Splitting React App to 2 Independent Parts - reactjs

The app I'm developing (Node.js + Express + React + Alt) is addressed to 2 types of crowds - Teachers, for which it is a large app with multiple routes, and students, for which it is a very small app with a single route.
I want to separate these 2 parts completely, so the code of teachers part won't be loaded when students route is rendered.
I have two reasons in mind:
Better loading times for students' app - There's no point in downloading and running that big chunk of JavaScript when I know it won't be needed.
Security Aspect - Although there's no data exposure, I'd still rather hide the code the teachers use from the students.
Is there an easy way to do this?
Can I use one React app (And one React-Router)?
Thanks for any help!

The best way to implement this is using the Webpack feature Code Spliting. This allow you automatically split your code in chunks and only load the require code when is needed.
You can see the React Router example: huge-apps
The magic happen in the internal components (require('./routes/*')), here they use the callback method to get the components and look something like this:
export default {
path: 'nameOfComponent',
getComponent(location, cb) {
require.ensure([], (require) => {
cb(null, require('./components/nameOfComponent'))
})
}
}
Require.ensure is detected by Webpack and generate a new chunk with all the code and his internal dependencies.
When the application is executed in the browser the first load only get the main chunk with the routes definition, and each router components is loaded on demand (when you change of route).
For me, this is the most clean way to do it. Because you delegate the responsibility to the build system. In Webpack 2, you could use System.import instead of require.ensure, and is a more ES6 standard.

Related

How to render a React app in a React app (nested React apps)

So the question is if it is possible to split a React app into two different separate apps hosted on two different hosts, where the app A is a kind of a frame which controls the app B and C in the future. I have a problem, where I would like to make a common fundament for both apps (the A app) and then load two other as a content of it. It would be as if I had lazy loading with a bundle fetched from a different place. I was thinking about three main possibilities:
Iframe
Single SPA project from github
using ReactDOM.render method
I am not sure if it is possible at all, beacuse there still may be a problem with React Router - does the inside app have access to manipulate the browser routing?
It is quite possible to split your react Application into multiple smaller react applications.
Suppose you have a react application such as an e-commerce platform . You can choose to write the cart Page using a separate react-App and the products page using another separate react app and integrate them together using Module Federation Plugin webpack/lib/container/ModuleFederationPlugin.
A good reason to do something like that would be to develop different parts of your application in isolation ..and they can be taken care by different teams altogether.
There is a udemy course that teaches you exactly that. Very much recommended. You can make react dependency as singleton to avoid several installs of react.
All 3 of these options you've stated are valid and can be used to share components but there are few disadvantages to each one, for example- iFrames makes it hard to create responsiveness, ReactDOM splits your app so that the different parts won't have the same global scope...
Module-Federation is the best and most efficient way to share remote components that i know of, here is a github link to a basic project.
The MF plugin makes use of webpack's abilities, which means that the shared components are being consumed as runtime objects of the app's scope, rather then as a promise of an iframe.
NOTE: Debugging and updating a Module Federation project is a much deeper task then debugging a create-react-app application, you'll need to share dependencies correctly and remember to update desired changes at all the right places all the time.
This is not possible. Each react app can only have a single package.json in the hierarchy. if you nest it, the app will fail and say you have several installs of react. what you should do is think more react minded and objecty. You can have a folder for common components to share inside src/. You can also have src/A which is one "app". src/B which is another.
What you described in your question is exactly what you should do, just dont think of it as a react app separation, rather a seperation of component and app inside the src folder. App A can be comprised of components from /components as well as App B.

