Install And Setup React App on Ubuntu
2K- by KnowledgeHut
- 18th Jan, 2021
- Last updated on 25th Feb, 2021
- 7 mins read
React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It is opensource and maintained by Facebook.
You can read more about React here.
In this blog we are going to learn how to install and setup a React App on Ubuntu (version 16 and above).
Prerequisites
This blog assumes that you are using Ubuntu 16 or above versions and you have all the privileges to install the software in the machine, and also have access to the required websites mentioned in the blog.
System Requirements:
- Ubuntu 16 or above
- Minimum 4GB RAM
- Visual Studio Code installed.
Why should we choose React, and what are its advantages?
- React is built on JavaScript which makes it easier to learn and easier to use.
- React is component based which means we can write re-usable components. Start with small things, which you use to build bigger things, which you use to build apps.
- React is lightweight compared to Angular; which in turn makes your application faster to load—which is very important from the user’s point of view.
- React ensures faster rendering of DOM (document object model), this has been achieved by the introduction of Virtual DOM-currently, one of the benefits of using React for heavy loaded and dynamic software solutions.
- React has a helpful and interactive developer toolset which makes it easy to debug. React Developer Tools is a browser extension available for both Chrome and Firefox. It enables developers to observe reactive component hierarchies, discover child and parent components, and inspect their current state and props.
- React uses JSX(JavaScript XML) which has HTML-like syntax, making it easy to code and understand.
- React has strong community support on Github, Stackoverflow and many other platforms.
- React is SEO friendly.
There are certainly many other nice features about using React.
What is Node.js?
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js is an Open Source Server Environment that is free and runs on almost all Operating Systems (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.).
You can read more about Nodejs here.
Why do we need Nodejs for React apps?
Node.js lets developers use JavaScript to develop variety of applications like network applications, command line tools, web APIs, mobile applications, web applications etc.
React usually runs on Node Server in development, but we can make use of other Servers likes Apache or Nginix to run React App in production. You do not need NodeJS to run React in production.
What is NPM, why do we need NPM for React apps?
NPM (Node Package Manager) is a dependency management tool for JavaScript applications. It is Open Source and also has command line utility for interacting with the application that aids in package installation, version management, and dependency management.
React does not ship with all the features by itself, so it uses external packages to add the required features to the React application. These packages are maintained by NPM (Node package manager) which is shipped with Nodejs in development.
You can read more about npm here.
We can use yarn instead of NPM during development and production for React apps.
Install Node.js
There are many ways to install Node.js in an Ubuntu machine.
- Install Node.js from the Ubuntu repository
- Install Using a PPA (personal package archive)
Using the first method we will not get the latest version of Node.js installed so we will choose the second method where we will get the latest version of Node.js installed.
Installing Using a PPA (personal package archive)
To get the latest version of Node.js installed on ubuntu, add a PPA (personal package archive). It is maintained by NodeSource.
Open terminal and run below commands:
- Install curl: Run below command on terminal
Command: sudo apt-get install curl
- Set the NodeSource PPA: Run below command on terminal
Command: curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_current.x | sudo -E bash –
The PPA will be added to your configuration and your local package cache will be updated automatically.
You can read more about available versions of Node.js in nodesource here.
- Install Node.js: Run the below command on terminal
Command: sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
- Check for Node.js Installation: Run below command on terminal
Command: node -v
It has to show the version of node installed in this case v15.4.0
Now let's see how we can install and setup React app in Ubuntu machine
- Using create-react-app (installing create-react-app using npm)
- Using npx (Recommended in React docs)
Using create-react-app (npm)
In setting up a React project we come across tools like babel and webpack which are not easy to understand and configure for a person who is new to React and JavaScript. There are several tools that help to sort this problem. One of them is create-react-app. This is the easiest to setup. Create-react-app comes with production grade configurations pre-built. You can alter the configurations by ejecting from the create-react-app as well.
