How do you add Node to the frontend?

Question

I have been coding with a React frontend and a Node/Express backend. But sometimes, I only need some plain Javascript without React, but still want the benefit of NPM and other Node modules. What is a way to do this?

Answer 1

You'll need a module bundler of some kind. There are many options including Webpack , Browserify, Gulp, and Parcel.

For Webpack, for example, from their example docs, the process could be:

• Install webpack with npm install webpack and install webpack-cli

• Install a module you want to use on the frontend, eg lodash

• In src/index.js , import lodash: import _ from 'lodash'; and use it as needed. (You can also import other modules from NPM or from other places in your source code)

• Set up webpack.config.js if you need custom build configuration settings

• Run webpack to build the project: npx webpack . A single bundled JavaScript file will be created which contains all your source code and the imported Lodash's source code.