How to Host a React App with 3D .gltf files? - reactjs

I want to ask on how can I host my react app. It is a 3d product configurator.
I tried to host it on AWS Amplify but the 3d models doesnt load

If you want to host an application on aws amplify you have to create a build version of your app (assuming that it works already without any start issues meaning that you have a functional react app created with the command npx create-react-app).
Usually your react app runs on local host and it's basically like a test/development version of your app. When you take it into aws it really wants a build version of your app. The build command will generate everything you need for this. Navigate to your react application folder and
Run the command
npm run build
This will create a folder that you can send to aws amplify.
When you go to the aws amplify site it'll ask you if you would like to build a website or host a website.
Select host and then it'll ask if you would like to push it from a repository like github. For now lets just skip it and keep the deployment as simple as possible. Deploy without git for now.
Next, we want to click on drag and drop so that you can manually select the file build folder that your npm run build command generated.
Look for the build folder that was generated and drag that folder into the aws area. You don't actually have to click the 'choose files button'. Sometimes the box glitches and won't let you drag anything outside of the box. So what you can do is just open up your directories and manually find that build file in your folders. Drag it from there to the aws zone at the bottom of the screen.
Give your AWS app a name and env name.
From there you can deploy. Once you deploy it'll give you a site address. Also before you make your build, be sure that all of the packages you need are installed. I had an issue where my axiom commands were not working because I had not installed it prior to pushing my build.
So if your project depends on a certain npm package to run your .gltf files make sure that it is installed on your application. You should see it inside the node modules folder (in your apps local directory not the aws one).
I think AWS uses the node modules folder to generate everything your project needs (But I am not 100% sure of this). But it didn't work prior to me installing the package and pushing the build folder again to aws via drag and drop.
There are better ways to do this but this is what worked for me! Hope this helps to at least get your site up and running. Also hope it helps with any package issues that might have been happening with your 3d models. This is about as far as I can take you. Good luck!

