IONOS Technical Talks Köln: Hybrid React-Applikationen mit Next.js

IONOS Technical Talks Köln is a tech event that brings together developers, engineers, and tech enthusiasts to discuss the latest trends and technologies in the industry. One of the sessions at the event focused on building hybrid React applications with Next.js, a popular framework for building server-rendered React applications.

In this tutorial, we will walk you through the process of building a hybrid React application using Next.js. We will cover everything from setting up a new Next.js project to deploying it to a production server.

Step 1: Setting up a new Next.js project
To get started, make sure you have Node.js and npm installed on your machine. You can install them by downloading the latest version from the official Node.js website.

Next, open a terminal and run the following command to install the Next.js CLI tool globally:
npm install -g create-next-app

Once the CLI tool is installed, you can create a new Next.js project by running the following command:
npx create-next-app my-next-app

Replace "my-next-app" with the name of your project. This will create a new directory with all the necessary files and dependencies to get started with Next.js.

Step 2: Adding hybrid functionality to your Next.js project
One of the key features of Next.js is its ability to serve both server-rendered and client-rendered pages. To enable this functionality, you need to create a custom server file in your project.

Create a new file called "server.js" in the root of your project directory and add the following code to it:

const { createServer } = require('http');
const next = require('next');

const dev = process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production';
const app = next({ dev });
const handle = app.getRequestHandler();

app.prepare().then(() => {
  createServer((req, res) => {
    handle(req, res);
  }).listen(3000, (err) => {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log('> Ready on http://localhost:3000');
  });
});

This code sets up a custom server that will serve your Next.js application. To start the server, run the following command in your terminal:
node server.js

This will start a development server on http://localhost:3000 where you can preview your Next.js application.

Step 3: Building hybrid React components
Next.js allows you to create hybrid React components that can be rendered on both the server and the client. To demonstrate this, let’s create a simple component that displays a list of items fetched from an API.

Create a new file called "Items.js" in the "components" directory of your project and add the following code to it:

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';

const Items = () => {
  const [items, setItems] = useState([]);

  useEffect(() => {
    fetch('https://api.example.com/items')
      .then(response => response.json())
      .then(data => setItems(data.items));
  }, []);

  return (
    <ul>
      {items.map(item => (
        <li key={item.id}>{item.name}</li>
      ))}
    </ul>
  );
};

export default Items;

This component fetches a list of items from an API and displays them in a list. Next.js will render this component on the server when the page is first loaded and then hydrate it on the client to allow for client-side interactions.

Step 4: Deploying your Next.js application to a production server
Once you have built your hybrid React application with Next.js, you can deploy it to a production server to make it accessible to users. There are several ways to deploy a Next.js application, but one of the most common methods is using a platform like Vercel or Netlify.

To deploy your Next.js application to Vercel, follow these steps:

1. Sign up for an account on Vercel and create a new project.
2. Link your GitHub repository to your Vercel project.
3. Set up your deployment settings (build commands, environment variables, etc.).
4. Click the "Deploy" button to deploy your Next.js application to Vercel.

Once the deployment process is complete, your Next.js application will be live and accessible to users from the provided URL.

In conclusion, building hybrid React applications with Next.js is a powerful way to combine the benefits of server rendering with the flexibility of client-side rendering. By following the steps outlined in this tutorial, you can create and deploy your own hybrid React applications with Next.js.