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React+Redux+Maps Starter Kit

#Goal

Build a simple multi-tenant client application on top of react-redux-starter-kit with the addition of:

  • Token-based Authentication (jwt)
  • Mapbox GL JS (mapbox-gl-js)
  • Internationalization (react-intl)
  • Translation management (react-intl-translations-manager)

This client kit pairs with kit-server-hapi which provides lightweight identity management and site access via REST API.

Table of Contents

  1. Features
  2. Added Features
  3. Requirements
  4. Getting Started
  5. Application Structure
  6. Development
  7. Language Translation
  8. Translation Architecture
  9. Developer Tools
  10. Routing
  11. Testing
  12. Deployment
  13. Build System
  14. Configuration
  15. Root Resolve
  16. Globals
  17. Styles
  18. Server
  19. Production Optimization
  20. Learning Resources
  21. FAQ
  22. Thank You

Features

Added Features

Requirements

  • node ^4.2.0
  • npm ^3.0.0

Getting Started

After confirming that your development environment meets the specified requirements, cloning this repository, and navigating on the command line to the top-level directory you can follow these steps to get up and running:

$ cd into top-level directory
$ npm install                   # Install project dependencies
$ npm run dev                   # Compile and launch

Once the dev server starts successfully, navigate to http://localhost:3001 in your web browser and you should see a login page. At this point you must start the server application and have it listening on port 3000 or provide an alternate mock backend. You should then be able to sign in using one of the sample user accounts. Once authenticated, the client app will fetch settings for the available sites (tenants) which provides all of the information needed to drive the UI.

While developing, you will probably rely mostly on npm run dev; however, there are additional scripts at your disposal:

npm run <script> Description
start Serves your app at localhost:3000. HMR will be enabled in development.
compile Compiles the application to disk (~/dist by default).
dev Same as npm start, but enables nodemon for the server as well.
dev:no-debug Same as npm run dev but disables devtool instrumentation.
test Runs unit tests with Karma and generates a coverage report.
test:dev Runs Karma and watches for changes to re-run tests; does not generate coverage reports.
deploy Runs linter, tests, and then, on success, compiles your application to disk.
deploy:dev Same as deploy but overrides NODE_ENV to "development".
deploy:prod Same as deploy but overrides NODE_ENV to "production".
i18n:extract Extract translateable messages from code
i18n:update Extract translateable messages and update library
lint Lint all .js files.
lint:watch Lint all .js files and watch for changes.
lint:fix Lint and fix all .js files. Read more on this.

Application Structure

The application structure presented in this boilerplate is fractal, where functionality is grouped primarily by feature rather than file type. Please note, however, that this structure is only meant to serve as a guide, it is by no means prescriptive. That said, it aims to represent generally accepted guidelines and patterns for building scalable applications. If you wish to read more about this pattern, please check out this awesome writeup by Justin Greenberg.

.
├── bin                      # Build/Start scripts
├── blueprints               # Blueprint files for redux-cli
├── build                    # All build-related configuration
│   └── webpack              # Environment-specific configuration files for webpack
├── config                   # Project configuration settings
├── server                   # Koa application (uses webpack middleware)
│   └── main.js              # Server application entry point
├── src                      # Application source code
│   ├── main.js              # Application bootstrap and rendering
│   ├── components           # Reusable Presentational Components
│   ├── containers           # Reusable Container Components
|   ├── forms                # Reusable form components
│   ├── layouts              # Components that dictate major page structure
│   ├── modules              # redux actions, actions creators, and reducers
│   ├── static               # Static assets (not imported anywhere in source code)
│   ├── styles               # Application-wide styles (generally settings)
│   ├── store                # Redux-specific pieces
│   │   ├── createStore.js   # Create and instrument redux store
│   │   └── reducers.js      # Reducer registry and injection
│   │── translations         # Translation files for each registered locale
│   └── routes               # Main route definitions and async split points
│       ├── index.js         # Bootstrap main application routes with store
│       ├── Root.js          # Wrapper component for context-aware providers
│       └── Home             # Fractal route
│           ├── index.js     # Route definitions and async split points
│           ├── assets       # Assets required to render components
│           ├── components   # Presentational React Components
│           ├── container    # Connect components to actions and store
│           ├── modules      # Collections of reducers/constants/actions
│           └── routes **    # Fractal sub-routes (** optional)
└── tests                    # Unit tests

Development

Language Translation

When you install this kit, it comes with English, Spanish, and Chinese locales already installed. All of the existing React components that have UI text to translate have been configured to use React-intl, and their text has already been extracted, translated, and packaged for use by the app at runtime. Translations are maintained with the source code.

