Setup Webpack React TypeScript

How to setup a React project with Webpack and TypeScript?

With create-react-app, it only takes a few clicks to create a complete React project, requires not in-depth knowledge of webpack or babel. But if you are still not satisfied with the features that create-react-app brings. For example, CSS does not show source-map when dev, or may be you simply configure more deeply. If in this case, It’s the time to configure manually webpack.

If you do not have any knowledge about webpack, you can refer my two previous articles:

Init project

  • Install dependencies packages

    $ yarn init -y
$ yarn add -D react react-dom redux react-redux react-router-dom typescript
$ yarn add -D webpack webpack-cli webpack-dev-server style-loader css-loader sass sass-loader typescript ts-loader

  • Install plugin for webpack

    $ yarn add -D clean-webpack-plugin compression-webpack-plugin copy-webpack-plugin dotenv-webpack html-webpack-plugin mini-css-extract-plugin webpack-bundle-analyzer
    • clean-webpack-plugin: A webpack plugin to remove/clean your build folder(s). Check clean-webpack-plugin
    • compression-webpack-plugin: Compress asset file (css, js, html …) to gzip Check more compression-webpack-plugin
    • copy-webpack-plugin: Copies individual files or entire directories, which already exist, to the build directory. For example: you have files such as favicon.ico, robots.txt at the same level as index.html, when the build is complete, these files will also be present in the build. If you do not have this plugin, you have to copy them manually. Check copy-webpack-plugin.
    • dotenv-webpack: Using .env file in your app. Check dotenv-webpack
    • html-webpack-plugin: Clone public/index.html file to build folder. Check how it works in my previous post Webpack & Typescript
    • mini-css-extract-plugin: Normally, the css will be in the js file after build. When running the app, js will add that css to tag. Now, if we want the css to be in a separate file with js and when app running, js will automatically import it with the tag. That is the function of this plugin.
      Check more information for mini-css-extract-plugin
    • webpack-bundle-analyzer: It will create an interactive treemap visualization of the contents of all your bundles. Check webpack-bundle-analyzer

  • Install ESLint & Prettier

    $ yarn add -D eslint eslint-config-react-app eslint-loader eslint-plugin-flowtype eslint-plugin-import eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y eslint-plugin-react eslint-plugin-react-hooks @typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin @typescript-eslint/parser prettier eslint-plugin-prettier eslint-config-prettier

    Except prettier, eslint-config-prettier and eslint-plugin-prettier the rest are plugins used by create-react-app.

    Create file configuration::

    • .eslintrc
    {
  "extends": ["react-app", "prettier"],
  "plugins": ["react", "prettier"],
  "rules": {
    "prettier/prettier": [
      "warn",
      {
        "arrowParens": "avoid",
        "semi": false,
        "trailingComma": "none",
        "endOfLine": "lf",
        "tabWidth": 2,
        "printWidth": 80,
        "useTabs": false
      }
    ],
    "no-console": "warn"
  }
}
    • .eslintignore
    /src/serviceWorker.ts
/src/setupTests.ts
    • .prettierrc
    {
  "arrowParens": "avoid",
  "semi": false,
  "trailingComma": "none",
  "endOfLine": "lf",
  "tabWidth": 2,
  "printWidth": 80,
  "useTabs": false
}
    • prettierignore
    .cache
package-lock.json

  • Add scripts to package.json

    "scripts": {
  "start": "webpack serve --mode development",
  "build": "webpack --mode production",
  "build:analyze": "webpack --mode production --env analyze",
  "lint": "eslint --ext js,jsx,ts,tsx src/",
  "lint:fix": "eslint --fix --ext js,jsx,ts,tsx src/",
  "prettier": "prettier --check \"src/**/(*.tsx|*.ts|*.jsx|*.js|*.scss|*.css)\"",
  "prettier:fix": "prettier --write \"src/**/(*.tsx|*.ts|*.jsx|*.js|*.scss|*.css)\""
},

Configuration

Config tsconfig.json

  • Code I will use TypeScript for this template, so I need a config file for TypeScript to compile JavaScript. If you want to use JavaScript, that will be very similar, you just need install babel and these loader. Check my previous article for the details.

