React Redux minimal starter kit (boilerplate)

Redux-Minimal is a minimalist react-redux starter kit (boilerplate) which let's you build rich real world apps. It's not as light as some starter kits which only let you write a simple hello world app and then you have to struggle with installing all the other stuff yourself. And it's also not as packed as other starter kits which confuse you massively with its folder/file structure and arcane scripts.

Redux-Minimal contains the bare minimum to develop a real world complex app and it also comes with a small users app that will show you how to code certain features. A demo of the app can be seen here: http://redux-minimal-app.catalin-luntraru.com

Getting started

Before you start working with redux-minimal, you first need to setup your environment. Make sure you have the following installed:
- Git
- NodeJs and Npm
- an IDE to write js code in, for example Webstorm

Once your environment is prepared, open a command prompt (terminal) and type in the following:

cd C:\js\node\apps
git clone https://github.com/catalin-luntraru/redux-minimal.git hello-world
cd hello-world
npm install
npm start

Then open your http://localhost:8080/ to see the included small users app. Congratulations! You can now write react redux code.
For more productivity you can install Chrome's React Developer Tools and Redux Dev Tools

Video tutorial

I made a video tutorial series, to help people out getting started with react and redux. It covers the basics, like what is react, redux, etc, and also setting up the environment with redux-minimal and guiding you step by step with creating the demo users app. You will also understand why code was written this way, where refactoring was needed, etc.

Let's learn React and Redux with Javascript's new ES6 syntax, from Beginner to Intermediate to Advanced

Why use this?

Redux-Minimal contains the minimum npm packages you need to have installed in order to build a react redux real-world app containing:

a proper file/folder structure
pages (routes)
forms with validation
real-world API asynchronous requests
unit tests
bootstrap react components
sass
hot loader for ease of development
redux tools
js and css bundle files built for development or production

The code and implementation are minimal, which lets you focus on the real app, not the webpack, babel, gulp etc boilerplate files, which honestly you shouldn't even bother with.

Installed packages

Here are the npm packages that redux-minimal installs:

Feature	Packages	Benefits
React	`react`	A declarative, efficient, and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces
	`react-dom`	Serves as the entry point of the DOM-related rendering paths
	`react-hot-loader`	Tweak React components in real time when developing
Redux	`redux`	A predictable state container for JavaScript apps
	`react-redux`	React bindings for Redux
	`redux-freeze`	Redux middleware that prevents state from being mutated anywhere in the app
Router	`react-router`	Declarative routing for React. Your app has pages now
	`react-router-redux`	Simple bindings to keep react-router and redux in sync
Bootstrap	`react-bootstrap`	Bootstrap 3 components built with React
	`react-router-bootstrap`	Integration between React Router and React-Bootstrap
Forms	`redux-form`	A Higher Order Component using react-redux to keep form state in a Redux store
Asynchronous	`redux-saga`	Asynchronous API calls made easy with Saga
Unit tests	`mocha`	Simple javascript test framework
	`enzyme`	JavaScript Testing utilities for React components
	`react-addons-test-utils`	Required by enzyme. Makes it easy to test React components
	`ignore-styles`	Ignore imported style files when running in Node
Sass	`node-sass`	Mature, stable, and powerful CSS extension language
Webpack	`webpack`	A bundler for javascript, css and others
	`webpack-dev-server`	Serves the app at http://localhost:8080/
	`extract-text-webpack-plugin`	Webpack plugin that builds the css bundle file
	`style-loader`	Webpack module that loads styles
	`css-loader`	Webpack module that loads css styles
	`sass-loader`	Webpack module that loads sass styles
	`clean-webpack-plugin`	Webpack module to remove previous build files
Babel	`babel-core`	Compiler that helps node.js and the browser to understand the new js syntax
	`babel-runtime`	Helps node.js to understand the new js syntax
	`babel-preset-es2015`	Helps node.js to use ES2015 Javascript syntax
	`babel-preset-react`	Helps node.js to use React's JSX syntax
	`babel-preset-stage-3`	Helps node.js to use the spread operator
	`babel-loader`	Helps webpack to compile the new javascript syntax
	`babel-polyfill`	Helps the browser to understand the new js syntax
	`whatwg-fetch`	Helps the browser to use fetch

Express branch

You can use the express branch if you want to use express instead of webpack-dev-server. There's an issue with webstorm on windows when using & in the run/debug scripts window. To fix it you would have to run the start script and also run node server.js in the terminal.

Change host and/or port

If you don't want to use localhost on port 8080, you can change it in package.json and webpack.config.js.

Sample app

Redux-Minimal also contains a small sample app that let's you manage some users with the following features:

a list of users with pagination
add a new user
edit an existing user
delete a user

The sample app provides you with basically most of the things you will need when building a new real-world app.

The demo for the app can be found here: http://redux-minimal-app.catalin-luntraru.com

Build your own app

Open webpack.config.js and change the app_root value from src_users to src
Run npm start
Congratulations! You now have a blank Hello world starting app

Scripts

Besides the start script, there are also other scripts

`npm run <script>`	What it does
`start`	Starts the app at http://localhost:8080/. The bundle js/css files are stored in memory
`test`	Starts the unit testing using all the files found in the `test` folder
`test-watch`	Starts the unit testing and watches for changes to re-run the tests
`build-dev`	Builds the js/css bundle files in the `public` folder. Adds debugging code for development
`build-prod`	Builds the js/css bundle minified files in the `public` folder

mglrahul/redux-minimal