How to set up React, Webpack, and Babel

Usually create-react-app is enough to create new React applications, and if you need to have some specific settings - you can always eject and alter its webpack configuration. But sometimes you just need to set up a project from scratch. In this tutorial, you will learn how to setup Webpack with Babel and React support. We’ll also configure a dev server. ====== Step 1: Initialize Project ====== Create new folder webpack-react and open it:


mkdir webpack-react && cd $_

$_ is a reference to the last argument to the previous command. Initialize a new npm project:


npm init -y

This command will create package.json file in your directory. We pass the y option to skip the questions. Create file src/index.html with following contents:





  
  How to set up React, Webpack, and Babel

====== Step 2: Set Up Webpack ====== Install webpack, webpack-cli, webpack-dev-server, html-webpack-plugin and html-loader as dev dependencies:


npm i webpack webpack-dev-server html-webpack-plugin --save-dev

Here’s why they are needed: * Nečíslovaný seznamwebpack is core dependency * webpack-dev-server will allow us to run dev server * html-webpack-plugin simplifies working with html files Create webpack.config.js with following content:


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

module.exports = {
entry: "./src/App.js",
output: {
  path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
  filename: 'bundle.js',
},
plugins: [new HtmlWebPackPlugin({ template: "./src/index.html" })]
};

Add build and start commands to scripts section of package.json:


"scripts": {
"build": "webpack --mode production",
"start": "webpack-dev-server --open --mode development",
}

====== Step 3: Set Up Babel ====== Install Babel dependencies:


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

We’ve installed babel and two presets here: @babel/preset-react to compile JSX down to Javascript @babel/preset-env to compile Javascript ES6 code down to ES5 Create .babelrc with following contents:


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

Add babel-loader to your webpack configuration:


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

module.exports = {
entry: "./src/App.js",
output: {
  path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
  filename: 'bundle.js',
},
module: {
  rules: [
    {
      test: /\.(js|jsx)$/,
      exclude: /node_modules/,
      use: {
        loader: "babel-loader"
      }
    }
  ]
},
plugins: [new HtmlWebPackPlugin({ template: "./src/index.html" })]
};

====== Step 4: Set Up React ====== Install React dependencies:


npm i react react-dom

react - provides us with API to work with components react-dom - allows to render to HTML DOM Create file src/App.js with following code:


import React from "react"
import ReactDOM from "react-dom"

const App = () => (
<>
  Hello React
  Minimal React configuration.

)

ReactDOM.render(, document.getElementById("root"))

====== Step 5: Run The App ====== Start webpack-dev-server by running npm start:


npm start

It should open a browser window and you should see this: {{:programovani:hello-app.png?400|}}