Microfrontends React/Component based splitting

Background:
I am confronted with the task to modernize a tool and convert it to microservices with a react frontend. My idea was to have a general top-level component containing e.g. the Nav and a component for each microservice that contains the functionality.
Approaches:
bundle the components locally so that it becomes effectively a monolithic frontend and the the forntend code is seperated just in the repo.
I think that would give up on the advantage of not having to redeploy your entire app for every change
lazy-load a minified bundle of each of the components from the microservice by defining them in a config file
With this approach I could just webpack each component on their own and async import it from the Main Page but maybe there would be a huge overhead
I read about component based splitting with react-loadable and bundling react-router or webpack, but I can't find information on how to load small bundles form different URL-Endpoints.
Question:
Is it possible to bundle react components on their own and import them from different Resource-URL's and how would one approach that ?(Or is React even suitable for that)
So after quite some search and experiments I found the Project Mosaic of Zalando, which is what I wanted. It offers a great way of React Component Splitting to support Micro Frontends. Note however that it is probably not suitable for smaller projects as it takes some time to get into the material and setting up all necessary applications.
Take a look at the below link:
https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/micro-frontends.html
I've recently made a project based on that article and I think that it might be what You are looking for.
I made the wrapper app which is rendering the microfrontends dynamically on the runtime based on the URL and routings. In the article above, there is a demo app showing the idea.
Every microfrontend is the separate project with it's own code repo.
https://demo.microfrontends.com/
Each app is hosted and js chunks are getting loaded on the runtime. This code might make it a little bit more clear what's going on there.
componentDidMount() {
const { name, host } = this.props;
const scriptId =micro-frontend-script-${name}`;
if (document.getElementById(scriptId)) {
this.renderMicroFrontend();
return;
}
fetch(`${host}/asset-manifest.json`)
.then(res => res.json())
.then(manifest => {
const script = document.createElement('script');
script.id = scriptId;
script.src = `${host}${manifest['main.js']}`;
script.onload = this.renderMicroFrontend;
document.head.appendChild(script);
});
}`
I hope You'll find that helpful :)
Good luck!

File size concern of Single Page Application with React + Webpack

I am developing a Single Page Application with React + Redux + Webpack. Webpack is great tool to package all stuffs but i couldn't figure out some pt
my application simply construct a parent page and once user select the function from top menu, particular function will launch as a new tab within the tab container and the tabs itself require interaction. let say when tab A complete something, tab B has to refresh part of the information.
My drafted idea is that each function is BIG component of React and the parent component controls which function (component) should be append to the tab container. But i imagine the problems may comes if i use Webpack to bundle the whole application into 1 .js file, the .js file size would be very HUGE even if i split the vendor source bundle into external resources
i believe it is common problem for Single Page Application by using Webpack and there should have better way to solve this.
Please kindly correct me if anything i misuse React + Webpack
When webpack compiles/bundles your code in production mode it will be much smaller than the bundle sizes you're currently seeing. Also if you're concerned, check out Preact (https://preactjs.com/) which is API-compatible with React but much smaller
Webpack supports dynamic imports which can be used to load code on demand, e.g. when a top-level tab is opened. That way your initial js bundle stays small and the application can start very quickly.
https://webpack.js.org/guides/code-splitting/#dynamic-imports

Is it possible to code split (webpack) with static single page app? (React/React-router)

I am aware of server side isomorphic rendering, but I currently have a site hosted on github pages so server-side isn't possible (or is it?).
I've been doing some research and found various comments saying that it is possible, but I'm looking for confirmation, and perhaps a more detailed explanation of how code-splitting is possible with a static single page app. My bundle.js file is currently 500+kb, and I'd like to see how I can reduce load-time, especially as I continue adding features.
If I recall with react-router you can define a parameter in your Route component getComponent(), and use System.import to load your dependencies e.g.
{
path: '/',
getComponent(location, cb) {
System.import('path/Component').then(loadRoute(cb)).catch(errorLoading);
}

How do I load angular modules, that are common and dynamic between pages?

