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a first look at redwoodJS part 1 - setup, pages

#redwoodjs #react #jamstack #javascript

I like to think that most things can be achieved. Whatever you have in your head you can probably pull off with code as long as it's possible within the constraints of the universe.

It's just a matter of time... and money... and attention.

Tom Preston-Werner - Full Stack Radio

Note: Redwood has not yet reached v1.0 and this material is subject to change. All code samples and commands will be for the current version (v0.37.2)

Part 1 - Setup, Pages

RedwoodJS is a fullstack, serverless framework for the Jamstack. I will start at the very beginning and assume no prior knowledge of Redwood although I do assume a basic knowledge of React. But I'm talking really basic, you'll be fine if you:

  • Know what a component is
  • Have written at least a dozen lines of JSX
  • Have generated at least one project with create-react-app

If none of that made sense you should click the link to the create-react-app docs and work through those before reading this. This series is geared towards someone who has at least a few months experience, around the point where they start getting comfortable with the workflows of git, npm/yarn, and the terminal.

You will need yarn for this tutorial which has slight differences from npm. You can find installation instructions here or just enter npm install -g yarn.

1.1 yarn create redwood-app

The first step is to create our Redwood project. You can call your project anything you want, just make sure to keep using your name anytime I use ajcwebdev-redwood in a terminal command.

yarn create redwood-app ajcwebdev-redwood
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Output:

success Installed "create-redwood-app@0.37.2" with binaries:
      - create-redwood-app
  ✔ Creating Redwood app
    ✔ Checking node and yarn compatibility
    ✔ Creating directory '/Users/ajcwebdev/ajcwebdev-redwood'
  ✔ Installing packages
    ✔ Running 'yarn install'... (This could take a while)
  ✔ Convert TypeScript files to JavaScript
  ✔ Generating types

Thanks for trying out Redwood!
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This creates a folder called ajcwebdev-redwood holding all the generated code. It also provides a handy-dandy guide to a list of community resources.

Join the Community

Get some help

Stay updated

Become a Contributor

Come hang out with us, we're super fun!

yarn rw is the same as yarn redwood and can be used to save a few keystrokes. Before entering the next commands create an empty repository on GitHub. All the code for this series can be found on my GitHub.

Initialize git repo

Enter your new project directory and change the GitHub URL in the last command to the repo you just created in the previous step.

cd ajcwebdev-redwood
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Nailed it"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME_HERE/YOUR_PROJECT_HERE.git
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Push to main 

git push -u origin main
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#pushtomain club; feels like github should give me an achievement for that.

Dominic Saadi after pushing to main

1.2 yarn redwood dev

Start the development server 

yarn rw dev
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✔ Generating the Prisma client...

api | [nodemon] 2.0.12
api | [nodemon] to restart at any time, enter `rs`
api | [nodemon] watching path(s): redwood.toml
api | [nodemon] watching extensions: js,mjs,json
api | [nodemon] starting `yarn rw-api-server-watch`

gen | Generating TypeScript definitions and GraphQL schemas...
gen | 10 files generated

api | Building... Took 625 ms
api | Starting API Server... Took 5 ms
api | Listening on http://localhost:8911/
api | Importing Server Functions... 
api | /graphql 1374 ms
api | ... Imported in 1374 ms

web | assets by path static/js/*.js 2.55 MiB
web |   asset static/js/app.bundle.js 2.5 MiB [emitted] (name: app) 1 related asset
web |   asset static/js/runtime-app.bundle.js 48.8 KiB [emitted] (name: runtime-app) 1 related asset
web |   asset static/js/src_pages_NotFoundPage_NotFoundPage_js.chunk.js 3.37 KiB [emitted] 1 related asset
web | asset README.md 1.9 KiB [emitted] [from: public/README.md] [copied]
web | asset favicon.png 1.83 KiB [emitted] [from: public/favicon.png] [copied]
web | asset index.html 483 bytes [emitted]
web | asset robots.txt 24 bytes [emitted] [from: public/robots.txt] [copied]

web | Entrypoint app 2.55 MiB (2.56 MiB) = static/js/runtime-app.bundle.js 48.8 KiB static/js/app.bundle.js 2.5 MiB 2 auxiliary assets
web | orphan modules 432 KiB [orphan] 115 modules
web | runtime modules 32.7 KiB 17 modules
web | modules by path ../node_modules/ 2.08 MiB 532 modules
web | modules by path ./src/ 10.8 KiB
web |   modules by path ./src/*.js 3.46 KiB
web |     ./src/App.js 1.59 KiB [built] [code generated]
web |     ./src/Routes.js 1.88 KiB [built] [code generated]
web |   modules by path ./src/pages/ 5.18 KiB
web |     ./src/pages/FatalErrorPage/FatalErrorPage.js 2.81 KiB [built] [code generated]
web |     ./src/pages/NotFoundPage/NotFoundPage.js 2.37 KiB [built] [code generated]
web |   modules by path ./src/*.css 2.19 KiB
web |     ./src/index.css 1.89 KiB [built] [code generated]
web |     ../node_modules/css-loader/dist/cjs.js??ruleSet[1].rules[0].oneOf[4].use[1]!./src/index.css 305 bytes [built] [code generated]
web | webpack 5.51.1 compiled successfully in 4921 ms
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Our server is now running on localhost:8910 (to remember just count 8-9-10). Open a browser and enter localhost:8910 into the address bar. If you have done everything correctly up to this point you will see the Redwood starter page.