Follow the below steps to install using npm create-react-app
- Go into your desired location where you want to start your react app using ‘cd’ command
- Run below command to install create-react-app using npm
Command: npm install -g create-react-app
- Now Run create-react-app on terminal to setup a React-app.
Command: create-react-app hello-world
- This creates a folder with the name hello-world. You can navigate into the folder using ‘cd’ command and look at the project structure.
This gives the React app which we can use, but React recommends using npx.
Using npx command:
npx is the package runner, since npm version 5.2.0 npx is pre-bundled with npm.
Read more about differences npx and npm here.
Follow the below steps to setup using npx.
- Go into your desired location where you want to start your react app using ‘cd’ command
- Run the below command to setup React app using npx
Command: npx create-react-app my-app
That’s it! Your React app is ready with a single command.
- This creates a folder with the name hello-world. You can navigate into the folder using ‘cd’ command.
- Now open the project in vs-code
When you open the project in visual studio code the structure looks like this.
Now let's have a look at the files and folders we have:
- node_modules: This folder is managed by package manager (npm) and contains all the project library dependencies. We should not edit any file inside this folder.
- public: This folder contains the assets that should be served publicly without any restrictions and contains files like index.html, favicon, manifest.json
- src: This is the folder that contains all the files that are used to create web applications. As a react developer you are likely to spend a lot of time in this folder creating components and other sources of code.
- .gitignore: This file has all the assets which should be ignored by git while we publish our code to GitHub eg: node_modules
- package.json: This is a JSON file which has all information about the app such as name, dependencies, scripts we use to run the application etc.
- Readme.md: This is a markdown file where you specify the things which you want to show when someone visits your project on GitHub.
Now let's run our first React app!
- Open the terminal integrated with Visual studio code or just stay in the ubuntu terminal; either is fine. Let's use the integrated terminal.
- Run the app using the following command:
Command: npm start
This opens the app in your favourite browser as shown below:
Now, let's make our first code changes:
On navigating to src folder, you will find App.js file, through which the whole app is run inside the browser. Change the code as you see below and save by hitting ctrl+s.
Now look at the browser where the app is running. It looks like the one in the image below.
Congratulations on making your first React app!
What you have learnt:
- What is React and why it should be used
- What is Node.js, and how it should be installed on Ubuntu.
- What is npm
- What is create-react-app
- How to setup React-app on Ubuntu
- How to run the React-app
- How to make code changes to create your first React application.
React has rapid changes for every new version. It is important to keep yourself updated with the latest releases of React, so that you can make your life as a React developer easier!
KnowledgeHut
KnowledgeHut is an outcome-focused global ed-tech company. We help organizations and professionals unlock excellence through skills development. We offer training solutions under the people and process, data science, full-stack development, cybersecurity, future technologies and digital transformation verticals.
