Riddhi Agrawal

Posted on Aug 13, 2021 • Edited on Aug 16, 2021

Create React App without create-react-app !

#javascript #webdev #react #tutorial

The simplest way to create a basic react app is to run npx create-react-app and boom your basic react app will be created but have you ever wondered, can I do that whole process on my own? Well yes, you can.

Pre-requisites: Node js and Vs code. That’s all you need.

Let’s do it ..!!!

1. Open your vs code terminal and run the below commands:

npm init -y

By running this command package.json will be formed which holds important information which is required before publishing to NPM, and also defines attributes of a project that is used by npm to install dependencies, run scripts, and identify the entry point of the project.

npm install react react-dom

React will be needed to create user interfaces whereas React-Dom is a glue between React and browser DOM.

After running this command, node_modules and package.lock.json will be created. Node modules hold all the dependencies downloaded from npm. Package.lock.json keeps track of the exact version of every package that is installed as well as the dependency tree of every package.

npm install --save-dev @babel/core @babel/preset-env @babel/preset-react babel-loader

Babel is a JS Compiler that converts modern JS code into vanilla Js code that can be supported in older browsers and environments. Babel-loader transpile JS files using Babel and webpack.
For further reading visit https://babeljs.io/docs/en/

2.Create a file .babelrc and copy the code below

{  
 "presets": [
        "@babel/preset-react",
        "@babel/preset-env"
            ]
}

This file is a configuration file for babel whereas presets act as a shareable set of Babel plugins and/or config options.

npm install --save-dev webpack webpack-cli webpack-dev-server

Webpack is a tool that lets you compile JavaScript modules, also known as module bundlers.Given a large number of files, it generates a single file (or a few files) that run your app. Webpack-CLI provides the interface of options webpack uses in its configuration file.

npm install --save-dev html-webpack-plugin style-loader css-loader file-loader

All these are loaders that help in bundling various files along with webpack.

3.Create a file webpack.config.js and copy the code below

const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require("html-webpack-plugin");
const path = require("path");

module.exports = {
  entry: "./src/index.js",
  output: {
    filename: "bundle.[hash].js",
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, "dist"),
  },
  plugins: [
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
      template: "./src/index.html",
    }),
  ],
  resolve: {
    modules: [__dirname, "src", "node_modules"],
    extensions: ["*", ".js", ".jsx", ".tsx", ".ts"],
  },
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.jsx?$/,
        exclude: /node_modules/,
        loader: require.resolve("babel-loader"),
      },
      {
        test: /\.css$/,
        use: ["style-loader", "css-loader"],
      },
      {
        test: /\.png|svg|jpg|gif$/,
        use: ["file-loader"],
      }, 
    ],
  },
};

This config file provides all the required information like an entry point,bundle output filename and path , plugins and various loaders that are being used for webpack to bundle and resolve various kinds of files.
For further reading visit: https://webpack.js.org/concepts/

4.Create a folder “src” and inside that create a file “App.js”

import React from "react";

const App = () => ( 
    <div>
        <h1>Hello React</h1>
    </div>
);

export default App;

This is a basic arrow function that returns Hello React wrapped inside an h1 tag.

5.Create a file “index.js” that will be the entry point of our code.

import React from "react";
import ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import App from "./App";

ReactDOM.render(<App/>,document.querySelector("#root"));

6.Create another file “index.html”

<html lang="en">

<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>React</title>
</head>

<body>
    <div id="root"></div>
</body>

</html>

In our configuration, we specified that it should read ./src/index.HTML as a template. We have also set the inject option to true. With that option, Html-webpack-plugin adds a script with the path provided by Webpack right into the final HTML page. This final page is the one you get in dist/index.html after running npm run build, and the one that gets served from / when you run npm start.

7.In your package.json write the following lines of code in place of the script tag

"scripts": {
    "start": "webpack serve  --hot --open",
    "build": "webpack --config webpack.config.js --mode production"
  }

You can start your react app by writing npm start and you will see a blank page with Hello React written on it.

And you are done ..!!

Now you can customize your React app and add various components to it .

Though it was quite a long process and that’s what create-react-app makes it easier for you. It automates this whole hefty process of making every single file by replacing it with just a single command npx create-react-app filename.

Latest comments (42)

Sammy Taylor • Jul 24 '22

This is an excellent article. Thanks so much!

aderchox • Apr 9 '22 • Edited

Thank you. For those who want to know about what Webpack and Babel do in more depth and how they're useful, read this article: blog.jakoblind.no/babel-preset-env/

Tom Anderson • Nov 26 '21

Worked 95%, but needed to change this line of package.json because it complained that mode was not set:
"start": "webpack serve --hot --open --mode development",

ivan886 • Sep 26 '21

hola buen día Agradezco el articulo esta genial. Actualmente tengo dos proyectos uno creado desde cero utilizando webpack y el otro con create-react-app, que ventajas existe al realizar todo desde adicional al aprendizaje?

Jack • Aug 18 '21

CRA is faster and easier for sure but I still prefer to scaffold my apps manually.

I've worked with devs who had absolutely no clue what to do when hit with babel or webpack issues, because CRA hides all of that detail away.

I feel like a basic understanding of build tools is pretty important for a frontend developer. If you don't at the very least roughly understand what's going on under the hood then you're basically just working with magic...

utkarsh • Aug 18 '21

This is really helpful for understanding react better

Salman Shaikh • Aug 18 '21 • Edited

Great tutorial, it gives us somewhat understanding how react works under the hood, but don't you think for beginners parcel.js would be a better way to start instead of webpack because parcel is way more easy to understand than webpack.

Muhammad Shahid Hanif • Aug 17 '21

Hi, firstly thank you for introducing amazing ideas and platforms with us. I really enjoy your work and the way you make it so interesting makes my focus and concentration intact.

arogya bichpuria • Aug 16 '21

brilliant, got to explore how create-react-app is doing, what it is doing. Thank you.

Riddhi Agrawal • Aug 16 '21

Thanks for the appreciation and sharing your views ..!! : )

Michael Currin • Aug 15 '21

For those criticizing the article for not using create app and therefore being slower and less secure.

I think this article is ideal for beginners. It's overwhelming seeing files and how they fit together if you never used React before. And it's easy to forget something if it was generated for you.

I like the explanations going through the set up incrementally and also one will remember things better having actually typed them up or pasted them in a manually created file.

I also like the use of webpack so if you know webpack this is familiar instead of using create React app in script commands.

And when you need to make your second React app to be faster or more secure, then one of always use the creact React app CLI to set up a new project.

Oh also this article uses the latest version of all the packages so security is taken care of there.

Steve Sobol • Jan 27 '22

I don't like create-react-app. It creates a bloated mess, installs stuff I never use, and fails to install other stuff I always use.

I'm actually using this tutorial to build a template I'm going to push to a private npm repository. It'll save me quite a bit of time once I have everything set up.