If you want to edit an existing translation:

  1. Find the appropriate translation file in src/translations for your locale. If you want to change a Chinese translation, then use src/translations/zh.json.
  2. Give this translation file to a translator along with translations/defaultMessages.json. defaultMessages.json contain the original untranslated text strings along with a description providing context to perform the translation.
  3. Once the translations have beed added, simply replace the existing zh.json file in the codebase.
  4. Restart the dev server or recompile for production and the new translations should be picked up or appropriate warning/errors should be provided.

If you want to add a new language locale:

  1. Add a new locale to src/main.js for react-intl and also to bin/manage-translations.js for react-intl-translations-manager
  2. Run npm run i18n:update. This will generate a new json file for your new locale in src/translations.
  3. Give this translation file to a translator along with translations/defaultMessages.json. defaultMessages.json contain the original untranslated text strings along with a description providing context to perform the translation.
  4. Once the translations have beed added, simply replace the existing zh.json file in the codebase.
  5. Edit src/translations/index.js, adding your new translation file import and mapping it to one or more locale strings. Note that some browsers use different locale strings, for example Chrome may use 'en' or 'en-US' while Safari will use 'en-us'. Map as many locales as needed to your translation file.
  6. Restart the dev server or recompile for production and the new translations should be picked up or appropriate warning/errors should be provided.

If you want to add new translations for existing locales:

  1. First, make sure your new text strings and the React components that contain them have been setup properly (see next section)
  2. Run npm run i18n:update. This will add an entry for each new text string to the existing translations for each locale in src/translations. The original text string will be provided by default.
  • Now follow the steps above for editing an existing translation

Translation Architecture

If you are developing new React components or changing existing ones then you will need to understand how the different pieces work together to extract, update, store, and perform translations. This includes React-intl, Babel, and React-intl-translations-manager. The basic workflow is as follows using the login form as an example.

  • Initially, you will have text string literals in your React components, probably mostly in your render method.
  • These text string literals are replaced by calls to formatMessage and the text strings are moved to the top of the component in a standardized message structure.. See forms/LoginForm/LoginForm.js for an example.
    • formatMessage is passed as a prop provided by React-intl which translates the text string based on the current locale.
    • formatMessage and the current locale are passed into the component as props by React-intl.
    • React-intl is connected to the LoginForm via the LoginContainer using the injectIntl method (src/forms/LoginForm/LoginContainer.js)
  • When you run npm run i18n:update Babel reads through all of your React components in the src/ folder, and any other es6 classes, and extracts the messages into src/_translations.
    • This destination is configured in .babelrc).
  • i18n-update then runs react-intl-translations-manager which does multiple things:
    • compiles all of the translations from src/_translations into a single master message file at src/translations/defaultMessages.json. File is updated if it already exists.
    • adds translation files for each locale to src/translations ready to be translated. For example es.json for Spanish. If these translation files already exist then they are updated, preserving the old translation. The manager even tells you about all of the new translations needed, or old ones that have been removed.
  • The translations for all of the locales are bundled into a single module in src/translations/index.js
    • It is here that locale strings, as specificed by the client web browser are mapped to a specific translation file.
    • If a browser uses a locale that is not translated, then the default messages are used automatically, in this case English.
    • There are times when you will want to have multiple locales all map to the same generic translation. For example, in our case both 'zh' and 'zh-CN' are made to point to the zh.json translation file as they simplified Mandarin is valid in both cases.
    • There are also cases where different browsers provide slightly different casing for locale strings. For example the Chrome browser uses 'en-US' while Safari uses 'en-us'. Mapping are provided for both here.
  • The translation index.js is loaded by src/containers/AppContainer and given to the React-intl provider, which performs the translation when formatMessage is called.
    • The current locale is also provided to the React-intl provider as a property which comes from the global redux state via src/modules/locale.js. It's in this file where the initial locale state is set by reading the browsers language list. It also provides a localeChange action creator which components such as the sidebar use to trigger locale changes.
    • When a localeChange is triggered, each of the React components update themselves, using their locale property which comes from the redux state, to call formatMessage and receive the new translated message.

