 Courses from Tim Kindberg

React is one of the web’s most popular frameworks for building JavaScript applications. 

If you know what you’re doing, React can drastically simplify how you build, use, and maintain code.

Whether you’re a React newbie or you’re ready for advanced techniques, you can level-up with egghead. Explore our in-depth courses, lessons, and community resources to build more powerful applications and crack open your career.

react

We will add configurations to our project to enable hot module reloading, so that our changes will update in the browser without a hard window refresh. We’ll need to add two packages to our project:

- react-hot-loader
- webpack-hot-middleware

Configure hot module reloading to work with react-universal-component

When you async load a code-split component, sometimes it has associated redux actions and reducers that come bundled with it. We’ll explore a basic pattern for discovering async reducers that need to be “injected” into the redux store so that the component can function properly.

Lazy Load Redux Reducers with Code-split Universal React Components using onLoad

We’ll make the configuration changes needed in our express server, babel configuration, and react app code to get universal components working. We'll go from typical configurations to a "universal" configuration. We'll need our express app to use the webpack hot server middleware to serve our custom html. We'll use the `flushChunks` method to discover which javascript and css files actually need to be sent down to the client on initial render. We need to add the stage-2 babel plugin so that we can use the `import` function. And we can't forget to hydrate our React app on the client after we receive the serverside-rendered html.

Configure Express / React / Babel to Work with React Universal Component

We’ll make the webpack configuration changes needed to get universal components working. We'll go from a typical webpack configuration to a "universal" webpack configuration. We'll need two webpack configs—one for the client and one for the server. Each config needs several specific changes to be made to get universal working.

Configure Webpack to Work with React Universal Component

If you’d like to perform an animation while a component is loading you can achieve this by setting a minimum delay and forcing it to always happen. You can then use the onBefore and onAfter hooks on the component to set some local state within your parent component. This local state can be used to trigger the animation.

Animate a Universal React Loading Component using Delay Options and Component Hooks

It’s not uncommon to export a component as a named export as opposed to a default export. The key option in the universal higher-order component allows you to select which named export in the module that you’d like to load.

Load a Universal React Named Exported Component with the Key Option

We will add redux to our project and get redux working on the client and server. The redux state will be passed along with our server-side rendered page in a global window variable; from there, we’ll hydrate the state on the client.

Add Redux with Server-to-Client State Hydration to a React Universal Project

You can set the error component that will show when a component has an error during async loading. You can force the error to show manually as well.

Set an Error Component in React Universal when a Component Fails to Load

We’ll use a function as our first param in the `universal` HOC. This function takes in the props and you can return a dynamic import using the props that were received. This allows us to make a very generic and reusable Universal component!

Dynamically Load a Code-Split Universal React Component via a Prop

We’ll npm install the packages needed to get universal components working. I'll introduce the family of packages that make this possible:

- react-universal-component
- webpack-flush-chunks
- babel-plugin-universal-import
- extract-css-chunks-webpack-plugin
- webpack-hot-server-middleware (only necessary for dev)

Install the NPM Dependencies Needed for a Universal React App

You can preload specific code bundles very easily with react-universal-component. You may know that a particular feature is likely to be loaded, so you can preload it. You still get the benefit of a fast initial render while also having other features loaded very soon after, ready to go.

Preload a Universal Component On-Demand with the Preload Method

We’ll use the `universal` higher-order component to enhance components that we’d like webpack to split into their own javascript bundles. These components will not load their javascript or css until React needs them for rendering.

Code-Splitting Components with the Universal Higher-Order Component

We’ll go through the options related to loading. You have the ability to specify a custom loading component instead of the default `Loading…` component that react-universal-component will show for you. You can also set a minimum delay if you’d like the loading component to always show for some time—sometimes a quickly blinking loading component can appear unpolished.

Configure a Custom Universal React Loading Component

In this course, you will be learn how to get your react app to load as quickly as possible to maximize user engagement—we need faster rendering speed and smaller network requests! 

You’ll learn how to both split code into lazily loaded bundles AND server-side render your page. 

This has not been possible until very recently—you had to choose either code-splitting or SSR. Sure you have Next.js which is awesome, but it’s a framework that you need to buy into. With react-universal-component you are getting a framework-less Next.js that is in your control!

The react-universal-component library does a great job making it as simple as can be, but there are still various specific configurations and practices that must be followed to get it working. So watch the videos to learn how it’s done!

Build a Server Rendered + Code Split App in React with React Universal Component

Learn how to use the ‘branch’ and ‘renderComponent’ higher-order components to show errors or messaging when your component is in a non-optimal state. Avoid putting extraneous logic to show errors or messaging into your core component by organizing your non-optimal states into custom higher-order components.

