Book Image

React 16 Tooling

By : Adam Boduch, Christopher Pitt
Book Image

React 16 Tooling

By: Adam Boduch, Christopher Pitt

Overview of this book

React 16 Tooling covers the most important tools, utilities, and libraries that every React developer needs to know — in detail. As React has grown, the amazing toolset around it has also grown, adding features and enhancing the development workflow. Each of these essential tools is presented in a practical manner and in a logical order mirroring the development workflow. These tools will make your development life simpler and happier, enabling you to create better and more performant apps. Adam starts with a hand-picked selection of the best tools for the React 16 ecosystem. For starters, there’s the create-react-app utility that’s officially supported by the React team. Not only does this tool bootstrap your React project for you, it also provides a consistent and stable framework to build upon. The premise is that when you don’t have to think about meta development work, more focus goes into the product itself. Other React tools follow this same approach to automating and improving your development life. Jest makes unit testing quicker. Flow makes catching errors easier. Docker containers make deployment in a stack simpler. Storybook makes developing components straightforward. ESLint makes writing standardized code faster. The React DevTools plugin makes debugging a cinch. React 16 Tooling clears away the barriers so you can focus on developing the good parts. In this book, we’ll look at each of these powerful tools in detail, showing you how to build the perfect React ecosystem to develop your apps within.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
2
Efficiently Bootstrapping React Applications with Create React App
Index

Installing the React Developer Tools add-on


The first step to getting started with React tooling is to install the React Developer Tools browser extension. I'll be using Chrome in the examples throughout this chapter as this is a popular choice. React Developer Tools is also available as an extension for Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/react-devtools/).

To get the extension installed in Chrome, visit https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions and search for react developer tools:

The first result should be the extension that you want. Click on the ADD TO CHROME button to install it:

Chrome might warn you that it can change data on websites that you visit. Don't worry, the extension is only activated when you visit React apps:

Once you click on the Add extension button, the extension is marked as installed:

You're all set! With the React Developer Tools Chrome extension installed and enabled, you're ready to start inspecting React components on the page, just...