01-redwood-starter-page

WHOOPS, it worked, we're up and running. Don't worry too much about what it says about custom routes, we'll talk about that in the next article. Here is the file structure that has been created for us.

├── api
│   ├── db
│   │   ├── schema.prisma
│   │   └── seeds.js
│   ├── src
│   │   ├── functions
│   │   │   └── graphql.js
│   │   ├── graphql
│   │   ├── lib
│   │   │   ├── auth.js
│   │   │   ├── db.js
│   │   │   └── logger.js
│   │   └── services
│   └── package.json
│
├── web
│   ├── public
│   │   ├── favicon.png
│   │   ├── README.md
│   │   └── robots.txt
│   ├── src
│   │   ├── components
│   │   ├── layouts
│   │   ├── pages
│   │   │   ├── FatalErrorPage
│   │   │   │   └── FatalErrorPage.js
│   │   │   └── NotFoundPage
│   │   │       └── NotFoundPage.js
│   │   ├── App.js
│   │   ├── index.css
│   │   ├── index.html
│   │   └── Routes.js
│   └── package.json
│
├── .env
├── .env.defaults
├── .env.example
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
├── package.json
├── redwood.toml
└── yarn.lock
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In Redwood, our frontend code is contained in the web folder and our backend code is contained in the api folder. We'll look at the web folder first. Redwood structures the web folder a bit like create-react-app projects with a public and src folder.

1.3 redwood generate page

With our application now set up we can start creating pages with the generate page command

Generate home page

The generate page command accepts two arguments for setting the name of the page and its path.

yarn rw g page home /
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The g page home / command creates a home page and a folder to hold that page. It also creates a couple of extra files that will be useful later in the series. These include a Storybook file along with testing and mocking files.

✔ Generating page files...
  ✔ Successfully wrote file `./web/src/pages/HomePage/HomePage.stories.js`
  ✔ Successfully wrote file `./web/src/pages/HomePage/HomePage.test.js`
  ✔ Successfully wrote file `./web/src/pages/HomePage/HomePage.js`
✔ Updating routes file...
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Since I only entered home it will use that to name both the folder and the component file but you can specify each if necessary.

└── pages
    ├── FatalErrorPage
    │   └── FatalErrorPage.js
    ├── HomePage
    │   │── HomePage.js
    │   │── HomePage.stories.js
    │   └── HomePage.test.js
    └── NotFoundPage
        └── NotFoundPage.js
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Return to your browser and you will now see a new page instead of the landing page.

02-HomePage-on-localhost-8910

Let's look at the code that was generated for this page. It's a component called HomePage that returns a <div> with a header <h1> and a paragraph tag <p>. The MetaTags component can be used to set relevant SEO tags such as title, description, and og:image.

// web/src/pages/HomePage/HomePage.js

import { Link, routes } from '@redwoodjs/router'
import { MetaTags } from '@redwoodjs/web'

const HomePage = () => {
  return (
    <>
      <MetaTags
        title="Home"
        // description="Home description"
        /* you should un-comment description and add a unique description, 155 characters or less
      You can look at this documentation for best practices : https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/appearance/good-titles-snippets */
      />

      <h1>HomePage</h1>
      <p>
        Find me in <code>./web/src/pages/HomePage/HomePage.js</code>
      </p>
      <p>
        My default route is named <code>home</code>, link to me with `
        <Link to={routes.home()}>Home</Link>`
      </p>
    </>
  )
}

export default HomePage
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This should be pretty self-explanatory if you have experience with React. If this doesn't look familiar it would be helpful to spend a little time studying React by itself before jumping into Redwood.

Now we'll edit the page and see what happens.

// web/src/pages/HomePage/HomePage.js

import { MetaTags } from '@redwoodjs/web'

const HomePage = () => {
  return (
    <>
      <MetaTags
        title="Home"
        description="The home page of the website"
      />

      <h1>ajcwebdev</h1>
      <p>This page is the home!</p>

      <footer>
        <h3>Find me online:</h3>

        <ul>
          <li><a href="https://dev.to/ajcwebdev">Blog</a></li>
          <li><a href="https://twitter.com/ajcwebdev">Twitter</a></li>
          <li><a href="https://github.com/ajcwebdev">GitHub</a></li>
        </ul>
      </footer>
    </>
  )
}

export default HomePage
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Feel free to include links to your own social accounts. With those changes made return to your browser.