Developer Tools

We recommend using the Redux DevTools Chrome Extension. Using the chrome extension allows your monitors to run on a separate thread and affords better performance and functionality. It comes with several of the most popular monitors, is easy to configure, filters actions, and doesn’t require installing any packages.

However, adding the DevTools components to your project is simple. First, grab the packages from npm:

npm i --save-dev redux-devtools redux-devtools-log-monitor redux-devtools-dock-monitor

Then follow the manual integration walkthrough.

Routing

We use react-router route definitions (<route>/index.js) to define units of logic within our application. See the application structure section for more information.

Testing

To add a unit test, simply create a .spec.js file anywhere in ~/tests. Karma will pick up on these files automatically, and Mocha and Chai will be available within your test without the need to import them. If you are using redux-cli, test files should automatically be generated when you create a component or redux module.

Coverage reports will be compiled to ~/coverage by default. If you wish to change what reporters are used and where reports are compiled, you can do so by modifying coverage_reporters in ~/config/index.js.

Deployment

Out of the box, this starter kit is deployable by serving the ~/dist folder generated by npm run deploy (make sure to specify your target NODE_ENV as well). This project does not concern itself with the details of server-side rendering or API structure, since that demands an opinionated structure that makes it difficult to extend the starter kit. However, if you do need help with more advanced deployment strategies, here are a few tips:

Static Deployments

If you are serving the application via a web server such as nginx, make sure to direct incoming routes to the root ~/dist/index.html file and let react-router take care of the rest. The Koa server that comes with this client kit is only used for development purposes, see Server section below.

Heroku

More details to come, but in the meantime check out this helpful comment by DonHansDampf addressing Heroku deployments.

Build System

Configuration

Default project configuration can be found in ~/config/index.js. Here you'll be able to redefine your src and dist directories, adjust compilation settings, tweak your vendor dependencies, and more. For the most part, you should be able to make changes in here without ever having to touch the actual webpack build configuration.

If you need environment-specific overrides (useful for dynamically setting API endpoints, for example), you can edit ~/config/environments.js and define overrides on a per-NODE_ENV basis. There are examples for both development and production, so use those as guidelines. Here are some common configuration options:

Key Description
dir_src application source code base path
dir_dist path to build compiled application to
server_host hostname for the Koa server
server_port port for the Koa server
compiler_css_modules whether or not to enable CSS modules
compiler_devtool what type of source-maps to generate (set to false/null to disable)
compiler_vendor packages to separate into to the vendor bundle

Root Resolve

Webpack is configured to make use of resolve.root, which lets you import local packages as if you were traversing from the root of your ~/src directory. Here's an example:

// current file: ~/src/views/some/nested/View.js
// What used to be this:
import SomeComponent from '../../../components/SomeComponent'

// Can now be this:
import SomeComponent from 'components/SomeComponent' // Hooray!

Globals

These are global variables available to you anywhere in your source code. If you wish to modify them, they can be found as the globals key in ~/config/index.js. When adding new globals, make sure you also add them to ~/.eslintrc.

Variable Description
process.env.NODE_ENV the active NODE_ENV when the build started
__DEV__ True when process.env.NODE_ENV is development
__PROD__ True when process.env.NODE_ENV is production
__TEST__ True when process.env.NODE_ENV is test
__DEBUG__ True when process.env.NODE_ENV is development and cli arg --no_debug is not set (npm run dev:no-debug)
__BASENAME__ history basename option

Styles

Both .scss and .css file extensions are supported out of the box and are configured to use CSS Modules. After being imported, styles will be processed with PostCSS for minification and autoprefixing, and will be extracted to a .css file during production builds.

Server

This starter kit comes packaged with an Koa server. It's important to note that the sole purpose of this server is to provide webpack-dev-middleware and webpack-hot-middleware for hot module replacement and to proxy server requests during development. Using a custom Koa app in place of webpack-dev-server makes it easier to extend the starter kit to include functionality such as API's, universal rendering, and more -- all without bloating the base boilerplate.

When NODE_ENV is set to development, Koa proxies all requests to /api to port 3000 where the application dev server is expected to be listening. This allows for a simple functional backend while developing. In production this proxy is not in place and should be done using a web server such as nginx.

Production Optimization

Babel is configured to use babel-plugin-transform-runtime so transforms aren't inlined. Additionally, in production, we use react-optimize to further optimize your React code.

In production, webpack will extract styles to a .css file, minify your JavaScript, and perform additional optimizations such as module deduplication.

Learning Resources