    {
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES5",
    "allowJs": true,
    "strict": true,
    "module": "ESNext",
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "noImplicitAny": false,
    "sourceMap": true,
    "jsx": "react",
    "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true,
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "paths": {
      "@/*": ["src/*"],
      "@@/*": ["./*"]
    }
  },
  "include": ["src/**/*"]
}

Config webpack.config.js

  • Code

    const path = require("path")
const webpack = require("webpack")
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require("html-webpack-plugin")
const CopyPlugin = require("copy-webpack-plugin")
const Dotenv = require("dotenv-webpack")
const MiniCssExtractPlugin = require("mini-css-extract-plugin")
const { CleanWebpackPlugin } = require("clean-webpack-plugin")
const CompressionPlugin = require("compression-webpack-plugin")
const BundleAnalyzerPlugin = require("webpack-bundle-analyzer")
  .BundleAnalyzerPlugin
module.exports = (env, agrv) => {
  const isDev = agrv.mode === "development"
  const isAnalyze = env && env.analyze
  const basePlugins = [
    new Dotenv(),
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
      template: "public/index.html"
    }),
    new CopyPlugin({
      patterns: [
        {
          from: "**/*",
          globOptions: {
            ignore: ["index.html"]
          },
          to: "",
          context: path.resolve("public")
        }
      ]
    }),
    new MiniCssExtractPlugin({
      filename: isDev ? "[name].css" : "static/css/[name].[contenthash:6].css"
    }),
    new webpack.ProgressPlugin()
  ]
  let prodPlugins = [
    ...basePlugins,
    new CleanWebpackPlugin(),
    new CompressionPlugin({
      test: /\.(css|js|html|svg)$/
    })
  ]
  if (isAnalyze) {
    prodPlugins = [...prodPlugins, new BundleAnalyzerPlugin()]
  }
  return {
    entry: "./src/index.tsx",
    module: {
      rules: [
        {
          test: /\.(ts|tsx)$/,
          use: ["ts-loader", "eslint-loader"],
          exclude: /node_modules/
        },
        {
          test: /\.(s[ac]ss|css)$/,
          use: [
            MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader,
            {
              loader: "css-loader",
              options: { sourceMap: isDev ? true : false }
            },
            {
              loader: "sass-loader",
              options: { sourceMap: isDev ? true : false }
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          test: /\.(eot|ttf|woff|woff2)$/,
          use: [
            {
              loader: "file-loader",
              options: {
                name: isDev ? "[path][name].[ext]" : "static/fonts/[name].[ext]"
              }
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          test: /\.(png|svg|jpg|gif)$/,
          use: [
            {
              loader: "file-loader",
              options: {
                name: isDev
                  ? "[path][name].[ext]"
                  : "static/media/[name].[contenthash:6].[ext]"
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    resolve: {
      extensions: [".tsx", ".ts", ".jsx", ".js"],
      alias: {
        "@": path.resolve("src"),
        "@@": path.resolve()
      }
    },
    output: {
      path: path.resolve("build"),
      publicPath: "/",
      filename: "static/js/main.[contenthash:6].js",
      environment: {
        arrowFunction: false,
        bigIntLiteral: false,
        const: false,
        destructuring: false,
        dynamicImport: false,
        forOf: false,
        module: false
      }
    },
    devtool: isDev ? "source-map" : false,
    devServer: {
      contentBase: "public",
      port: 3000,
      hot: true,
      watchContentBase: true,
      historyApiFallback: true
    },
    plugins: isDev ? basePlugins : prodPlugins,
    performance: {
      maxEntrypointSize: 800000
    }
  }
}

  • Explanation

    I have explain the details of many definition in the webpack.config.js file in my two previous article setup webpack basic & setup webpack typescript. In this article, I just explain the new definitions..

    • isDev: We have 2 modes: development and production equivalent to dev and build. These two modes are passed through the --mode in the script in package.json.
    • isAnalyze: To define use BundleAnalyzerPlugin or not
    • basePlugins: plugins use in dev mode
    • CopyPlugin: copy all files in public folder to build folder, except index.html. Because we have already plugin HtmlWebpackPlugin do it.
    • webpack.ProgressPlugin() show by percentage of progress when run webpack
    • CompressionPlugin(): compress build files to gzip
    • prodPlugins: plugins used in mode production.
    • plugins: Contains plugins of webpack
    • performance.maxEntrypointSize: When a build file exceeds this limit (in bytes), it will be warned on the terminal.

