Neutrino TypeScript React Preset

neutrino-preset-ts-react is a Neutrino preset that supports building React web applications written in TypeScript.

Features

• Zero upfront configuration necessary to start developing and building a React web app
• Write in TypeScript which is a superset of JavaScript
• Support for React Hot Loader
• Write JSX in .tsx files
• Extends from neutrino-preset-ts
  • 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
  • Tree-shaking to create smaller bundles
  • Production-optimized bundles with minification and easy chunking
  • Code splitting support to easily split your code into various bundles
  • Easily extensible to customize your project as needed

Requirements

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

Installation

neutrino-preset-ts-react can be installed via the Yarn or npm clients. Inside your project, make sure neutrino, typescript, and neutrino-preset-ts-react are development dependencies. You will also need React and React DOM for actual React development.

Yarn

❯ yarn add --dev neutrino typescript neutrino-preset-ts-react
❯ yarn add react react-dom

npm

❯ npm install --save-dev neutrino typescript neutrino-preset-ts-react
❯ npm install --save react react-dom

Project Layout

neutrino-preset-ts-react 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 TypeScript preset, we need to add some configuration for the TypeScript compiler. Add a new file named tsconfig.json in the root of your project.

❯ touch tsconfig.json

This file contains some TypeScript compiler configuration, and you can read more about its options [here][tsconfig-url]. We do not want to move away from using this file because it is very handy and controls a lot of options. Edit your tsconfig.json file with the following minimalist configuration:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es5",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "jsx": "react"
  },
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules"
  ],
  "compileOnSave": false
}

Add a new directory named src in the root of the project, with a single TS file named index.ts in it.

❯ mkdir src && touch src/index.ts

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

import React from 'react';
import { render } from 'react-dom';

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

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

{
  "neutrino": {
    "use": [
      "neutrino-preset-ts-react"
    ]
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "neutrino start",
    "build": "neutrino build"
  },
}

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-ts-react 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: /react/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-ts 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-ts-react does not use any additional named rules, loaders, or plugins that aren't already in use by the TypeScript preset. See the TypeScript 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 React application, it is recommended to start out by splitting off React and React DOM into the vendor chunk.

Example: Put React and React DOM into a separate "vendor" chunk:

{
  "neutrino": {
    "config": {
      "entry": {
        "vendor": [
          "react",
          "react-dom"
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "react": "^15.4.2",
    "react-dom": "^15.4.2"
  }
}

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

❯ yarn build
clean-webpack-plugin: /react/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 React 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 React and React DOM into a separate "vendor" chunk:

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

Hot Module Replacement

While neutrino-preset-ts-react supports Hot Module Replacement your app using React Hot Loader, it does require some application-specific changes in order to operate.

First, install react-hot-loader as a dependency, this must be React Hot Loader v3+ (currently in beta):

Yarn

❯ yarn add react-hot-loader@next

npm

❯ npm install --save react-hot-loader@next

• From your index entry point (defaults to src/index.ts from neutrino.options.entry), import an AppContainer from react-hot-loader.
• Wrap your top-level React component in the AppContainer.
• 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 React from 'react';
import { render } from 'react-dom';
import { AppContainer } from 'react-hot-loader';
import MyApp from './MyApp';

const load = () => render((
  <AppContainer>
    <MyApp />
  </AppContainer>
), document.getElementById('root'));

if (module.hot) {
  module.hot.accept('./MyApp', load);
}

load();