Show Error Messages based on Non-Optimal States with Recompose

Learn how to use the ‘branch’ and ‘renderNothing’ higher-order
components to render nothing when a certain prop condition is
met. Sometimes you only want to render a component when valid
props exist or are in a certain condition; ‘renderNothing’ is
an easy way to completely remove the component when you don’t
need to show it.

Render Components Based on Predicates in Recompose

Learn how and when to use the ‘pure’, ‘onlyUpdateForKeys’,
‘onlyUpdateForPropTypes’, and ‘shouldUpdate’ higher order components.
Each one provides a certain granularity of control over prevent
unnecessary renders. Learn how they build upon each other to provide
different options.

Optimize Component Rendering using Recompose

Learn about optimizations (like component squashing) that Recompose uses behind the scenes. More reading on [Performance](https://github.com/acdlite/recompose/blob/master/docs/performance.md).

Learn How Recompose Optimizes Higher Order Components

Learn how to user the ‘componentFromProp’ helper and ‘defaultProps’ higher order component to swap the underlying html tag of your component. Sometimes we want a component to behave the same overall but to use a different element in the HTML output. An example is swapping an <a> for a <button> or even a react router <Link> depending on circumstance.

Set the HTML Tag of a Component via a Prop using Recompose

Learn how to use the 'withPropsOnChange' higher order component to help ensure that expensive prop computations are only executed when necessary. Simply specify which props are “expensive” and provide a factory function for those props.

Optimize Expensive Computations in Recompose

Learn how to use the 'compose' function to mix together HOCs, even ones from other libraries like 'connect' from redux.

Compose Multiple Higher Order Components Together using Recompose

When comparing two visually similar websites, it can often be challenging to precisely identify the subtle differences between them. To facilitate a rapid analysis of these discrepancies, a practical technique involves leveraging Chrome's integrated developer tools to capture full-page screenshots of each site. Subsequently, these screenshots can be uploaded to a platform like AI Studio. There, the AI can analyze the images and generate a report detailing the variations. This entire process, leveraging a few quick shortcuts, can be completed in under a minute, delivering a comprehensive breakdown of the differences for efficient comparison and analysis.

Quickly Compare Two Sites Using AI Studio with Chrome Full Page Screenshots

It's fairly trivial to create a React project, but there's always a big hurdle between creating it locally and making it shareable so that someone else can run it. This lesson walks you through the process of automating creating a React project locally, creating the repository where it's going to be hosted, and creating shareable links where it can be run so that you can quickly and easily create single one-off demos and shoot them over to your friends and coworkers for sharing your code ideas in a working environment.


```bash
share-react-project() {
  if [[ -z "$1" ]]; then
    echo "Usage: share-react-project <project_name>"
    return 1
  fi

  local project_name="$1"
  local github_username=$(gh api /user --jq '.login')

  echo "Creating Vite project: $project_name"
  pnpm create vite "$project_name" --template react

  cd "$project_name"

  echo "Initializing Git repository"
  git init

  echo "Adding all files to Git"
  git add .

  echo "Creating initial commit"
  git commit -m "Initial commit"

  local codesandbox_link="https://codesandbox.io/p/github/${github_username}/${project_name}"

  echo "Adding CodeSandbox link to README.md"
  echo "" >> README.md
  echo "## CodeSandbox" >> README.md
  echo "[![Open in CodeSandbox](https://assets.codesandbox.io/github/button-edit-blue.svg)](${codesandbox_link})" >> README.md

  echo "Adding README.md to Git"
  git add README.md

  echo "Committing README.md changes"
  git commit -m "Add CodeSandbox link"

  echo "Creating GitHub repository: $github_username/$project_name"
  gh repo create "$github_username/$project_name" --public

  echo "Pushing to remote 'origin'"
  git push -u origin main

  echo "Project '$project_name' created successfully!"
  echo "GitHub repository: https://github.com/$github_username/$project_name"
  echo "CodeSandbox link: $codesandbox_link"
}
```

Automate Creating a Local React Project, GitHub Repository, and Live Hosted Demo in a Single Command

[Verdaccio](https://verdaccio.org/) is a fully featured NPM registry that you can run locally on your machine. It’s a great tool for testing your release process, running end-to-end tests, and simulating real-world scenarios like deploying packages, installing them, and verifying functionality as an end user would.

Nx includes a [generator](https://nx.dev/features/generate-code) that simplifies setting up Verdaccio. To configure it, run:

```shell
npx nx g @nx/js:setup-verdaccio   
```

This command installs the necessary NPM packages and creates a `project.json` file with a `local-registry` target. To start the local registry, open a new terminal window and run:

```shell
npx nx local-registry
```

This will:
- Launch the Verdaccio registry.
- Configure NPM to point to the local Verdaccio server at `http://localhost:4873`.

