Hello developers’ community! If you are reading this article which is called ‘How To Install ReactJS’, most likely that you are planning to start developing with ReactJS. In order for development using this library to be successful, you first need to connect and install it on the pages where you plan to use it. Looking ahead, the content of this article contains basic information about ReactJS concepts so that even a beginner could plunge into the world of developing with this technology in more detail. Let’s start from the beginning!
To begin with, I would like to look at the main issues due to which this library was developed. Why it appeared and should you use it, when is it worth using it in the development process, and when it’s not. Without understanding the answers to these basic questions, it can be very difficult for you to extend your application, maintain it, and so on. Therefore, it is important to lay a foundation that will bring successful projects. For newbies, it’s worth realizing that when you work with ReactJS, you are working with the JavaScript programming language. Looking at the source code of some of the React examples, you might get the impression that this is not JavaScript, but React is only JavaScript. This library is used to create user interfaces, that’s what we see when our browser page is loaded. It is quite possible not to use React to create user interfaces, but it will be much faster and will save you a lot of time and effort. Novice users of this technology are mistaken when they start developing. Many of them think that after installing this library, they will have some additional JavaScript commands and they can be written easier. But, in fact, ReactJS is not really about additional functionality. React has its own philosophy of JavaScript application development. To work with React, every JS developer needs to change his thinking a bit. The knowledge that you have for working with JavaScript development will be useful in working with React, but some problems may arise, for example, with events or with the selection of elements.
The introductory information gave you an idea of what to consider before setting up the library and working with it. The following methods for installing ReactJS will suit you if you have a small and uncomplicated project that consists of several web pages. Before connecting the library to your project, you need to install it. On various forums, you can read that newbie developers find instructions for installing ReactJS, but it seems kind of complicated. Everything there is actually not so difficult, if you want to be a frontend developer, then anyway you will need to interact with packages, with npm, install Node.js, and so on. Since there, in addition to ReactJS, you can download a lot of different useful things, for example, configure the same preprocessors, sass, scss, this greatly reduces the development time.
To install React, you need two additional tools: Node.js with a version higher than 6 and npm with a version higher than 5.2. Node.js can be installed from the official site, but keep in mind that it is better to download not the latest version, but the recommended one, because it is more stable. When you have installed Node.js, enter cmd in the search (if you cope with Windows), this will open the command line, then enter node -v, in order to check the version of the node. Then npm -v to check the npm version, if you already have it all you can update the existing versions. When all this is done, you can proceed to installing ReactJS itself, using the command: npm install -g create-react-app. After that, you can create a new project using the create-react-app name. The first command installs ReactJS globally, the second command directly creates a folder with everything you need, and downloads the packages. When you have done this, in order to launch the application, you first need to go to the folder: cd application name. Use npm start command to start. That’s all, after that your application will launch in the browser.
If you are asking about how to connect ReactJS to your project, then read about this two ways:
- Let’s move to the first way. To just look at the capabilities of ReactJS, you can use the so-called “sandbox” – an online page where this library is already connected and you just have to enter commands in the appropriate tab and observe the result in another. You do not need to connect or install anything in such a method. Here is a page where you can do it: https://codepen.io/pen?&editors=0010. After making changes to the code, just click the “Change View” button to see the result. This way of using the ReactJS library is ideal if you just want to experiment with its capabilities. It is also a handy learning tool.
- The second way is to connect JavaScript files manually. If you want to use ReactJS in your web pages, you need to include several JavaScript files for them. You can download these files and connect them, specifying the local path to them. You can also connect the library by specifying the path to the JavaScript files on a remote server (on the so-called CDN servers). The ReactJS library is two JavaScript files:
- the library itself and its main functions (core) – react.js
- functions for working with the DOM tree, which are needed for use on web pages and react in a browser – react-dom.js.
To fully work with all React features, it is also recommended to connect the Babel JavaScript transpiler. It will ensure that your code supports the new JavaScript syntax and is supported in older browsers. Scripts can be connected between the opening and closing
… tags of your web page. You can instead connect compressed versions of these files for placement on a production server. In this way, you can quickly connect ReactJS to your project and start using it already.Conclusion
At the beginning of working with any technology, you need to study its basic concepts in detail and, of course, install it. Continuing to work with React depends on understanding the initial stages, i. e. installing and connecting to projects. Thanks for reading an article ‘How To Install ReactJS’. I hope that the above information was useful and helped to install the library or maybe you can hire Reactjs development company. Wish you happy coding!