In April 2016, we published a NodeJS tutorial that explained how to use the NodeJS framework and Node.js server to build a web server using the latest version of the popular Node.JS library.
Today, we’re sharing the same process with webpack.js developers to create a web application that runs on the Node.
The result is a highly interactive, customizable web application for any Node.
JS web framework.
We’ve taken this approach before, but it’s a bit different with this tutorial.
Let’s dive into the process of creating a simple application with Node.
We’ll also look at how you can customize your application to support other web frameworks.
If you’ve used Node.
JavaScript before, you may have seen the Node Package Manager (NPM) and its various Node.
Javascript components.
We covered those in our NodeJS Overview.
If not, we hope this tutorial helps you get started.
1.
Install the Node package manager for webpack 2.
Download the latest stable version of webpack, webpack-dev-server, and install it 3.
Create a webpack project with npm run build 4.
Create an index.html file in the root of your webpack directory 5.
Add the following lines to index.js and save it to your project’s src directory 6.
Now that you have a working Node.
Webpack project, let’s go ahead and create an app.
The following steps assume you have npm installed.
We also recommend that you install the npm package manager first, so that you can use its powerful package management tools.
npm install webpack webpack –save To create an application using Node.
webpack build , we need to first create a package.json file with the following contents: name: myapp project_name: myproject name: dev_scripts module_name : dev_components modules: – node_modules modules: my_app – myapp.js MyApp = require(‘myapp’); It is possible to add multiple files to a package file by specifying multiple files as the second argument to the –package option.
The –package argument is a comma-separated list of files, separated by spaces.
For example, –package dev_assets will create an empty file called dev_css.css in the project root.
If your package.config.js file contains a single file named dev_js.js , you can add the dev_JS file to the root directory by adding the file’s relative path to the package.
The next step is to run the following command to install webpacks dependencies.
npm run install Webpack 2 –save npm run dev_dev_dev This command creates a new package.
You can also run this command from within the command line.
This command also installs webpack dependencies and builds the dependencies into the project’s package.
To test your app, run the command again: npm run test This command launches a web browser and launches your application.
In this example, we’ll launch the application using the Webpack Dev Server.
This web browser will show a static version of our app, which will serve a static copy of the site, and a live version of your application with JavaScript rendered in the browser.
If we navigate to https://localhost:3000/, we’ll see that the server is up and running, so we can access our site.
If the application is not running on the server, the application will not work properly.
This will happen because Webpack uses its server-side dependencies, which are only loaded when the server receives a request for them.
This is an unfortunate consequence of the Web Pack webpack dependency system.
If a web site doesn’t have any JavaScript to serve, the system will ignore requests for the web site’s JavaScript.
To fix this, we can change the WebPack Dev Server’s default port.
We can change it by adding a new section in Webpack’s configuration file.
The section called “Port” specifies the port number on the Web Server that Webpack will listen for requests on.
We have two options for changing this.
First, we could set the default port in the WebKit configuration file to 8000, which is what we have in this example.
We could also change it to 8001 by modifying the port option in WebKit.
For this example project, we have two versions of our application: an “index.html” file that contains a basic web page, and an “app.css” file which contains JavaScript that we want to render in the application’s viewport.
If both versions of the web page are running, the “index,app.html,app” files will render the same HTML page that is on the “static” version of “index.”
If one version is running, it will render a static, “index” version.
This means that if you’re running the “app” version, the app will be loaded as the default app, and it will not be