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Next.js in 2021

Jomson, Nepal

Repository

Project Setup

npx create-next-app

npx: installed 1 in 4.003s

√ What is your project named? ... next-blog
Creating a new Next.js app in E:\next-blog

cd next-blog
git init
npm run dev

ready - started server on 0.0.0.0:3000, url: http://localhost:3000

Add Typescript

Create a file in your app root called tsconfig.json and install the dependencies and restart the server:

npm install -D typescript @types/react @types/node

npm run dev

Next.js will automatically add some TS configuration the the config file. To start using Typescript rename the default _app.js to _app.tsx and import the default types that come with the Next.js starter app:

import {AppProps} from 'next/app'

import '../styles/globals.css'

function MyApp({ Component, pageProps }: AppProps) {
  return <Component {...pageProps} />
}

export default MyApp

Add Prettier

npm i -D prettier

You can add Prettier configuration to your package.json file:

"prettier": {
    "semi": false,
    "singleQuote": true,
    "jsxBracketSameLine": true,
    "requirePragma": true,
    "insertPragma": true
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@types/node": "^14.14.41",
    "@types/react": "^17.0.3",
    "prettier": "^2.2.1",
    "typescript": "^4.2.4"
  }

Set VS Code Editor: Default Formatter to Prettier (In Settings Ctrl+, search for formatter) - make sure the Prettier Extension is installed.

Add BaseURLs for Imports

Add the following Typescript configuration to tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "baseUrl": "./",
    "paths": {
      "@components/*": ["components/*"],
      "@styles/*": ["styles/*"]
    },

  ...

You can now import directly from those paths and no longer have to work with relative paths:

import styles from '@styles/Home.module.css'
import Header from '@components/header'

Deployment

npm scripts

"scripts": {
    "dev": "next dev",
    "build": "next build",
    "start": "next start",
    "export": "next export"
  }

You can run your Next.js App on a [Node Server](Node.js Server). npm run build builds the production application in the .next folder. After building, npm run start starts a Node.js server that supports hybrid pages, serving both statically generated and server-side rendered pages. In production this can be done in a CI pipeline in Docker.

Coming from Gatsby.js I am more interested in getting the static build out of Next.js. For this run:

npm run build
npm run export

Then you'll have a static version of your app in the out directory.