Kumar Shubham

Posted on Feb 13, 2021 • Edited on Feb 22, 2021 • Originally published at shubhamstudent5.Medium

Build an E-Commerce Website with MERN Stack - Part 5 (Setting up Client-side and Redux)

#react #node #redux #javascript

Hello friends! So, this is the fifth part of the MERN Stack series. In the first four parts, we discussed the backend part of our application in complete detail - from setting up the routes to accepting payments via stripe, we did all the backend work in those four parts.

Notice: I will publish the complete detailed version of all the articles on the Medium website. Here I will give an overview and give the codes for the various pages part by part.
So, please click here to go to Medium and read it in completion. (These are friend links so do not worry about paywall)

So, from the fifth part onwards, we will start focusing on the frontend part. In this part, we will start setting up the client side of our project with React and will also make use of the Redux library to manage all our state in the React application.
So, first of all, we would need to make a new folder inside our root folder (where we have all our backend files). We will name this folder as 'client' and we will have all files related to the client-side inside this folder.

We will make use of the create-react-app to set up a React project for us and so we don't need to deal with various complex things like babel and webpack. Using this command will make the process much easier and we will be able to focus on the things that really matter.

So, after creating the folder named client, we would move into that folder and run the following command to create a new react app inside the folder.

npx create-react-app .

Or, if you have not yet created the client folder, you can just type in this command to set up a new React project in a folder named client and then you can move inside the client folder.

npx create-react-app client

This will set up a new React project in our application. We can run both the server and the client at the same time as we installed concurrently in part 1 of the series and defined the node script for this purpose. We just need to run npm run dev to run them both at the same time.

Now, open the package.json file inside the client folder. We will see that it contains various dependencies installed. We would also install some more dependencies we would be using in our project.
Here is the package.json file of the client-side. See there are many dependencies mentioned here. We will need all of these in our project.

package.json

{
  "name": "client",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "@testing-library/jest-dom": "^5.11.4",
    "@testing-library/react": "^11.1.0",
    "@testing-library/user-event": "^12.1.10",
    "axios": "^0.21.1",
    "bootstrap": "^4.5.3",
    "react": "^17.0.1",
    "react-dom": "^17.0.1",
    "react-redux": "^7.2.2",
    "react-router-dom": "^5.2.0",
    "react-scripts": "4.0.1",
    "react-stripe-checkout": "^2.6.3",
    "reactstrap": "^8.8.1",
    "redux": "^4.0.5",
    "redux-thunk": "^2.3.0",
    "web-vitals": "^0.2.4"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "react-scripts start",
    "build": "react-scripts build",
    "test": "react-scripts test",
    "eject": "react-scripts eject"
  },
  "proxy": "http://localhost:4000",
  "eslintConfig": {
    "extends": [
      "react-app",
      "react-app/jest"
    ]
  },
  "browserslist": {
    "production": [
      ">0.2%",
      "not dead",
      "not op_mini all"
    ],
    "development": [
      "last 1 chrome version",
      "last 1 firefox version",
      "last 1 safari version"
    ]
  }
}

index.js

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

ReactDOM.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

App.js

import { Component } from 'react';
import 'bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css';

class App extends Component {
  render(){
    return ( 
        <div className="App">
          <h1>Hello everyone!</h1>
        </div> 
    );
  }
}

export default App;

Next, we would start setting up our Redux state management. We will create a new file named store.js in the src folder.

So, this is our store.js file. It will serve as a store for our state. To understand what is going on, it is highly recommended to have some knowledge about Redux.

import { createStore, applyMiddleware, compose } from 'redux';
import thunk from 'redux-thunk';
import rootReducer from './reducers';

const initialState = {};

const middleWare = [thunk];

const store = createStore(rootReducer, initialState, compose(
    applyMiddleware(...middleWare),
    window.__REDUX_DEVTOOLS_EXTENSION__ && window.__REDUX_DEVTOOLS_EXTENSION__()
));

export default store;

If you look closely, we have imported something we have not actually created till now, the rootReducer file from reducers folder. We will make that in a while.

Now, we will start building the actions folder inside the src folder. This is standard Redux way to have store, actions and reducers.

types.js

export const GET_ITEMS = 'GET_ITEMS';
export const ADD_ITEM = 'ADD_ITEM';
export const DELETE_ITEM = 'DELETE_ITEM';
export const UPDATE_ITEM = 'UPDATE_ITEM';
export const ITEMS_LOADING = 'ITEMS_LOADING';
export const CART_LOADING = 'CART_LOADING';
export const GET_CART = 'GET_CART';
export const ADD_TO_CART = 'ADD_TO_CART';
export const DELETE_FROM_CART = 'DELETE_FROM_CART';
export const ORDERS_LOADING = 'ORDERS_LOADING';
export const GET_ORDERS = 'GET_ORDERS';
export const CHECKOUT = 'CHECKOUT';
export const USER_LOADING = 'USER_LOADING';
export const USER_LOADED = 'USER_LOADED';
export const AUTH_ERROR = 'AUTH_ERROR';
export const LOGIN_SUCCESS = 'LOGIN_SUCCESS';
export const LOGIN_FAIL = 'LOGIN_FAIL';
export const LOGOUT_SUCCESS = 'LOGOUT_SUCCESS';
export const REGISTER_SUCCESS = 'REGISTER_SUCCESS';
export const REGISTER_FAIL = 'REGISTER_FAIL';
export const GET_ERRORS = 'GET_ERRORS';
export const CLEAR_ERRORS = 'CLEAR_ERRORS';

errorActions

import { GET_ERRORS, CLEAR_ERRORS } from './types';

