Jekyll Boilerplate with React using Webpack

A Jekyll boilerplate for building modern websites šŸŒ²

Description available in Medium Post: https://medium.com/better-programming/build-your-great-modern-static-website-with-this-boilerplate-using-jekyll-react-and-webpack-cd63e03e4984


This is an update of the great boilerplate built by Forestry team incorporating the ideas shared by Alli Zadrozny on his post "Using Webpack and React with Jekyll". All the libraries have been updated, so you can now run Jekyll with React using Webpack as the wrapper.

This boilerplate wraps Jekyll with Gulp as your local development build pipeline.

PostCSS and Webpack + Babel are used for CSS and JS compiling & transpiling.

BrowserSync is used for providing a modern local development experience, allowing you to preview your site on multiple devices in sync.

BrowsersList is used for configuring Browser support.

SVG Sprite is used to generate an SVG Sprite.

Installation

Prerequisites

To use Gulp, you must have Node and NPM installed.

If you encounter problems: Gulp is currently not working with Node 12, downgrade to Node 11

npm install -g n
sudo n 11.15.0

Setup

Once the prerequisites are installed, clone the repository to your local machine, and then run:

(sudo) gem install bundler
(sudo) bundle install
npm install

This will install Jekyll as well as all of the Node dependencies needed to run your Jekyll environment. This may take a little while!

Development

All development tasks are performed using npm run. See "scripts" in package.json for a full list of commands.

Local Development

Local development is powered by BrowserSync, you will be able to develop sites rapidly through:

  • A local development server at http://localhost:3000/.
  • Automatic CSS updates without reloading the page
  • Automatic page reloads when content is changed

Running the local development server is as simple as running:

npm start

This will display all draft, future-dated, or expired content, which is not included in your production build.

If you'd like to develop with the site as it will appear in production, run:

npm run preview

Production Build

To generate a final production build on your local machine you can run:

npm run build

The fresh production build of your site will end up in the dist/ directory.

Project Structure

.
ā”œā”€ā”€ .tmp/                  // Temporary directory for development server
ā”œā”€ā”€ dist/                  // The production build
ā”œā”€ā”€ site/                  // The Jekyll project, with all content and static files
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ _data/             // YAML files containing site data
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ _posts/            // Jekyll's built-in blogging content type
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ _layouts/          // Your theme layouts
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ _includes/         // Your theme partials
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ css/               // Where compiled CSS files live
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ js/                // Where compiled JS files live
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ img/               // Where theme images live
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ uploads/           // Where user uploads are stored
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ _config.yml        // Production configuration settings
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ _development.yml   // Settings for local development only
|   ā”œā”€ā”€ 404.md             // Error page for your site
|   ā””ā”€ā”€ index.md           // Homepage of your site
ā””ā”€ā”€ā”€ config                // Config packs
ā””ā”€ā”€ā”€ scripts               // Forestry base scripts
ā””ā”€ā”€ā”€ src/
     ā”œā”€ā”€ css               // CSS/SCSS source files to be compiled to /css/
     ā””ā”€ā”€ js                // JS source files to be compiled to /js/
      ā””ā”€ā”€ components       // Add your REACT components here /js/
      scripts.js           // REACT Base handler    

Inline SVG

Any SVGs found in src/img/ will be combined into a single SVG Sprite at site/svg/sprite.symbol.svg.

This boilerplate comes with a simple include for using SVGs in your layouts. You can select an svg by passing in its ID.

{% comment %}
  Using a logo stored at src/img/github.svg
{% endcomment %}
{% include svg.html id="github" class="optional-class" width="32" height="32" %}

Note: the class, width, and height params are optional

Testing

This boilerplate comes with standard ESLint and StyleLint configurations that will lint your CSS and JS for errors or common style issues, which work with most popular IDEs.

The tests can also be run from the command line:

  • JS: npm run eslint
  • CSS: npm run stylelint

If you want to automatically fix lint errors, you can do this from the command line as well:

  • JS: npm run eslint:fix
  • CSS: npm run stylelint:fix

Cleanup

This boilerplate is self-cleaning, and will remove the production dist/ and development .tmp/ folders every time a command is run to ensure that their contents are always up to date.

If you wish to manually cleanup, run:

npm run clean

Configuration

All build tasks are handled by Gulp and are located in gulpfile.babel.js. All parts of the build are configurable in discrete files to make management easy.

Paths

All build source and destination paths can be configured from static-scripts.config.js.

Jekyll

The build commands for Jekyll can be configured from stat-cscripts.config.js. Build commands are set based on the NODE_ENV environment variable. You can optionally load different args using the GENERATOR_ARGS environment variable.

Four options are available:

  • default: the default build commands that are always run
  • development: additional build commands for the development server
  • preview: additional build commands for a production development server
  • production: additional build commands for production builds

BrowserSync Development Server

The configuration for BrowserSync is found in .browsersyncrc.js

CSS/SASS

The configuration for PostCSS is found in .postcssrc.js

Browser support

Both PostCSS and Webpack use .browserslistrc to decide on browser support when compiling.

Licensing

This boilerplate project is released under the MIT license.

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