Demo code

  • Create public/index.html

    <!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>Webpack</title>
</head>

<body>
  <div id='root'>
    <h1>Webpack React TypeScript</h1>
  </div>
</body>

</html>

    All others codes are created as a template of Webpack React TS project. Check code GitHub for more details.

  • Run and build project

    $ yarn start # Run dev enviroment
$ yarn build # Build
$ yarn build:analyze # Build and analyze project

    We can use yarn lint, yarn lint:fix, yarn prettier and yarn prettier:fix to run the command check and fix syntax code with eslint or prettier.

Structure folder

.
├── package.json
├── public
│   ├── favicon.ico
│   ├── index.html
│   ├── logo192.png
│   ├── logo512.png
│   ├── manifest.json
│   └── robots.txt
├── README.md
├── src
│   ├── apis
│   │   ├── product.api.ts
│   │   └── user.api.ts
│   ├── App
│   │   ├── App.actions.ts
│   │   ├── App.constants.ts
│   │   ├── App.reducer.ts
│   │   └── App.tsx
│   ├── assets
│   │   ├── fonts
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-BoldItalic.ttf
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-Bold.ttf
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-ExtraBoldItalic.ttf
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-ExtraBold.ttf
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-Italic.ttf
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-LightItalic.ttf
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-Light.ttf
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-Regular.ttf
│   │   │   ├── OpenSans-SemiBoldItalic.ttf
│   │   │   └── OpenSans-SemiBold.ttf
│   │   ├── images
│   │   │   ├── home.svg
│   │   │   ├── list.svg
│   │   │   └── open-menu.svg
│   │   └── scss
│   │       └── index.scss
│   ├── components
│   │   ├── Header
│   │   │   ├── Header.styles.ts
│   │   │   └── Header.tsx
│   │   ├── Loading
│   │   │   └── Loading.tsx
│   │   └── SideNav
│   │       ├── SideNav.styles.ts
│   │       └── SideNav.tsx
│   ├── constants
│   │   ├── paths.ts
│   │   └── styles.ts
│   ├── guards
│   │   └── AuthenticatedGuard.tsx
│   ├── helpers
│   │   └── string.ts
│   ├── hooks
│   │   └── usePrevious.tsx
│   ├── index.tsx
│   ├── layouts
│   │   └── MainLayout.tsx
│   ├── logo.svg
│   ├── pages
│   │   ├── Home
│   │   │   └── Home.tsx
│   │   ├── Login
│   │   │   ├── Login.actions.ts
│   │   │   ├── Login.constants.ts
│   │   │   ├── Login.reducer.ts
│   │   │   ├── Login.styles.ts
│   │   │   ├── Login.thunks.ts
│   │   │   └── Login.tsx
│   │   └── Product
│   │       ├── ProductItem
│   │       │   ├── ProductItem.actions.ts
│   │       │   ├── ProductItem.constants.ts
│   │       │   ├── ProductItem.reducer.ts
│   │       │   ├── ProductItem.thunks.ts
│   │       │   └── ProductItem.tsx
│   │       └── ProductList
│   │           ├── ProductList.actions.ts
│   │           ├── ProductList.constants.ts
│   │           ├── ProductList.reducer.ts
│   │           ├── ProductList.styles.ts
│   │           ├── ProductList.thunks.ts
│   │           └── ProductList.tsx
│   ├── react-app-env.d.ts
│   ├── reducer
│   │   └── reducer.ts
│   ├── routes
│   │   ├── HomeRoutes.tsx
│   │   ├── LoginRoutes.tsx
│   │   ├── ProductRoutes.tsx
│   │   └── routes.tsx
│   ├── serviceWorker.ts
│   ├── setupTests.ts
│   ├── store
│   │   └── store.ts
│   └── @types
│       ├── action.d.ts
│       ├── api.d.ts
│       ├── files.d.ts
│       ├── product.d.ts
│       ├── reducer.d.ts
│       └── user.d.ts
├── tsconfig.json
├── webpack.config.js
└── yarn.lock

Stay tunned to keep update my next articles and understand how I use the structures project like that.

Reference