Neutrino Preact Preset

neutrino-preset-preact is a Neutrino preset that supports building Preact web applications.

Features

• Zero upfront configuration necessary to start developing and building a Preact web app
• Modern Babel compilation adding JSX and object rest spread syntax.
• ~~Support for React Hot Loader~~
• Support for ES6/7 class properties and experimental decorators.
• Write JSX in .js or .jsx files
• Extends from neutrino-preset-web
  • Modern Babel compilation supporting ES modules, last 2 major browser versions, async functions, and dynamic imports
  • Webpack loaders for importing HTML, CSS, images, icons, and fonts
  • Webpack Dev Server during development
  • Automatic creation of HTML pages, no templating necessary
  • Hot module replacement support*
  • Production-optimized bundles with Babili minification and easy chunking
  • Easily extensible to customize your project as needed

Requirements

• Node.js v6.9+
• Yarn or npm client
• Neutrino v5

Installation

neutrino-preset-preact can be installed via the Yarn or npm clients. Inside your project, make sure neutrino and neutrino-preset-preact are development dependencies. You will also need Preact and Preact-compat (recommended) for actual Preact development.

Yarn

❯ yarn add --dev neutrino neutrino-preset-preact
❯ yarn add preact preact-compat

npm

❯ npm install --save-dev neutrino neutrino-preset-preact
❯ npm install --save preact preact-compat

Project Layout

neutrino-preset-preact follows the standard project layout specified by Neutrino. This means that by default all project source code should live in a directory named src in the root of the project. This includes JavaScript files, CSS stylesheets, images, and any other assets that would be available to your compiled project.

Quickstart

After installing Neutrino and the Preact preset, add a new directory named src in the root of the project, with a single JS file named index.js in it.

❯ mkdir src && touch src/index.js

This Preact preset exposes an element in the page with an ID of root to which you can mount your application. Edit your src/index.js file with the following:

import { h, render } from 'preact';

render(<h1>Hello world!</h1>, document.body, document.getElementById('root'));

Now edit your project's package.json to add commands for starting and building the application:

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "neutrino start --use neutrino-preset-preact",
    "build": "neutrino build --use neutrino-preset-preact"
  }
}

Start the app, then open a browser to the address in the console:

Yarn

❯ yarn start
✔ Development server running on: http://localhost:5000
✔ Build completed

npm

❯ npm start
✔ Development server running on: http://localhost:5000
✔ Build completed

Building

neutrino-preset-preact builds static assets to the build directory by default when running neutrino build. Using the quick start example above as a reference:

❯ yarn build
clean-webpack-plugin: /preact/build has been removed.
Build completed in 6.692s

Hash: 7a83f769b15f88b80727
Version: webpack 2.2.1
Time: 6695ms
                                  Asset       Size  Chunks             Chunk Names
   index.b615ea9e95317f530317.bundle.js     143 kB    0, 1  [emitted]  index
manifest.2211d9c1970bbd3c952b.bundle.js    1.41 kB       1  [emitted]  manifest
                             index.html  779 bytes          [emitted]
✨  Done in 8.32s.

You can either serve or deploy the contents of this build directory as a static site.

Paths

The neutrino-preset-web preset loads assets relative to the path of your application by setting Webpack's output.publicPath to ./. If you wish to load assets instead from a CDN, or if you wish to change to an absolute path for your application, customize your build to override output.publicPath. See the Customizing section below.

Customizing

To override the build configuration, start with the documentation on customization. neutrino-preset-preact does not use any additional named rules, loaders, or plugins that aren't already in use by the Web preset. See the Web documentation customization for preset-specific configuration to override.

Simple customization

By following the customization guide and knowing the rule, loader, and plugin IDs above, you can override and augment the build directly from package.json.

Vendoring

By defining an entry point in package.json named vendor you can split out external dependencies into a chunk separate from your application code. When working with a Preact application, it is recommended to start out by splitting off Preact and Preact-compat into the vendor chunk.

Example: Put Preact and Preact-compat into a separate "vendor" chunk:

{
  "neutrino": {
    "config": {
      "entry": {
        "vendor": [
          "preact",
          "preact-compat"
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "preact": "^8.1.0",
    "preact-compat": "^3.16.0"
  }
}

Running the build again, you can contrast the bundles generated here with the one generated in the quick start:

❯ yarn build
clean-webpack-plugin: /preact/build has been removed.
Build completed in 6.726s

Hash: 0468e662989da55bdc5e
Version: webpack 2.2.1
Time: 6730ms
                                  Asset       Size  Chunks             Chunk Names
  vendor.0b3c06ba6b2494d683ee.bundle.js     142 kB    0, 2  [emitted]  vendor
   index.d264625fd405d81cb995.bundle.js  276 bytes    1, 2  [emitted]  index
manifest.29ee4d0db8f2534cc643.bundle.js    1.44 kB       2  [emitted]  manifest
                             index.html  866 bytes          [emitted]
✨  Done in 8.21s.

HTML files

If you wish to override how HTML files are created for your Preact app, refer to the relevant section on neutrino-preset-web.

Example: Change the application mount ID from "root" to "app":

{
  "neutrino": {
    "options": {
      "html": {
        "appMountId": "app"
      }
    }
  }
}

Advanced configuration

By following the customization guide and knowing the rule, loader, and plugin IDs from neutrino-preset-web, you can override and augment the build by creating a JS module which overrides the config.

Vendoring

By defining an entry point named vendor you can split out external dependencies into a chunk separate from your application code.

Example: Put Preact and Preact-compat into a separate "vendor" chunk:

module.exports = neutrino => {
  neutrino.config
    .entry('vendor')
      .add('react')
      .add('react-dom');
};

Hot Module Replacement

Webpack's HMR is enabled but Hot Module Replacement may/may not work at this moment. This is due to react-hot-loader not working with Preact and having to rely on webpack only.

• From your index entry point (defaults to src/index.js from neutrino.options.entry), Perform the application render in a reusable function for initial load and subsequent reloads.
• Add the hot acceptance to call this function.

For example:

import { render } from 'preact';
import App from './App';

let root;
function init () {
  root = render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'), root);
}

init();

if (module.hot) module.hot.accept('./App', init);

Contributing

Just send me a PR and try to follow my code style (semistandard).