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Yeow Zi Qin
Yeow Zi Qin

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Step by step on how to setup fabric.js in the next.js app

🧐 What is fabric.js

Fabric.js is a powerful and simple
Javascript HTML5 canvas library. It provides an interactive object model on top of the canvas element.
Fabric also has SVG-to-canvas (and canvas-to-SVG) parser.

Fabric.js

What we build in this blog

End Product

The demo above is taken from this medium blog, in which there's some slight modification or fix need to be done.


Install fabric.js

npm

npm i fabric
npm i -D @types/fabric # typescript
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yarn

yarn add fabric
yarn add -D @types/fabric # typescript
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pnpm

pnpm add fabric
pnpm add -D @types/fabric # typescript
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Setup for next.config.js

Below is the code for next.config.js. The reason is to configure the webpack for canvas runtime error that will crash the application and utf-8-validate & bufferutil warning. View more at the relevant references.

/** @type {import('next').NextConfig} */
const nextConfig = {
  // reactStrictMode: false,
  webpack: (config) => {
    config.externals.push({
      "utf-8-validate": "commonjs utf-8-validate",
      bufferutil: "commonjs bufferutil",
      canvas: "commonjs canvas",
    });
    // config.infrastructureLogging = { debug: /PackFileCache/ };
    return config;
  },
};

module.exports = nextConfig;
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See also relevant references

  1. Appropriate webpack loader for canvas
  2. Common js - utf-8-validate & bufferutil

Boilerplate for Next.js with Fabric.js

Below is the next.js .tsx code. If you are using Next.js 13.4 and above and opt-in to the app router, add "use client" on top of the file to use the Next.js client component, or else ignore the line.

"use client"; // next.js app router

import React, { useState, useEffect } from "react";
import { fabric } from "fabric";

const App = () => {
  const [canvas, setCanvas] = useState<fabric.Canvas>();

  useEffect(() => {
    const c = new fabric.Canvas("canvas", {
      // ...
    });

    // settings for all canvas in the app
    // ...

    setCanvas(c);

    return () => {
      // ...
    };
  }, []);

  const addRect = (canvi?: fabric.Canvas) => {
    // ...
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => addRect(canvas)}>Rectangle</button>
      <canvas id="canvas" />
    </div>
  );
};

export default App;
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Ensure that <canvas> tag has an ID the same as new fabric.Canvas(id, {...})

useEffect & addRect function

  useEffect(() => {
    const c = new fabric.Canvas("canvas", {
      height: 400,
      width: 800,
      backgroundColor: "black",
    });

    // settings for all canvas in the app
    fabric.Object.prototype.transparentCorners = false;
    fabric.Object.prototype.cornerColor = "#2BEBC8";
    fabric.Object.prototype.cornerStyle = "rect";
    fabric.Object.prototype.cornerStrokeColor = "#2BEBC8";
    fabric.Object.prototype.cornerSize = 6;

    setCanvas(c);

    return () => {
      c.dispose();
    };
  }, []);

  const addRect = (canvas?: fabric.Canvas) => {
    const rect = new fabric.Rect({
      height: 280,
      width: 200,
      stroke: "#2BEBC8",
    });
    canvas?.add(rect);
    canvas?.requestRenderAll();
  };
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Note

c.dispose() is required to clean up the instantiated canvas element. See why you should clean up so that your rectangle can move and resize properly -> StackOverflow Question.

If you refuse to add the return () => {c.dispose();}; statement, you can disable the reactStrictMode in next.config.js. See the concept of reactStrictMode in this StackOverflow Question.


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Top comments (7)

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anshika_jaiswal_5d0bdabc5 profile image
Anshika Jaiswal

TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'Canvas')

const canvas = new fabric.Canvas("canvas", {

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pat_paluch profile image
Pat Paluch

Fabric V6 has a new import import * as fabric from 'fabric';

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luckysolanki902 profile image
Luckysolanki902

did you find the solution?????? If yes....can you please contact me at luckysolanki902@gmail.com... Please... I'm tired of this error, and fixing since morning

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pat_paluch profile image
Pat Paluch

Fabric V6 has a new import import * as fabric from 'fabric';

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mrv90 profile image
hmousavin

thank you bro.. you saved me from a bad headache !!

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tharindaprabhath profile image
TharindaPrabhath

Thanks mate!

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dendrofen profile image
Mark K

May you provide demo, github?