I am doing a project using react, redux and express, I don't understand what is the difference between react-router and the express routes.js, did I need to combine the two or just use one ?
https://github.com/reactjs/react-router
Thanks for the help :)
Note: this stackoverflow post contains examples and codes that could help you a lot.
It's a classical misunderstanding. Express will handle your backend routes whereas React (with react-router or any front-end routing lib) will handle frontend routes.
Your React application will probably be an SPA (single page application), meaning that your server (express or something else) will have to serve the index.html and react will handle your application from here. Which mean that React will evaluate the routes and decide which view to render.
Therefore, you have to ensure that when a users goes on a route like /accounts/me, the servers serves your frontend (react) application if needed, but something like /api/users/me would render data. It's just an example.
A "normal" usage would be to handle your data (via an API) with express and the application (pages and views) only with React.
If you are using server-rendering, it becomes a bit more complicated.
In most cases, yes, you will have to use both.
Edit: it would be easier to answer if your question was more specific about your usage and what you want to do.
Edit 2: Most of the time, it's not the same servers serving the frontend application and the API (data), if it is, just ensure that the application is send when some routes hit the serve: i.e /home, /about (which are obviously -here- not api routes) should be send serve index.html as your frontend application, and React will take care of the routes to decide what to render.
Related
I'm building a Vue app that works as a SPA that gets rendered by my Express backend.
In this Vue app I'm using environment variables. One of these variables is an API key to an external API service.
Obviously I don't want to show the whole world my API key, however after I run the build command it includes all the env variables in the Javascript files, which I believe makes it accessible to anyone.
What would be the right way to go here? Should I make a route in my Express backend that handels requests to this external API, so that I can safely store my API key on the server side?
Or is there a way to make my Vue app autonomously send requests to the external API without having to show the API key?
I'm using Vue 2 by the way.
Yes you should make a backend that will interact with API using your key instead of the front end doing that no matter which version of VueJs your are using
VueJS is front end javascript, which mean users can see the code even minified on their browser
is what you are looking for
Your could use Nuxt, which is an SSR solution to build your app before shipping it to production. During the build, you can get use some sensible stuff since it will run NodeJS and will be on the server only. That way, you could for example fetch some variables and let's say get the content of some blog articles. Then, it will be available on the frontend with the end result only and all your variables safe since they will be used only on the server build.
Other solution is to use your backend as a middleware to do exactly the same process of using something sensitive and just fetch the end result.
Also, serverless functions like on Firebase or Azure are great + cheap for this purpose.
I have seen many people using nextjs with expressjs and without expressjs framwork. Can someone please explain why do we need expressjs with nextjs? Nextjs works as SSR without expressjs. What does expressjs add to nextjs when we use it together? Assuming that we are using different rest api server.
You don't need to use expressjs if all you want is server-side rendering. But if you want to go beyond that by adding an API, as an example, then you need to be able to override the routing and that's when you'd add expressjs in front. Express will get the request and see if it is for the API or if it's just a normal nextjs page. LogRocket has a very good tutorial on this https://blog.logrocket.com/how-to-build-a-server-rendered-react-app-with-next-express-d5a389e7ab2f/
You most likely don't need to override Next's default server. For edge cases where you do, you'll see examples showing a custom server extending Next's default. You can use whatever server framework you want – Express, Hapi, etc.
https://nextjs.org/docs/advanced-features/custom-server
I'm trying to figure out a basic thing about Nuxt "Universal" mode with the help of my dev tools, but I am just not sure if I understand it correctly.
Every time I request a new route in the Universal Nuxt app it seems to send a 200 (OK) request to the Node server. Did I understand correctly that on every page request a new document gets requested and served up by the Node server?
Some people are claiming that even while running the Universal mode the Node server sends only one package and after that the navigation and subsequent pages are loaded on the client side, thus not hitting the Node server anymore, but this is not the case right, how could the search engine crawler index that?
Essentially on every new route instead, the page gets re-requested from the Node server in its pre-rendered form right? This is how the "Universal" mode is actually SEO friendly as the crawler can look through all the pages and index it correctly to Google or Bing?
I'm sorry as I'm just a beginner with Nuxt and I fully understand (I think) how SPA as well as the Nuxt Generate modes work but this Universal mode is still a mystery for me at this point.
I would be very thankful for any clarifications on this!!! It would be super valuable in my learning journey! Thanks!
It's important to understand different "kinds" of navigation.
If you are navigating to a route by typing it into browser's URL bar, browser is hitting server (and this has nothing to do with Nuxt specifically) and what you get back is HTML with HTML content of your route pre-rendered by Nuxt + js bundle. Same thing happens if you use F5 (reload).
If on the other hand you use <nuxt-link> inside of some Nuxt page pointing to a different route/page and you click it, underlying Vue router will be used to switch to a different page (Vue component), server is not requested (for HTML) and new component (page) will handle rendering client side only
There can be an Ajax request when navigating that way but request is not for server-side rendered HTML. It's for additional JS content. Its because Nuxt is using automatic code-splitting (so when you hit the server 1st time, only JS needed for that route to work is loaded). Once the JS bundle for a specific route is loaded, it will not load again on subsequent navigation and unless your page/components inside are loading data from some API, you will not see any requests to a server during navigation....
I'm studying nuxt.
I leave a question because I have a question while studying.
nuxt can ssr, but ssr is known as server side rendering.
Then, I wonder where the server is.
Because vue is built on node, is the server automatically made into node server?
And, how is SEO possible if we make it with nuxt?
I understand that it is possible if you make html with MPA. However, using nuxt makes SEO possible.
So, when you create a project with nuxt, does the client make it an MPA when it makes the first request?
where the server is?
Depends... Nuxt include a node server (nuxt), but you can during the nuxt instalation merge them with other node server frameworks
when use nuxt alone or with other server-side framework?
Depends of your needs, knowledge and project.
For example I usually use nuxt alone, more apollo graphql it give me all I need. but for Shopify apps, the admin embed login is write for Koa and super easy to use so I prefers nuxt + koa when I develop this kind of app.
what means ssr?
server side rendering, the important thing is Rendering, that means nuxt (or nuxt + extra server-side framework) read the vue (js) code in the server and rendered them in Html code, after that it send the html to the client machine.
This is the reason why SEO is possible, when a web crawler visit the site it receive a fulfilled HTML page easy to read and clasify.
Nuxt has a really extensive and easy to understand guide, I recomend you follow them. Example you can use Head for edit the Header of the page,
I am developing an application and while exploring technologies I am curious if I have Express do I need React Router if I am going to use react. On that same point, if I am using React Router do I need express? I am unsure how that whole ecosystem works.
Express is a Node Web Server Framework.
React Router routes calls inside of your front-end code.
They perform completely separate and distinct responsibilities. You don't necessarily need one or the other but using one doesn't mean you can get rid of the other either.