I have a site that is developed by multiple developers that has multiple pages. Each "page" initializes angular by calling angular.module(etc).
My question is, all pages share some modules, and some pages use specific modules. What is the best practice to achieve this? Do I trust that developers will insert the correct modules that will be needed across the site (i.e. Google Analytics) or do I create one call that is shared my all pages that loads ALL the modules. And is there a way to do both? Such as, initilize the modules that are needed across all the pages and then, load specific modules dynamically on their respective pages.
I would make one global module that is loaded by each individual app, much like modules like 'ngAnimate' are loaded... the global module could then initialize functionality common to all pages, such as Google analytics.
This requires some policing on all developers involved, but this is a good practice via code reviews, etc.
example page:
angular.module('individualPage', [
'globalModule',
'customPageModule'
]).config(
// etc
);
global module:
angular.module('globalModule', [
'googleAnalytics'
]).config(
// etc
);
I have a site that is developed by multiple developers that has multiple pages. Each "page" initializes angular by calling angular.module(etc).
My question is:
All pages share some modules, and some pages use specific modules. What is the best practice to achieve this?
I do not know the best practice when dealing with multiple pages.
IMHO, creating multiple pages is a BAD practice nowadays. I think of
web applications(SPAs) that have different views and states not web
sites with disjointed pages. So if you choose to go the
SPA(single page application) way, you can load all you core/common
modules before the application bootstraps. Views/pages that need
specific modules can lazy load them using something like
oclazyload.
Do I trust that developers will insert the correct modules that will be needed across the site (i.e. Google Analytics) or do I create one call that is shared my all pages that loads ALL the modules.
I can't say much about the question of trust as I do not know your
developers well enough. In general, developers are never to be
trusted, they will do anything that seems to work, high five
themselves and call it a day. The idea is to "Trust but verify", you
don't have to wire tap their phones or read their emails but never
ever take your eyes off the main git or svn repository. Anywhere, If
you were to use oclazyload as I suggested above for a SPA, you would
only need to worry about dynamically loading 'view/page' specific
modules which the developers can configure themselves.
And is there a way to do both? Such as, initilize the modules that are needed across all the pages and then, load specific modules dynamically on their respective pages.
Yes, yes, there is ... SPA approach that I have already outlined
above. I would also recommend using angular-ui-router for the
states and views approach. The idea is to design your application
whilst thinking of it as a desktop or mobile thick client that has
state transitions and so forth.
I have a site that is developed by multiple developers that has multiple pages.
Each "page" initialises angular by calling angular.module(etc).
My question is, all pages share some modules, and some pages use specific modules.
What is the best practice to achieve this?
Do I trust that developers will insert the correct modules that will be needed across the site (i.e. Google Analytics)
or do I create one call that is shared my all pages that loads ALL the modules.
And is there a way to do both?
Such as, initialise the modules that are needed across all the pages and then, load specific modules dynamically on their respective pages.
I would start off by defining what a page is.
Are you talking about a SPA or a more traditional setup a la client transitions between pages with a regular <a href="/page"> and
the server serves the client a piece of HTML?
If the latter is true, then I would urge you to reconsider your underlying approach to your Angular application.
The best (or rather, preferred) way of doing things would be to serve the client a single piece of HTML, and then
transition between pages (from now on I will refer to them as states), by using either ngRoute, angular router (2), or
better yet - ui-router.
For the remainder of my answer I am going to assume that you are in fact working with a SPA.
What is the best practice to achieve this?
As it stands, I would go out on a limb and say that there is no best practice defined for the case you present.
There are a ton of ways to do it, none of which have been officially recommended by the core development team / community standard as far as I'm concerned.
You could go with webpack-angularjs-lazyload, requirejs (angular-requirejs-seed), requirejs (angularAMD), SystemJS among others. Pick your poison of preference!
Do I trust that developers will insert the correct modules that will be needed across the site (i.e. Google Analytics)