> **Note:** A `project.json` file provides an advanced way to define scripts, offering more flexibility than a traditional `package.json` for managing complex targets.

Setup local Verdaccio server to release NPM packages

Learn how to spin up a local NPM registry powered by Verdaccio to test deploy your NPM packages.

In TypeScript, developers often begin by defining the structure of their data using type definitions or interfaces, which is a powerful way to ensure type safety. However, as applications grow and become more complex, simply defining the shape of an object might not be enough to guarantee its consistent creation and behavior throughout the codebase. This often leads to situations where objects that are intended to be of a certain "type" might be missing crucial properties or have incorrect data, which can be difficult to track down and debug.

This lesson tackles the question of when and why to move beyond basic type definitions and embrace classes in TypeScript. It demonstrates how classes provide a more robust mechanism for defining object structure, enforcing type constraints, and ensuring consistent object creation. By establishing a clear blueprint for objects, classes not only improve compile-time type safety but also offer runtime benefits and better code organization, ultimately helping developers avoid common pitfalls associated with loosely structured objects in larger TypeScript projects.

Stop Avoiding Classes in TypeScript

Karabiner isn't only for your keyboard. It can also hijack your mouse buttons and enable them to be similar to layers on your keyboard, where holding down a mouse button can allow you to tap keys on your keyboard to trigger commands and macros that can completely revolutionize your workflows. For example, you can hold down the right mouse button and tap on R to go to references in VS Code. Or hold down the right mouse button and tap the left mouse button to chop up videos and Screenflow.

This completely unlocks a whole new world of possibilities and use cases for your mouse as you can hover your mouse over anywhere on the page. And just tapping keys on your keyboard allows you to trigger mouse actions, to trigger keyboard actions, or to trigger macros and applications and terminal commands. and anything that your imagination can come up with. 

Karabiner: Rethinking Right-Click as a Macro Command Center

Make an HTML table more readable on mobile devices by using the ::before pseudo-element. We add labels to each cell, so they appear like cards when the table is viewed on smaller screens. The ::before content is set using a data-label attribute for each cell to enhance mobile viewability without horizontal scrolling.



Create a mobile friendly table with the before pseudo-element

Learn to use CSS ::before pseudo-element for mobile-friendly HTML tables. Add labels to cells for enhanced readability on mobile, avoiding horizontal scroll.

Any app of a decent size has event flows and messages being passed around. At a certain point it becomes complicated to explain it through prose and you want to turn towards diagrams. Now setting aside the time to create diagrams that accurately describe what's happening in your codebase can be quite time consuming. Luckily, with today's AI tools, we can now just do basic walkthroughs with rough recordings over codebase dictating what's going on along the way and then upload that to tools like AI Studio and then ask it to generate diagrams in a text-based format such as Mermaid that will then generate the flowcharts and diagrams for us. So this video walks us through this process of recording a rough video, uploading it to AI Studio and then asking AI Studio to generate the proper Mermaid diagram syntax.

Generate Mermaid Flow Chart Diagrams with Gemini 2.0 from Rough Screen Recordings

I'm a diehard Karabiner user and anytime I start doing something repetitively I always move it into my Karabiner configuration. Sometimes I'll fall into scenarios where I want to trigger a command, but I also want to know if that command succeeded or failed. Since Karabiner can trigger any command, setting up the command is fairly straightforward, but knowing whether it succeeded or failed became much more difficult. Luckily for me there is a package called terminal-notifier that you can install from homebrew and you can pipe the output of your command to terminal-notifier. And have a seamless way of triggering your keyboard shortcut which runs a command and you can be notified of the results.

Use Karabiner to Trigger a Terminal Command and Get Notified of the Results

There are a lot of scenarios when inspecting a site in Chrome where you don't want any click events to fire and you don't want any scripts to run. Or maybe something is animating in and out of the page and you want to capture it at a certain moment. This is a great use case for pausing script execution, which is kind of using the debugger manually by going into the Chrome DevTools and the Sources tab and clicking the pause button to essentially pause the entire page. This will give you a chance to inspect any of the elements and styles you want to inspect. And you don't have to worry about fire and click events or anything that might interrupt your investigation into the elements and styles that you want to find.

Pause Script Execution in Chrome to Easily Inspect Elements

Gemini 2.0 has a context window of a million tokens, and this means that you can upload hundreds of files and allow it to inspect and analyze massive refactors across entire code bases. 

This lesson demonstrates concatenating an entire code base into a single file and then uploading it to AI Studio. Once within AI Studio, we ask it to find the types of tasks that it can evaluate for us. Then we select one of the tasks and ask it to generate instructions for that task. Once those instructions are complete, we then turn them over to Windsurf's Cascade agent, and we allow Windsurf's Cascade to do all of the work for us as we sit back, relax, and let the AI do our jobs.

Tim Kindberg

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