do here but without any react components, check this out this dyna-ts-module-boilerplate repo.

References

Webpack configuration