Related

Having trouble correctly building/deploying create-react-app using NPM

I've recently tried getting into the whole Node ecosystem and am trying to set up some continuous deployment for my app to AWS Amplify.
For background, my project structure looks like this:
project
public
index.html
src
App.tsx/App.js
package.json
As far as I know, this is basically what create-react-app gave me to start with, and I didn't change the file structure.
For most of my time working on the app, I've been able to go to the base project directory and use
npm start
to launch the app. This will bring me to the App.tsx/js homepage.
However, when I hosted this to AWS Amplify via GitHub, the default build settings actually point to the public directory, so the published site is actually point to index.html (which is basically just an empty placeholder).
While debugging, I ran
npm build
in my root project directory, which constructed a build folder, so now the overall project looks like this:
project
build
index.html
public
index.html
src
App.tsx/App.js
package.json
Now, running
npm start
will bring me to the index.html from the build directory, instead of App.js/tsx as it used to.
The AWS setup says that it will run
npm build
so I assume that what I've done on my local machine is mirroring what the AWS server is doing behind the scenes and explains why AWS is serving the empty index.html.
I've read a few articles and watched some videos about hosting a create-react-app on AWS, and in every version, it looks like AWS will serve the App.tsx/App.js right out of the box, rather than build/index.html, and I've not been able to find a good guide on how to configure this behavior. Quite frankly, there is an overwhelming number of similar-but-slightly-different answers for questions like this, which use different combinations of package managers, packages, hosting services, all on different release versions, with different setups, and it's very difficult for me to tell which ones apply to my scenario.
So I'm hoping someone can help straighten some of this out for me, or point me towards a good resource for learning more about this type of thing. Particularly interested in learning the right way to do these things, rather than a quick hack around whatever my particular issue is.
Some specific questions...
Is deploying things from a /build folder standard convention?
Why does create-react-app create a separate /src/app.tsx and /public/index.html that seem to be competing with one another as the app's "homepage"?
Why does the behavior of
npm start
change depending on whether
npm build
has been run?
Is the correct fix here to just insert my App.tsx component into the index.html? This doesn't seem hard, but doesn't seem right either
I have seen a lot of answers discussing tweaks to webpack.config.js to solve issues like this one. My project does have webpack installed, but as best I can tell, there is no webpack.config.js anywhere. Am I expected to create this file, or should it exist already? In either case, in which directory is it supposed to live? I've seen a couple answers saying it should be in /node_modules/webpack/, but also some saying it needs to live in the same directory as package.json
Things I've tried already: Spent a bunch of time reading through other StackOverflows and watching a few videos, but as outlined above, I'm finding it difficult to tell which could apply to my situation and which are unrelated, given the huge number of unique combinations of build/packages/platforms/versions. Also spent some time monkeying around with file structure/moving code around, but not very productively.
Eventually found my issue. In the production built version of my app (aka, /build), the bundled script created by webpack was failing in the browser because exports was undefined, so index.html was being served in its vanilla state, rather than with the TSX/JSX content. I changed the "module" property in tsconfig.json from commonjs to es6 and this fixed most of the problems.
Also of note is that the reason I couldn't find my webpack.config.js is that I had hidden ALL js files in my project, so VSCode wasn't finding it. I swapped to the suggestion from this blogpost to hide only js files with a matching TS file.
For general learning about how create-react-app works, I eventually found this page, which I found helpful:
https://blog.logrocket.com/getting-started-with-create-react-app-d93147444a27/
For the basic create-react-app
npm start
Is a short command for react-scripts start that sets up the development environment and starts your development server usually localhost:3000
npm build
After you are done developing, this command short for react-scripts build correctly bundles your app for production and optimizes the build for the best performance.
The files generated in the build folder are solely the files you serve to the public folder accessible by the public URL.
In short the files in the build folder should be copied to the public folder
AWS Amplify
Provides a CI/CD process where you don't have to set all this up by yourself, as long as you have a well-configured package.json file.
There are so many methods to deploy your react app to a production server but using AWS Amplify this link might help you out: https://youtu.be/kKwyKQ8Jxd8
More on create-react-app deployment: https://create-react-app.dev/docs/deployment/

Embedding react application's build into Drupal

Primarily, I'm trying to integrate a react application (Created and build separately) with Drupal.
Problem
Unable to install private package from Bitbucket using npm install git#bitbucket.org:user/shared-package.git in Drupal app, because no package.json found.
Implementation Details
Development Environment
To achieve this in development environment I run npm run build which produces the following content in dist directory.
Not going in the details of what are the roles of other files but to make the things work, I just need to copy bundle.js file and paste it inside a directory under app/web/themes/custom/abc_themes/js/.
This is okay for development environment to copy a folder from one project and paste it into another. However, for production environment it' not viable.
Production Environment
In production we thought to create a private package on Bitbucket, where through Bitbucket pipelines on every commit we trigger a build and push that build 's result into a separate repo (i.e. private package).
Here is the content that is pushed to the so-called private package. Since it's the entire react application (not a library) therefore when it builds it creates compiled js and doesn't contain packgae.json.
Now if I try to install this package throught npm install
code ENOLOCAL
npm ERR! Could not install from "bitbucket.org:user/shared-package.git" as it does not contain a package.json file.
That is obvious but to solve this I can't convert my project into a library. Because even if I convert it to a library, Drupal needs a build js file at the specified directory to work.
Expectation
Want to know if there is a way I could install that private package (that doesn't have package.json) into Drupal application.
OR any other way around to achieve the same.
NOTE: I know one solution could be to host the build file at some CDN and pull it from there. But problem is, the Drupal app might be running behind a corporate network and users won't be able to access the internet openly. Therefore, we want to make the react app a part of build process, so once Drupal is served, react application would be a part of it already. No loading at runtime.