// RETURN ERRORS
export const returnErrors = (msg, status, id = null) => {
    return {
        type: GET_ERRORS,
        payload: { msg, status, id }
    }
}

// CLEAR ERRORS
export const clearErrors = () => {
    return {
        type: CLEAR_ERRORS
    }
}

authActions

import axios from 'axios';
import { returnErrors } from './errorActions';
import { USER_LOADING, USER_LOADED, AUTH_ERROR, LOGIN_SUCCESS, LOGIN_FAIL, LOGOUT_SUCCESS, REGISTER_SUCCESS, REGISTER_FAIL} from './types';

export const loadUser = () => (dispatch, getState) => {
    // User loading
    dispatch({ type: USER_LOADING });

    axios.get('/api/user', tokenConfig(getState))
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: USER_LOADED,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => {
            dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status));
            dispatch({
                type: AUTH_ERROR
            });
        });
}

export const register = ({name, email, password}) => dispatch => {
    // headers
    const config = {
        headers: {
            'Content-Type': 'application/json'
        }
    }

    //request body
    const body = JSON.stringify({name, email, password});

    axios.post('/api/register',body,config)
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: REGISTER_SUCCESS,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => {
            dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status, 'REGISTER_FAIL'));
            dispatch({
                type: REGISTER_FAIL
            });
        });
}

export const login = ({email, password}) => dispatch => {
    // headers
    const config = {
        headers: {
            'Content-Type': 'application/json'
        }
    }

    //request body
    const body = JSON.stringify({email, password});

    axios.post('/api/login',body,config)
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: LOGIN_SUCCESS,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => {
            dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status, 'LOGIN_FAIL'));
            dispatch({
                type: LOGIN_FAIL
            });
        });
}
// logout user
export const logout = () => {
    return {
        type: LOGOUT_SUCCESS
    }
}


// Setup config/headers and token
export const tokenConfig = getState => {
    //Get token from local storage
    const token = getState().auth.token;

    // Headers
    const config = {
        headers:{
            "Content-type": "application/json",
        }
    }

    if(token){
        config.headers['x-auth-token'] = token;
    }

    return config;
}

itemActions

import axios from 'axios';
import { GET_ITEMS, ADD_ITEM, DELETE_ITEM, UPDATE_ITEM, ITEMS_LOADING } from './types';
import { returnErrors } from './errorActions';

export const getItems = () => dispatch => {
    dispatch(setItemsLoading());
    axios.get('/api/items')
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: GET_ITEMS,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)));
}

export const addItem = (item) => (dispatch) => {
    axios.post('/api/items', item)
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: ADD_ITEM,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)))
}

export const deleteItem = (id) => (dispatch) => {
    axios.delete(`/api/items/${id}`)
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: DELETE_ITEM,
            payload: id
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)))
}

export const updateItem = (id, item) => (dispatch) => {
    axios.put(`/api/items/${id}`, item)
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: UPDATE_ITEM,
            payload: Promise.all([id, res.data])
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)))
}

export const setItemsLoading = () => {
    return{
        type: ITEMS_LOADING
    }
}

cartActions

import axios from 'axios';
import { returnErrors } from './errorActions';
import { GET_CART, ADD_TO_CART, DELETE_FROM_CART, CART_LOADING } from './types';

export const getCart = (id) => dispatch => {
    dispatch(setCartLoading());
    axios.get(`/api/cart/${id}`)
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: GET_CART,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)));
}

export const addToCart = (id, productId, quantity) => dispatch => {
    axios.post(`/api/cart/${id}`, {productId, quantity})
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: ADD_TO_CART,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)));
}

export const deleteFromCart = (userId, itemId) => dispatch => {
    axios.delete(`/api/cart/${userId}/${itemId}`)
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: DELETE_FROM_CART,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)));
}

export const setCartLoading = () => {
    return{
        type: CART_LOADING
    }
}

orderActions

import axios from 'axios';
import { returnErrors } from './errorActions';
import { GET_ORDERS, CHECKOUT, ORDERS_LOADING } from './types';

export const getOrders = (id) => dispatch => {
    dispatch(setOrdersLoading());
    axios.get(`/api/order/${id}`)
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: GET_ORDERS,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)));
}

export const checkout = (id, source) => dispatch => {
    axios.post(`/api/order/${id}`, {source})
        .then(res => dispatch({
            type: CHECKOUT,
            payload: res.data
        }))
        .catch(err => dispatch(returnErrors(err.response.data, err.response.status)));
}

export const setOrdersLoading = () => {
    return{
        type: ORDERS_LOADING
    }
}

So, this is all we have to deal with in this part. In the next part, we would deal with the reducers and start dealing with some components and then in the last part we would wrap up the series after dealing with the leftover components part.

So, I hope you like this part of the tutorial series and I hope you are excited for the parts to come.

To read the complete tutorial, please move to Medium and read the complete article.