Website : https://www.knowledgehut.com
Trending blog posts
Suggested Blogs
How to Install Angular on Windows
By Pardeep Jain
In this article, you will learn how you can install Angular CLI on your Windows machine and use it to create real-life Angular Applications/Projects.As you know, Angular is popularly used to create SPAs (Single page applications). Angular is an in-demand, open-source, and modern web application development framework by Google, as compared to all other Libraries and Frameworks like ReactJs, VueJs, MithrilJs, etc.The reasons behind this are many. Angular provides you full access to use all its sub-packages like routing, Async calls, Security, etc.Introduction — What you will learnIn this blog, we will cover the installation of Angular on Windows. By end of the article, you will understand how to -Install Node/npm on your machine.Use and install Angular CLI globally.Run Angular CLI commands.Create an initial workspace for the application.Run the Angular application in Browser.We assume you are already aware of the basics of web development including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. (if so, please proceed otherwise we strongly recommand to learn those first before jumping into Angular).In order to continue, you must have — Windows MachineGood Internet ConnectivityWindows user account with all/admin installation privileges where you can install any packages freely.PS: While working with Angular, knowledge of TypeScript is good to have, but is not mandatory. A brief note about Node.jsThe very first thing required to install is Node.js. (If already installed, skip this part and jump to the next part of this blog.)Node.js is again an open-source and cross-platform JavaScript run-time environment that allows to execute JavaScript code outside of a browser (on the Server-side). Node.js is responsible to manage and install all npm dependencies for your Angular application. It provides the required libraries to run the Angular project. Node.js acts as a run-time environment for any Angular application which uses servers over localhost. For more information on Node.js refer to official docs.Angular requires the latest/stable version of Node.js in order to continue. Go to the official website in order to install Node.js on your machine locally.You can install any version, the current one or latest stable version, as per your need. Just click on the button and it will start downloading the package on your machine. Once downloaded click on the icons downloaded and follow the steps, till the installation is completed. To check the version installed of Node.js you can use the following command in a terminal/console window. —node -vornode — — versionNeed for NPM for Angular development As Node.js serves as Run time environment for the application, similarly NPM(node package manager) is used as a dependency management tool for any JavaScript application. NPM will allow us to install the libraries required for any Angular application; for example jQuery, angular-router, angular-http, bootstrap, and many more. You can explore a number of packages available in the npm store here.Note: Once you have installed Node.js it will automatically install NPM on your machine, and you can check the version installed using the below command. npm -vAngular CLI — What it is and complete Installation guideEarlier in the initial days of Angular, developers used to create whole architecture, webpack files, build process, etc for any project on their own from scratch which was quite a time-consuming and lengthy process. To make it easier for the developer, Angular team come up with the easy-to-use tool named Angular CLI. As the name suggests CLI (command line interface) provides a user (developer) friendly interface where you can run commands to make your development life easier and faster. Angular CLI comes with a number of commands available to use from creating a new project, to creating components, creating a routing configuration file, services, and many more.Installation Process of Angular CLITo install the Angular CLI on your machine, open the terminal window and run the following command: npm install -g @angular/cli where -g denotes that CLI is being installed globally to your machine, which means you can create or run any command of CLI anywhere on your machine. Once you run the above command CLI will be installed on your machine, and you can verify the version installed using the following command: ng version To know more about Angular CLI commands, you can refer to this blog which contains a number of commands to use. Creating a Project using Angular CLINow, let’s create our first ever Angular project using Angular CLI. Open your terminal window and type the command below on your machine.ng new hello-world Here ng is our CLI prefix, new denotes that we are creating a new project and hello-world is our project name. You can choose any name you want.After running this command you will find the full architecture of the project in the directory where you run this command. The project folder will be something like below in the image -Angular Project architecture The first file to render on running this application will be index.html which present in the src folder. src folder contains Source files for the root-level application project. assets folder contains all the static assets like images, fonts, etc. node_modules This folder is created while you run npm installby package manager (npm) and it contains all the project dependencies or any third party modules required for the project. e2e folder contains all the source code related to Test Cases.You can customise it as per your requirements. README.md file is being used as documentation for the app. Package.json configures npm dependencies which are available for the project in the workspace along with their versions specified. For more details about components/Service and source code you can explore this link. Run the application one with the installation process of Angular application via CLI, it’s time to run the application locally. Angular CLI comes with complete tool-chain/commands for the development of front-end applications on your machine.Run the following command on the terminal (Navigate to the project directory if you are not in that directory).ng serve or ng serve --open The --open (or just -o) option automatically opens your browser to http://localhost:4200/. ng servecommand will serve your application on localhost server which you can check by navigating to your browser with the below URL http://localhost:4200/. You can customise the port as per your requirement. Accessing Angular Web Interfaceng serve command may take a few seconds to run your application, and once completed, you should see a web page similar to the following. And we are done!Now you can make changes in the default component’s template which is app.component.html .Also, moving forward, you can generate a number of components/service/routing files using CLI commands as per your requirements and keep learning.ConclusionIn this blog you have learnt - What is Node/NPM and how you can install and use it, What is Angular CLI and how you can use it after installing it on your Windows machine, How to create a new Angular project from scratch using CLI commands and run it. Now that you have basic hands-on knowledge of getting started with an Angular application, you can start exploring Angular further. If you have any questions/doubts related to this blog, please let us know in the comment box below...we would be more than happy to help you out!