03-HomePage-on-localhost-8910-edited

Generate about page

Now we are going to generate our about page.

yarn rw g page about
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✔ Generating page files...
  ✔ Successfully wrote file `./web/src/pages/AboutPage/AboutPage.stories.js`
  ✔ Successfully wrote file `./web/src/pages/AboutPage/AboutPage.test.js`
  ✔ Successfully wrote file `./web/src/pages/AboutPage/AboutPage.js`
✔ Updating routes file...
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Like before, this creates an AboutPage component inside of an AboutPage folder along with files for Storybook and testing.

└── pages
    ├── AboutPage
    │   │── AboutPage.js
    │   │── AboutPage.stories.js
    │   └── AboutPage.test.js
    ├── FatalErrorPage
    │   └── FatalErrorPage.js
    ├── HomePage
    │   │── HomePage.js
    │   │── HomePage.stories.js
    │   └── HomePage.test.js
    └── NotFoundPage
        └── NotFoundPage.js
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We don't have a link to the about page, but we can enter the route manually into our browser by adding /about after localhost:8910.

04-AboutPage-on-localhost-8910

Open up the code and it's another React component much like the last! Components are kind of a big deal in React.

// web/src/pages/AboutPage/AboutPage.js

import { Link, routes } from '@redwoodjs/router'
import { MetaTags } from '@redwoodjs/web'

const AboutPage = () => {
  return (
    <>
      <MetaTags
        title="About"
        // description="About description"
        /* you should un-comment description and add a unique description, 155 characters or less
      You can look at this documentation for best practices : https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/appearance/good-titles-snippets */
      />

      <h1>AboutPage</h1>
      <p>
        Find me in <code>./web/src/pages/AboutPage/AboutPage.js</code>
      </p>
      <p>
        My default route is named <code>about</code>, link to me with `
        <Link to={routes.about()}>About</Link>`
      </p>
    </>
  )
}

export default AboutPage
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We can also edit this page just like the home page.

// web/src/pages/AboutPage/AboutPage.js

import { MetaTags } from '@redwoodjs/web'

const AboutPage = () => {
  return (
    <>
      <MetaTags
        title="About"
        description="The page that tells you about stuff"
      />

      <h1>About</h1>
      <p>This page tells you about stuff!</p>
    </>
  )
}

export default AboutPage
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With those changes return to your browser.

05-AboutPage-on-localhost-8910-edited

1.4 yarn redwood --help

If at any point you're having trouble remembering commands you can get a quick reminder of all the commands with the --help command.

yarn rw --help
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Command Description Alias
rw build [side..] Build for production
rw check Structural diagnostics for a Redwood project (experimental) diagnostics
rw console Launch an interactive Redwood shell (experimental) c
rw data-migrate Migrate the data in your database dm, dataMigrate
rw deploy Deploy your Redwood project
rw destroy Rollback changes made by the generate command d
rw dev [side..] Start development servers for api, db, and web
rw exec Run scripts generated with yarn generate script
rw generate Generate boilerplate code and type definitions g
rw info Print your system environment information
rw lint Lint your files
rw open Open your project in your browser
rw prerender Prerender pages of your Redwood app at build time render
rw prisma [commands..] Run Prisma CLI with experimental features
rw serve [side] Run server for api or web in production
rw setup Initialize project config and install packages
rw storybook Launch Storybook: An isolated component development environment sb
rw test [filter..] Run Jest tests. Defaults to watch mode
rw ts-to-js Convert a TypeScript project to JavaScript
rw type-check [sides..] Run a TypeScript compiler check on your project tsc, tc
rw upgrade Upgrade all @redwoodjs packages via interactive CLI

Options

  • --help - Show help
  • --version - Show version number
  • --cwd - Working directory to use (where redwood.toml is located)

1.5 redwood.toml

redwood.toml contains the configuration settings for your Redwood app and is what makes your Redwood app a Redwood app. If you remove it and try to run yarn rw dev, you'll get an error. You can see the full list of options on the App Configuration doc.

[web]
  title = "Redwood App"
  port = 8910
  apiProxyPath = "/.redwood/functions"
  includeEnvironmentVariables = []
[api]
  port = 8911
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In the next part we'll take a look at Redwood's router and create links for the pages we created.

Top comments (1)

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adriatic profile image
Nikolaj Ivancic •

A quick note: the link to "my Github" (see below) is bad.

Before entering the next commands create an empty repository on GitHub. All the code for this series can be found on my GitHub.

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