React.js BoilerplateReact.js Boilerplate
#26in UI ComponentsWhat is React.js Boilerplate?
Quick setup for new performance orientated, offline–first React.js applications featuring Redux, hot–reloading, PostCSS, react-router, ServiceWorker, AppCache, FontFaceObserver and Mocha.
React.js Boilerplate is a tool in the UI Components category of a tech stack.
Key Features
Using react-transform-hmr, your changes in the CSS and JS get reflected in the app instantly without refreshing the page. That means that the current application state persists even when you change something in the underlying code! For a very good explanation and demo, watch Dan Abramov himself talking about it at react-europe.Redux is a much better implementation of a flux–like, unidirectional data flow. Redux makes actions composable, reduces the boilerplate code and makes hot–reloading possible in the first place. For a good overview of redux, check out the talk linked above or the official documentation!Babel is a modular JavaScript transpiler that helps to use next generation JavaScript and more, like transformation for JSX, hot loading, error catching etc. Babel has a solid ecosystem of offical preset and plugins.PostCSS is like Sass, but modular and capable of much more. PostCSS is, in essence, just a wrapper for plugins which exposes an easy to use, but very powerful API. While it is possible to replicate Sass features with PostCSS, PostCSS has an ecosystem of amazing plugins with functionalities Sass cannot even dream about having. See this talk for a short introduction to PostCSS.Unit tests should be an important part of every web application developers toolchain. Mocha checks your application is working exactly how it should without you lifting a single finger. Congratulations, you just won a First Class ticket to world domination, fasten your seat belt please!react-router is used for routing in this boilerplate. Using the new, and currently unreleased, 1.0 version, react-router makes routing really easy to do and takes care of a lot of the work. Since the version is not officially out yet, the documentation is not fully finished, but by far finished enough to work for most needs.ServiceWorker and AppCache make it possible to use your application offline. As soon as the website has been opened once, it is cached and available without a network connection. See this talk for an explanation of the ServiceWorker used in this boilerplate. manifest.json is specifically for Chrome on Android. Users can add the website to the homescreen and use it like a native app!
React.js Boilerplate Pros & Cons
Pros of React.js Boilerplate
- ✓Amazing developer experience
- ✓Nice tooling
- ✓Easy offline first applications
- ✓Easy setup
- ✓Great documentation
- ✓Fast
Cons of React.js Boilerplate
No cons listed yet.
React.js Boilerplate Alternatives & Comparisons
What are some alternatives to React.js Boilerplate?
jQuery
jQuery is a cross-platform JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.
React
Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.
AngularJS
AngularJS lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It lets you use good old HTML (or HAML, Jade and friends!) as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly. It automatically synchronizes data from your UI (view) with your JavaScript objects (model) through 2-way data binding.