9556
- by Pardeep Jain
- 25 Feb 2021
- 9 mins read
In this article, you will learn how you can instal... Read More
What is NPM in Node JS?
By Sumanth Reddy
If you have ever worked with Node or any JavaScript framework, then you have already worked with NPM directly or indirectly. Let’s get into the details to understand more about NPM, and learn how to install the latest versions and manage different versions using NVM. In later articles we can discuss mastering basic tools like adding, updating or removing a package. We can also touch base on some advanced features like cache, audits, scripting and more. What is NPM ? To build an application with JavaScript or any other frameworks like Angular, React, Express or Node.js, we rely on a Package Manager to install its dependencies. This package manager is called as NPM. Note: Dependencies are the packages that are used in our projects and part of the package.json. NPM comes with Node.js and is pre-installed with Node. Package.json is the file containing the details of your project such as who created it, and what is the version of node and packages that your project is dependent on. A package is basically a set of files combined together to serve a specific interest of function. If we visit then we can search for different packages based on the functionality we need. For example, if you search for ‘date format’ to support multiple locales, we get 1171 packages (as on the date this article was written) with the topmost package being ‘moment’. In short, if you are thinking of a functionality to build, then there is a high chance that there is a package already available in NPM for the same. As of January 2021, the current count is 1,493,231 packages. NPM is used for building lightweight projects that can be easily shared across multiple development teams without dependencies being shared. It allows free use of resources and installs the dependencies only when needed. Install npm Node/npm can be installed on Mac, Windows or Linux as well. Let’s go through the steps involved in installing it on Mac. The approach should be similar for the other Operating systems. For Linux, refer to this. Navigate to and you will see the download section. Under the download, there is the other downloads link which will display different operating systems. Download the one specific to your Operating System. Double click on the node-v**.**.*.pkg to install the node. It is a simple wizard with straightforward steps. npm is installed with Node.js If you are wondering why we are installing node instead of NPM, this is because Node.js installs NPM along with it. This is evident from the below snapshot. How to check that you have node and npm installed The most common way to check if node or npm is installed is by looking at the terminal. Open terminal and Type in `node -v` and you should see the same version display in the installation wizard. The same applies to npm; i.e. You can type in ‘npm -v’ in terminal. On Versions - A note on versions, npm versions, Node versions and Long-Term Support When we are downloading the node.js from, we have two options; i.e. LTS and Current, both pointing to different versions, and currently on the higher version. LTS stands for ‘long time support’ and Current is the version that has the latest features, and offers support for 6 months. After 6 months, odd-numbered releases will become unsupported and even numbered ones will be given LTS status with support for 30 months. So, for all production applications, one should rely on Active LTS or Maintenance LTS releases. Current can be used for any trainings or by source contributors i.e. library authors. Use a Node.js version manager Imagine you are working on an Enterprise application for an organization which uses a specific version of Node LTS. Also imagine that there is another app (it could be your pet project) that you are working on, for which you prefer to work on the latest version. But how can we have two different versions of Node in the same machine? To achieve the same, we have NVM (Node.js version manager). Here is the official site for Mac and Linux users. Windows users can visit this link. Follow the installation steps to install the NVM on your machine. To verify if NVM is installed correctly, open the terminal and type in ‘nvm --version.’ Type in ‘nvm list’ to display all the node.js versions that are installed on your machine. For now, you should be seeing only one version. Say you want to install an outdated version of Node.js, say 12. Type in ‘nvm install 12’ in terminal and it should install the 12 version of Node.js for you. Now, type in ‘nvm list’ to see both the versions of node that are available for use. To switch to a specific version of node, type in ‘nvm use 12’. To check if it is the active one, type in ‘node -v’. Now you are good to go ahead with your project for that specific version of node.js. ConclusionNPM is one of the world's largest software registries. The Source contributors or developers are from across the world, and use npm to share or use packages. Many organizations/firms use npm for private development as well. NPM has 3 components i.e. Website, Command Line Interface and Registry. We used the website to identify the package for ‘date format’ above. We learnt to set up private packages as well alongside public. The Command Line Interface is run from the terminal and is used by most of the developers, and the Registry is the public database of the JavaScript software.