Moving react app created with create react app to another computer

I used Create React App to create a React application on one computer. No problem. But how do I move the code to another computer (i.e. the entire folder structure) if I want to continue developing on another computer. I have node installed and I have installed Create React App on the second computer (with the -g tag, etc. But just moving the react application folders over to the second computer doesn't seem to work. That is, npm start fails. Any ideas? It must be that I have to do something to the app on the second computer with Create React App. What is it that I have to do? I want to preserve and use my code on this second computer and continue developing (moving from Windows to Mac). Thanks.
there are some ways to copy your project to another computer
use git: you can use git hub to push your react project into a repository then you can clone that repository on another computer. note: use npm install after cloning the repository on another computer as it doesn't include node modules
share a compressed file: you can compress your react app folder and transfer it to another computer extract it to use it
Use git.
you can use git to upload project, then unload project on a second computer, create a branch and continue working.
After unloading, you need to run the npm install command.
Git is your easiest solution. Upload to git hub from the current laptop. Then on the new laptop, download the file (zip) and run npm install. Once everything works locally you can publish to a new branch on github in the initial repository.

How to show my React app to the others from GitLab?

Hi everybody im actually working for a company and they are asking me to show them my React Website while im working on it. They have a website that is connected to our GitLab Project and if i type http.websitename/folderOnGitLab it actually comes out whats inside the folder but with react it shows the code , not the website , because the only way i know how to open react app is by "npm run start" from local, i dont really know how to "append my app in that website from GitLab" . I have already pushed all my React App but i dont really know how to make that visible to everyone as a website not only as a code. The website is a website they host so is always online and is connected to the project as i said. So i kinda have all the material but dont know how to make that work. For example i have pushed Test.txt and if i type website/Test.txt it shows the inside of it , so the website works.
It depends on how your app was set up, but probably you need to run npm run build, which will package up your app to be used on a production website.
This will be in the /build folder, the contents of which can be hosted online.
I'm not sure how you've managed to get that folder working on that website, it definitely isn't best practice to have all the code hosted online like that, but for a temporary solution you can just go to http.websitename/folderOnGitLab/build and it will probably work.
In the future you want to copy just the contents of the /build folder to be visible on http.websitename/folderOnGitLab.
Edit: The /build folder will be excluded from git, don't put that on GitLab, just the other source files, as you can re-generate it any time by running np run build
You can try using heroku. Once you push to heroku, it deploys your code and provides a url which you can share. It's free.
https://blog.heroku.com/deploying-react-with-zero-configuration
Are you using gitlab pipelines?
If yes, you can configure ngrok in one of your jobs.
If someone wants to see your work, this person just need to play the job that have the ngrok tool and it will receive a custom link with the application.
To stop the app, you just need to click in the cancel button

How to build react.js apps at visual studio code?

I have created two apps using 'Visual Studio Code' and 'node.js.' I run them using command 'npm start,' and they show in the browser. I want to build them or deploy them so they can be used by anyone. It says there to use command 'npm run build.' How to do that, and what technique you use in order to build them?
It depends on what configuration you used for building the React app. If you used create-react-app, npm run build is the correct command for building it.
If you used a different configuration (e.g. webpack), you should use the relevant command for that configuration.
Either way, deploying it will be as easy as copy/pasting the build folder's content to the server you want to host it, after running the build command.
Visual Studio Code or any other Code Editor for that matter is not relevant. You can develop, build and deploy any React app using any Code Editor you want, it's just a matter of preference.
"Building" refers to the task of preparing (transforming, minifying, compressing, etc.) all the relevant project files so that they're ready for production (assuming that your build scripts are configured to do so).
"Deploying" an app is usually a separate task that will deploy (upload) your current project build to a development platform provider like Firebase, Netlify, Azure, etc. Note that you have to register with a provider and setup a new project on their end before your deploy your project.
Which provider you use is totally up to you. Also, you have to configure your current project once you've chosen your development provider. They'll provide instructions on how to deploy your project.
On a side note, keep in mind that you can configure your own npm scripts so that they run whatever you want. More about that here

Resources