Minimal Electron, React and Webpack boilerplate

Minimal Electron, React, PostCSS and Webpack boilerplate to help you get started with building your next app.

Table of contents

• Install
• Usage
• Add Sass
• Add TailwindcSS
• Change app title
• Contact and Support
• Code of Conduct
• License

Install

Clone this repo

git clone https://github.com/alexdevero/electron-react-webpack-boilerplate.git

Install dependencies

npm install

or

yarn

Usage

Run the app

npm run start

or

yarn start

Build the app (automatic)

npm run package

or

yarn package

Build the app (manual)

npm run build

or

yarn build

Test the app (after npm run build || yarn run build)

npm run prod

yarn prod

Add Sass

Adding Sass to boilerplate requires updating webpack configs and adding necessary loaders.

1. To webpack.build.config.js and webpack.dev.config.js add new object to rules:

{
  test: /\.scss$/,
  use: [
    { loader: 'style-loader' },
    { loader: 'css-loader' },
    { loader: 'sass-loader' }],
  include: defaultInclude
}

2. Install additional loaders for sass, sass-loader and node-sass.

3. Rename all CSS file to .scss.

Add TailwindCSS

If you don't want to do all these steps, you can clone This Repository and you are good to go.

Adding TainwindCSS to boilerplate requires adding all the dependencies listed on the tailwindcss website for create react app Official Guide. OR follow these steps

1. install tailwindcss, postcss and autoprefixer.

npm install -D tailwindcss@npm:@tailwindcss/postcss7-compat postcss@^7 autoprefixer@^9

2. Install craco.

npm install @craco/craco

3. Open package.json file, find start and build scripts under scripts.

4. Add && craco start at the end in start and build scripts. You also have to add build-css script to build the CSS styles using tailwindCSS. "build-css": "npx tailwindcss build -o src/styles/main.css",. You can choose output folder of your own choice. Here are the three scripts after changing/adding.

"start": "cross-env NODE_ENV=development webpack serve --hot --host 0.0.0.0 --config=./webpack.dev.config.js --mode development && craco start",
    "build": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production webpack --config webpack.build.config.js --mode production && craco build",
"build-css": "npx tailwindcss build  -o src/styles/main.css",

5. Now, create craco.config.js file in your project at root of your project and add the following.

module.exports = {
  style: {
    postcss: {
      plugins: [
        require('tailwindcss'),
        require('autoprefixer'),
      ],
    },
  },
}

6. Next, generate your tailwind.config.js file:

npx tailwindcss-cli@latest init

This will create a minimal tailwind.config.js file at the root of your project.

7. (Optional) Configure Tailwind to remove unused styles in production In your tailwind.config.js file, configure the purge option with the paths to all of your components so Tailwind can tree-shake unused styles in production builds:

  // tailwind.config.js
  module.exports = {
   purge: [],
   purge: ['./src/**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx}', './public/index.html'],
    darkMode: false, // or 'media' or 'class'
    theme: {
      extend: {},
    },
    variants: {
      extend: {},
    },
    plugins: [],
  }

8. Add main.css file in app.js. Make sure you choose correct path for CSS file.

import '../styles/main.css' 

9. You may have to run npm install tailwindcss@latest postcss@latest autoprefixer@latest if you face different version issues.
10. You can also check JIT Mode In TailwindCSS if you want to use Just In Time Mode.

Change app title

This boilerplate uses HTML Webpack Plugin to generate the HTML file of the app. Changing app title is possible only through webpack configs, webpack.build.config.js and webpack.dev.config.js. App title can be changed by adding objects of options.

In webpack.build.config.js:

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin({title: 'New app title '}),// Add this (line 41)
  new MiniCssExtractPlugin({
    // Options similar to the same options in webpackOptions.output
    // both options are optional
    filename: 'bundle.css',
    chunkFilename: '[id].css'
  }),
  new webpack.DefinePlugin({
    'process.env.NODE_ENV': JSON.stringify('production')
  }),
  new BabiliPlugin()
],

In webpack.dev.config.js:

plugins: [
  new HtmlWebpackPlugin({title: 'New app title '}),// Add this (line 36)
  new webpack.DefinePlugin({
    'process.env.NODE_ENV': JSON.stringify('development')
  })
],

Contact and Support

I want your feedback! Here's a list of different ways to me and request help:

• Report bugs and submit feature requests to GitHub issues.

• And do not forget to follow @alexdevero on Twitter!

If you feel generous and want to show some extra appreciation:

Code of Conduct

Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.

License

MIT © Alex Devero.