5636
- by Sumanth Reddy
- 02 Feb 2021
- 9 mins read
If you have ever worked with Node or any JavaSc... Read More
Node.Js - Net Module
By Sumanth Reddy
Node.js has a ‘net’ module which provides an asynchronous network API for creating stream-based TCP/IPC servers and clients. It can be accessed using: const net = require('net'); To create a TCP/IPC based server, we use the createServer method. var server = net.createServer(); The ‘server' object is of type net.Server. Let’s explore a few properties, events and methods on this class. First and foremost, the method needed is ‘listen’ which starts the server for listening to connections in async, firing the ‘listening’ event. server.listen(9000, () => { console.log('opened server on port: ', 9000); }); To find out on which address a server is running, we can use the address() method on the net.Server instance. If we need to log the port on which the server is running, then we can get this info as well without hardcoding. server.listen(9000, () => { console.log('opened server on %j', server.address().port); }); The first parameter of listen is the port in which the server starts listening, and a callback which gets called once it has started listening. A few of the common errors raised are: ERR_SERVER_ALREADY_LISTEN – server is already listening and hasn’t been closed. EADDRINUSE – another server is already listening on the given port/handle/path. Whenever an error happens, an ‘error’ event is raised. We can hook to it and capture the errors accordingly. server.on('error', (e) => { if (e.code === 'EADDRINUSE') { console.log('Address in use, retrying...'); setTimeout(() => { server.close(); server.listen(PORT, HOST); }, 1000); } }); Whenever a client connects to this server then a 'connection' event is raised and in the callback we can get hold of the client object for communicating data. server.on("connection", (socket) => { console.log("new client connection is made"); }); The second parameter is actually a callback which has the reference to the connection object, and the client object is of type ‘net.Socket’. To get the details like address and port, we can rely on remoteAddress, and remotePort properties respectively. server.on("connection", (socket) => { console.log("Client connection details - ", socket.remoteAddress + ":" + socket.remotePort); }); Let’s assume that we are developing an application server like bot which needs to take inputs from clients and respond to the client. We can get hold of the client object and send messages to it from the server. As soon as the client is connected, we can send a sample return message on successful connection. server.on("connection", (socket) => { console.log("Client connection details - ", socket.remoteAddress + ":" + socket.remotePort); socket.write('SERVER: Hello! Connection successfully made.'); }); Now if there is any data being sent by client, we can capture that data on the server by subscribing to ‘data’ event on the client socket object. socket.on('data', (data) => { console.log(data.toString());// since data is streamed in bytes, toString is used. }); Some of the most commonly used events on ‘net.Socket’ are data, error and close. As the names suggest, data is for listening to any data sent, error when there is an error happens and close event is raised when a connection is closed which happens once. Here is an example in server.js file: const net = require('net'); var server = net.createServer(); server.on("connection", (socket) => { console.log("new client connection is made", socket.remoteAddress + ":" + socket.remotePort); socket.on("data", (data) => { console.log(data.toString()); }); socket.once("close", () => { console.log("client connection closed."); }); socket.on("error", (err) => { console.log("client connection got errored out.") }); socket.write('SERVER: Hello! Connection successfully made.'); }); server.on('error', (e) => { if (e.code === 'EADDRINUSE') { console.log('Address in use, retrying...'); setTimeout(() => { server.close(); server.listen(PORT, HOST); }, 1000); } else { console.log("Server failed.") } }); server.listen(9000, () => { console.log('opened server on %j', server.address().port); }); ‘net’ module also has another class type net.BlockList. This helps in controlling or disabling the inbound or outbound traffic based on rules from any specific IP addresses, IP ranges, or IP subnets. Here is an