Webpack Ignite

Table of Contents

1. Environment Setup
2. Configuration
3. Start Developing
4. Production Build Directions
5. Future!

1. Environment Setup

Install Webpack Ignite globally (npm install -g webpack-ignite)

Create a new webpack projects

* run `wpignite ignite <project_folder>` 

Install NPM Packages

• Run yarn install or npm install from the console in the folder that was just created.
• Edit the package.json to have the correct information.

2. Configuration

Config files

Most of the configuration files are in the .ignite folder. The project defaults are generally pretty good but can be edited / overridden by editing overrides.js and editing the values contained in that file:

const basicConfigOverrides = {
    srcPath: 'src', //the location of the source files
    outputPath: 'build', //the output from npm run build
    contentPath: 'src', //Should almost always be the same as below. The path that content files are served from
    templatePath: 'src', //Should almost always match the above. The path that EJS templates are located in
    usejQuery: true, //Makes jQuery available to ES6 Modules for tree shaking
    usePreact: false, //Uses Preact rather than React for React compilation 
    useStandaloneVue: false, //Uses the Vue.JS standalone with the compiler
    useHashInProd: true, //Adds hashes to files in a production build for long term caching and cache busting
    minifyHTMLInProd: false, //Minifies the HTML output in a production build
    cleanBeforeBuild: true, // Removes all files from the output folder before a production build
    inlineAssetMaxSize: 20000, //File size threshold for saving assets inline in the CSS / HTML files
    hotOnlyDevServer: false, //hot only dev servers will not "auto reload" when a HMR update fails. Useful for React.
    devServerHost: "localhost", //The host the dev server should bind to.
    devServerAllowExternalAccess: false, //Allow non local browsers to connect to the dev server.
    autoOpenBrowser: true, //Open a browser once the dev server starts.
}

const advancedConfigOverrides = {
    publicPath: '/', //The public path the site will be hosted at.
    cssRelativePath: '../', //The relative path between the CSS files and the assets folder(s). 
    fileLoaderRelativePath: '../', //The relative path to the assets folder(s) for non CSS files.
    urlLoaderExclusions: [ //These items will not get processed by the URL loader and will always use the fileLoader
         /\.html$/,
         /\.(js|jsx|vue)(\?.*)?$/,
         /\.css$/,
         /\.scss$/,
         /\.json$/,
         /\.ejs$/,
    ],
    fileLoaderFiles: [], //Additional RegEx patterns for the fileLoader
    babelFiles: [/\.(js|jsx)$/], //Array Files that should be processes by Babel. Can be an array of RegEx patterns.
    babelExcludes: [], //Array Files that should NOT processed by Babel. Can be an array of RegEx patterns.
    devSourceMapMode: 'eval', //source map mode for dev server
    externals:{}, //Object for "externals" 
    cssPreProcessingExcludes: [], //Array Files that should NOT be processed by the CSS chain. Can be an array of RegEx patterns.
    postCssOptions: { //Options for postCSS / CSS chain
         data: '@import "global";', //import a global.scss file in every .scss file. This makes it easy to use foundation
         includePaths: [ //Paths to include in scss processing to make referencing .scss files easier.
             path.join(__appDir, '..', 'src/assets/scss/'), //this is where the global.scss file should live
             path.join(__appDir, '..', 'node_modules/foundation-sites/scss') //foundation
         ]
    }
}

3. Start Developing!!

Setup Entry Pages / Templates

• Edit the .ignite/entries.js file to contain the pages you need to create. Follow the directions contained in that file.

Setup JS /EJS Files for each entry

• Each entry in the entties.js file will need a .js file and a .ejs file configured per the .ignite/entries.js to work properly.

Start webpack

• npm run start
• Webpack dev server will pick a port (starting at 3000) and launch a browser (if configured to do so).

Build a website!

• Use EJS, Sass, and ES6 and go to town!

4. Production Build Directions

For a production build run npm run build. The results of the build will be in the build folder and can be zipped and deployed to a server.

5. More stuff coming in the future

I have more plans for this in the future. You should be able to take advantage of any improvements to the build process by simply upgrading webpack-ignite in your project! (This will require that you don't edit the webpack.config to remove certain functionality)

• Best practice tuning for webpack output
• More concise settings
• Better build / asset copy methods
• Automated Testing
• Multiple / Configurable Templates
• React / Vue Examples