or do I create one call that is shared my all pages that loads ALL the modules.
If code contained in an angular.module is required across the site, I would attach it to the main application module.
Such as:
/** Define core functionality that _is_ essential to the application running as expected **/
angular.module('core-module', [ 'route-definitions', 'http-interceptors', 'google-analytics' ]);
/** Inject the core functionality into a bundle module **/
angular.module('main-bundle-module', [ 'core-module' ]);
/** Bootstrap the bundle module as your application **/
angular.bootstrap(/* DOM element */, ['main-bundle-module']);
Now, whenever someone creates a new module for a specific state, they will need to inject said module into the main-bundle-module (barring lazy loaded modules).
As such, the core functionality will always be supplied and available, in your case Google Analytics. In a sense, you just tore down
the trust barrier.
Taking a step back, lets for a moment assume that you are not working with a SPA - and you are in fact re-initialising the
angular application on each page transition (bad move). How would you ensure that the required functionality is always present?
Decorating the angular.module method.
Note: This is not officially supported, be wary of what you are doing. Also it defeats the purpose of modularisation in my opinion, but I'll
showcase the way(s) of doing it.
You could go two ways here I reckon:
Kill the execution of JS if the required module is not a part of the developers module definition.
"Bad cop."
This would catch the 'untrusted developer' in his/her tracks during development, so as to ensure they are following the project standard.
Assist the 'untrusted developer' by automating the task of requiring the module.
"Good cop." (well, sort of...)
This would ensure that the required module is always present, albeit in every module.
"Good Cop"
(function(angular) {
// The always required module(s).
var ALWAYS_REQUIRED = ['cs.core'];
// Keep a reference to the original angular.module function.
var originalFn = angular.module;
// Keep track of registered modules.
var registered = {};
angular.module = function (name, dependencies, configFunction) {
var loaded;
// Ensure that we are always working with an array of dependencies.
dependencies = dependencies || [];
// If the module has not already been registered
if (!registered[name]) {
// Ensure that the required modules are available.
ALWAYS_REQUIRED.forEach(function (required) {
if (dependencies.indexOf(required) === -1) {
dependencies.push(required);
}
});
// Register the module and store it in the registered object for future reference.
loaded = registered[name] = original(name, dependencies, configFunction);
} else {
// Do not re-register the module, simply load it as per 'angular.module('name_of_module')';
loaded = original(name);
}
// Return the loaded module.
return loaded;
};
})(angular);
"Bad Cop"
(function(angular) {
var ALWAYS_REQUIRED = ['cs.core'];
var originalFn = angular.module;
angular.module = function (name, dependencies, configFunction) {
ALWAYS_REQUIRED.forEach(function (required) {
if (dependencies.indexOf(required) === -1) {
throw new Error('You need to add ' + required + ' to ' + name + '\'s module dependencies!');
}
});
return originalFn(name, dependencies, configFunction);
};
})(angular);
That's two ways of killing the trust issue, but in doing so we've introduced code that;
Is not very pretty.
Is definitely not very well tested / battle proven.
Kills modularisation to boot.
And is there a way to do both?
Such as, initialise the modules that are needed across all the pages and then, load specific modules dynamically on their respective pages.
I would say the best way to do so is to:
Take the steps necessary to convert to a SPA.
Write some documentation for all your developers so as to bring them up to speed on the requirements of the project.
Create a standalone module containing the required core functionality and attach it to your ng-app/angular.bootstrap module.
Get ui-router, ui-router-extras and ocLazyLoad to allow for lazy loaded module/state/component definitions.
Have a look at some of the following links for inspiration/ideas on what fits your specific project:
ocLazyLoad-SystemJS-Router by #lookfirst
ng-jspm-seed#futureStateConfig by #kasperlewau
ocLazyLoad#with-your-router
ocLazyLoad+requirejs plunker
webpack vs browserify #stackoverflow
angular + webpack slides
tl;dr
Convert to a SPA.
Bootstrap the application with core functionality supplied.
Write some documentation for untrusted developers.
Better yet, build trust. :)
Lazy load state-specific modules when needed.
You can try browserify to load and build your javascript in single file.
With this you can easy minify the javascript code, and also you can load nodejs modules like events and more, but this is not your question about.

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