example snippet from the documentation: const blockList = new net.BlockList(); blockList.addAddress('123.123.123.123'); blockList.addRange('10.0.0.1', '10.0.0.10'); blockList.addSubnet('8592:757c:efae:4e45::', 64, 'ipv6'); console.log(blockList.check('123.123.123.123')); // Prints: true console.log(blockList.check('10.0.0.3')); // Prints: true console.log(blockList.check('222.111.111.222')); // Prints: false // IPv6 notation for IPv4 addresses works: console.log(blockList.check('::ffff:7b7b:7b7b', 'ipv6')); // Prints: true console.log(blockList.check('::ffff:123.123.123.123', 'ipv6')); // Prints: true Now that we have the server up and running, we can build a client to connect to the server and start sending bi-directional data. This client could be another node.js application, java/c# application working with TCP sockets, asp.net MVC application talking to node.js TCP server or any other client application. But that client application should have TCP based communication mechanism support. Since we are talking about ‘net’ module, let’s build the client application as well using net module. Moreover, it supports TCP based communication as well. 'net’ module has a factory function called ‘createConnection’ which immediately creates a socket and establishes a connection with the server running on the specified port. Let's create another client.js file and create a connection. const net = require('net'); const client = net.createConnection({ port: 9000 }, () => { console.log('CLIENT: I connected to the server.'); }); The first parameter contains the details of the server. Since we are running the server locally, providing the port number would suffice for us as the host default address is localhost for TCP connections. The second parameter is the callback called once the connection is made successfully with the server. The returned value is of type net.Socket which we have learnt about earlier. Let’s hook to ‘data’ event and console log the information sent by the server. client.on('data', (data) => { console.log(data.toString()); client.end(); }); Here we are not persisting the TCP connection and ending it once we receive a message from the server. We can subscribe to close event and handle any clean up needed. client.on('end', () => { console.log('CLIENT: I disconnected from the server.'); }) The output on the client terminal has to be: CLIENT: I connected to the server. SERVER: Hello! This is server speaking. CLIENT: I disconnected from the server. Output on server terminal will be: new client connection is made ::ffff:127.0.0.1:51680 CLIENT: Hello this is client! client connection closed. In case we want to continue the client instance till the server is alive, we can comment out the ‘client.end()’ call. Any message in the terminal can be processed and sent to the server. For reading the text from terminal we use the readline module. Here is a complete example: const net = require('net'); const readline = require('readline'); const rl = readline.createInterface({ input: process.stdin, output: process.stdout }); const client = net.createConnection({ port: 9000 }, () => { console.log('CLIENT: I connected to the server.'); client.write('CLIENT: Hello this is client!'); }); client.on('data', (data) => { console.log(data.toString()); //client.end(); }); client.on('end', () => { console.log('CLIENT: I disconnected from the server.'); }) rl.on('line', (input) => { client.write(`CLIENT: ${input}`); }); Both client and server now can communicate. When we type any text in client terminal, that is communicated to the server, and the server can respond back to the client via terminal. ConclusionWebsockets help in creating a full-duplex connection for sending messages from client to server and vice-versa. Some of the real-time use cases that you may be familiar with are chat apps, IoT devices and so on. The Node.js net module helps you to create a server application easily, which can communicate to any type of client application like a web browser, mobile app, IoT device, Node.js client, or anything that knows TCP where the messaging need is bi-directional with streams. ‘net’ module can be used to communicate among child processes within a node.js server as well.
5630
- by Sumanth Reddy
- 01 Feb 2021
- 4 mins read
Node.js has a ‘net’ module which provide... Read More
Join the Discussion
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *