I am about to start developing my web application in Firebase. Problem is, currently I have 100s of questions running through my head, and nothing I can find online specifically answers such.
Now from what I understand you can ONLY host assets on Firebase hosting (HTML, CSS, JS), and if you have a backend (such as Node) you will have to use a separate hosting service (like Heroku).
Firebase hosting implies that everything can be done from the browser, but I am not sure how I would get around using a backend.
For instance, if the user enters the url http://___.com/login I would route that in Express to login.html. Also if a user types in /index or /home or even nothing, it would take them to index.html. How would I go about doing this without a backend?
Another big question I have is templating. On Node there are many templating engines, is there such a thing though when just using the frontend?
Would there be a way to get around those two issues above without using a backend? I can see some benefits when using a backend such as server side rendering, and using third-party services such as Sendgrid. But what else would I get out of using a backend such as Node?
I guess I am just a bit confused on how a web application could be done without a backend (that you can access and control). I do not see how templating, routing, and many other things can be controlled by just the browser, and hosted within Firebase.
I plan on using Node (unless all of this is possible without a backend), and I am intending on using React and Redux as well. Can Firebase, Node, React and Redux all be used together?
I know there are a ton of questions above, but I just can not wrap my head around it all. I put all of my main question in bold, thank you!
Firebase Hosting allows you to do single-page app style routing, you'd just add this to your firebase.json:
{
"hosting": {
"rewrites": [{"source": "**", "destination": "/index.html"}]
}
}
As for templating, you'd want to look into frameworks such as React, Angular, Ember, Polymer, etc. to do dynamic content generation client-side instead of relying on server-side templates.
Firebase offers tools that can help you with the most common things you'll need when building an app (auth, database, file uploads, hosting). For these, you won't need a server at all. If and when your app needs additional custom back-end work, you can always deploy separate services that can be called by the client or even just listen to the database and trigger events directly.
And yes, you can definitely use React, Redux, and Firebase together. Hope that helps!
Related
I am developing my own website. So far, I've used React for the frontend and Flask for the backend. I've been doing frontend development for a while now but I'm just starting to get into the backend.
From my limited understanding, frameworks like Flask and ExpressJS create their own servers and host data that the frontend can use. It seems to me that that they automatically create websites to host and receive data. In my website, I route the backend to do what I want and use fetch requests with POST and GET from the frontend to communicate.
Although it works, to me, it seems overly complex. Why does the backend need it's own server? It seems unnecessary to create a proxy for the frontend and fetch data. Why can a website not just run custom code in the background, why does it need a service like Flask or ExpressJS to run in the background for it? These backend frameworks run Python or NodeJS in the background, but wouldn't it be much simpler if the website itself could run Python or NodeJS in the background?
I also see that in frameworks like React, you can import things and use modules— like in NodeJS. While importing some modules works, the require keyword is not allowed and normal NodeJS code will not work. Therefore, the backend will not work. Why is this— why can't you just run backend code natively? Instead you have to go through fetch and specify headers to basically translate information from your frontend to your backend.
Forgive my amateur understanding of web development, but the frontend/backend system seems overly complex to me. Thanks in advance.
Why does the backend need it's own server?
Where will the client store data so that when you open the page again the data will still be there? You can use localStorage but this is locked to that particular browser. What if someone logs in on a different device or uses a different browser?
Where will the client get the application from in the first place? Your application needs to be packaged up in a form that can be easily downloaded, and it needs an address to be loaded from. This is all considered "back end" even if you're using a static hosting service like GitHub Pages.
There's a lot of reasons why a back-end exists and needs its own server. Any application with persistent state which is expected to work across different sessions needs at least one of these.
I want to use React for a project I am working on, but I also want to use an API.
How can I do it?
I have tried to Google this and ask different people, but I have not got a response yet, so I thought I would ask here. I want to use express and maybe not use create-react-app (as it takes up a lot of storage).
Working on a custom server doesen't preclude the use of an API.
If you want fetch the API from the express server and inject it directly on react frontend you need to enable server side rendering (useful post) and pass the data collected as a props from the server (check this example).
Rather then you can build your react project (using even create-react-app) and build an express server who return the index.html on call.
Personally I prefer the first one solution.
I'm currently working on a new ReactJS application. In all the previous applications I've built I used Express for the server side rendering. I used Express because routing in production mode wouldn't work if I didn't.
So I've recently discovered that it's posible to just always redirect my React app to my index.html file and let the React routing just do it's work. This also works when I deploy my application to production.
I know Express can be usefull for SEO porposes but other than that I have no idea why I would need to use it. So am I just missing something? Or is it just fine to don't use Express with my React application if I don't need any SEO.
React configured as a Single Page App, renders the express routing all but unnecessary. The standard transition from a web server rendered app to a single page app is to change the server into a REST Web API and any server side data needed from the React App is obtained through AJAX calls.
So in most cases you don't need Express when you are using React to handle your routing except for in less common cases when you might want to use express as a reverse proxy or something.
If you want to do server-side rendering, you'll need a node server (typically but doesn't have to be express) to render your React components. This could not only help with SEO but also allow your page to appear to load faster (you wouldn't have to wait for the JS to download and run before the user sees the HTML).
If you don't care about the benefits, don't use SSR.
when deploying react application it is just usually an html and a JS file. So you need some kind of server to host it. Luckily there are services out there that offers that like S3, Github etc.
You're using Express because it can host the html and js files. So technically you don't need specifically express but you need some server that will host your files.
I'm trying to understand how a MERN app fully works, I've been reading about MongoDB, ExpressJs, ReactJs and NodeJs, I also understand how MongoDB, ExpressJs and NodeJs interact and how ReactJs works on its own, my question is simple (I think).
The question:
If I create an API, using Node,Express and Mongo, and I have an APP managed by React, both need a server (via express, I understand), then, how should I run the API and the React app at the same time. Do I need different URLs? should I configure different ports? how should I integrate them?
I really been reading a lot, but almost every tutorial is made locally (and I'm working in a server with Passenger and I can't change the way it starts), just for Node/Express(with pug or else)/Mongo or just React, and I don't understand how to connect the API and React.
Thanks
It depends on several factors: environment (e.g. development, production), and your control over the server. For development, you can have two different URLs and use something like Webpack Dev Server. Normally you would have the module bundler, e.g. Webpack, watching for changes in your React code. However, this can get more complex if you have Server Side Rendering.
For production, normally you would have the bundled file for your client side application already optimized and minified. If you can change your API, you could serve it statically in a new endpoint, for example: /static/bundle.js and request this endpoint from your index.html file, which will be sent by Express.js server when accessing /.
However, because you will probably want to have routes in your React app, your server will need to know how to handle the client app routes (for example app.get('/*', () => ...), and they could collide with your API endpoints. To solve this, you could:
Prefix your API endpoints with a namespace, e.g. /api/v1/...
Place the API in a different URL, port or subdomain. In this case you would indeed need to run these two servers in parallel. With Node.js, there are helpers to make this more convenient, e.g. concurrently.
Pulling out your concerns: API, React, and Integration for MERN app.
I use three approaches
1) Use foreman. With this, you can specify your API and Web Client in the Procfile. I used it here
2) Use a proxy to handle requests that require your API. So in package.json, you specify your API URL(your API must be running)
// package.json
.......
.......
"proxy": "<path to url:[port no if you're developing locally]>"
Check here.
And you can simply add a script to run your API and React concurrently.
3) Set your API and React app in a Docker container. mern-starter is a perfect place to check for this.
Hope this helps!
I understand that Express resides on the server and Angular resides on the client but, as far as I know, Angular can do everything that Express can do which is
routing
interacting with the database
It kind of seems like maybe Express is needed in order for an AngularJS app to be served by Node.js but I'm not sure.
So what are the benefits to adding Express to an AngularJS app?
There are things which should be done server side (i.e. Express, not Angular), most notably user input validation - Angular, as it's client side, can be tampered.
Also, if you'll ever want to offer access type other than web app (i.e. mobile app), you'll probably need an API anyway - Express can do this, Angular don't.
Finally, database access - usually Angular app will need to connect to some kind of backend to perform CRUD operations. You'll either go with hosted DB like Firebase, or you'll end up using your own database. Latter scenario is more popular and you'll need Express (or similar) for that.
Express and AngularJS do not mutually exclude one another, they serve different purpose - in fact it's perfectly fine to use both - express for all your serverside logic, and Angular for client side logic.
Express can be used to host the APIs for AngularJS's service/factory to consume. You can consider AngularJS as MVC and the API on Express as SOA.
There is lot of stuff that one wants to control from server. And that is the place where the server side frameworks come into picture.
An web app is not just some html pages linked together. There are lot of other things that needs to be implemented
Model validation.
Keeping model consistent. Remember multiple users can access the same model at any give time and even change it.
Controlling resource access.
Triggering workflows.
Business Logic.
and other such thing require a server framework. So as mentioned earlier the client side frameworks like AngularJS complement server side frameworks.