A Comprehensive Guide to Next JS Framework for 2023
Working on a JavaScript application backed by React is nothing less than a challenge. You have to deal with various issues related to client-side rendering, code-splitting, and app performance, to name a few. Thanks to modern development frameworks like NextJS that have come up as the go-to solution to overcome these issues in a hassle-free way. The right implementation of the Next JS framework in your project successfully caters to all your Server Side Rendering (SSR) requirements and also accelerates the overall app development project performance.
With Next.js, your company gets the privilege to develop and deploy future-ready applications that your users would love to interact with. This blog is all about exploring the advantages of Next.js and understanding what makes this platform so unique. You will get detailed insights into the basics of Next.js, its importance, best practices to implement it, and much more. So, let’s understand it in detail.
What is Next JS?
Next JS is a full-fledged JavaScript UI framework that enables you to create superior, user-friendly static websites and web apps using React. It effectively handles the configuration and tooling related to React alongside offering necessary optimizations, features, and an architecture to support each development stage. Powered by React, Webpack, and Babel, this framework helps you develop intuitive products and solutions for all web browsers which run on Mac OS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.
With Next.js, you can easily build hybrid apps that hold both statistically generated and server side rendered pages. To put it simply, your pages would be reactive in every manner as the framework pushes your app’s client side to offer complete interactivity and interoperability. Some famous companies such as Hulu, Twitch, Uber, Netflix, and Nike also use Next JS to build their successful applications.
Here are the key features of the Next JS UI framework to give you a better idea.
- Image Component and Optimization
The image component next/image is an extension of the HTML element designed to satisfy modern web development needs. It consists of an array of built-in optimizations such as visual stability, asset flexibility, faster page loads, performance enhancement, etc., to help you achieve desired Core Web Vitals.
- Internationalized Routing
From v10.0.0, Next JS has prioritized built-in support for internationalized routing (i18n). This support intends to complement existing i18n library solutions. You just need to assign a list of locales, domain-based locales, and the default locale. Later, the Next JavaScript framework will handle all the routing requirements automatically.
- Dedicated Analytics
Get access to actual visitor data to analyze real experience scores. The framework helps you gather web vitals from real devices that your visitors use. You gain actionable insights into the source code and pages that are contributing to the score. This helps in quick pivoting and iteration to improve overall performance and workflow.
- Zero-configuration
Next JS facilitates automatic bundling and compilation to create new apps via create-next-app. This feature is optimized for production from the start to support Node JS 12.22.0 or later versions. It also offers complete assistance for platforms like macOS, Linux, and Windows (including WSL).
Hybrid Data Fetching
Depending on your app’s use case, you can render your content in several ways with Next JS Server Side Rendering and Server Side Generation (SSG). You can also update or create content for a particular use case at runtime with the help of Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR).
- Incremental Static Regeneration(ISR)
You can develop or modify your static pages with this framework. It enables your NextJS developers to use static generation page-by-page with Incremental Static Regeneration and avoid the complexities of rebuilding the site. With this, you can achieve high scalability while retaining the advantages of being static.
- TypeScript Support
The Next JS framework offers automatic TypeScript configuration and compilation for APIs, Pages, and more. This built-in support feature gives an integrated TypeScript experience to start a new project from scratch or make changes to an existing one. You get enough room to exploit custom compiler options for the same.
- Fast Refresh
Any changes and edits made to your React components can be viewed instantly with Fast Refresh. It is a default feature for all Next JS apps on 9.4 or the latest versions. With this, you get a live-editing experience and instantaneous feedback to keep your app up and running in accordance with the component state.
- File-system Routing
The framework is driven by a file-system-based router that eliminates the need to configure any URL for routing purposes. This router promotes automatic routing around pages. It converts each component in the pages’ directory into a route with an added provision to define nested, index, and dynamic routes.
- API Routes
API routes is an important Next JS feature that helps you develop API seamlessly. Basically, it helps to create API endpoints that offer robust backend functionality. It focuses on the server side only bundles without making any changes or increasing the size of your client side bundling.
- Built-in CSS Support
With this feature, you get dedicated Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets (Sass) support. You can import CSS files from a JavaScript file as Next JS extends the method of import beyond JavaScript. You can build component-level styles with the CSS modules using the file naming convention – [name].module.css.
- Code-splitting and Bundling
Next JS has the potential to render pages with the needed libraries as per the project requirements. It concentrates on the creation of multiple resources rather than a large solo JavaScript file. As such, whenever a page loads, you can view the required JavaScript page with it.
How to Approach Next JS?
After understanding the basics, it is time to consider some essential tools and technologies that can help you kickstart your development journey with Next JS. You need to make sure that you along with your team are well acquainted with the below.
1) HTML/CSS
These technologies are the key to establishing a robust frontend web development environment. Some of the most important topics include Document Object Model (DOM) elements in HTML/CSS, basic attributes and tags in CSS and HTML properties, and pseudo-elements, box model, pseudo-selectors and selectors, layout systems (grid and flexbox) in CSS.
2) JavaScript
An in-depth understanding of JavaScript can prove beneficial while approaching Next JS. However, basic knowledge of essentials like DOM, language, use of syntax, and ES6+ concepts is also enough to start your project. Know-how of general programming concepts such as loops, variables, functions, and recursions along with typecasting would be an add-on.
3) React
Another significant consideration is to have a good command of Next JS React concepts and functional components. You can also learn React separately and get exposed to key topics like JSX expressions, state management with useEffect and useState hooks, fetching data with React Query, and routing with React-router. Familiarity with a layout system like Tailwind CSS or Material UI can also help you stand out.
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