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Using on the Web

Pre-requisites

Make sure that you have followed the getting started guide and have react-native-paper installed and configured before following this guide.

We're going to use react-native-web and webpack to use React Native Paper on the web, so let's install them as well.

To install react-native-web, run:

npm install react-native-web react-dom react-art

Using CRA (Create React App)

Install react-app-rewired to override webpack configuration:

npm install --save-dev react-app-rewired

Configure babel-loader using a new file called config-overrides.js:

module.exports = function override(config, env) {
config.module.rules.push({
test: /\.js$/,
exclude: /node_modules[/\\](?!react-native-vector-icons)/,
use: {
loader: "babel-loader",
options: {
// Disable reading babel configuration
babelrc: false,
configFile: false,

// The configuration for compilation
presets: [
["@babel/preset-env", { useBuiltIns: "usage" }],
"@babel/preset-react",
"@babel/preset-flow",
"@babel/preset-typescript"
],
plugins: [
"@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties",
"@babel/plugin-proposal-object-rest-spread"
]
}
}
});

return config;
};

Change your script in package.json:

/* package.json */

"scripts": {
- "start": "react-scripts start",
+ "start": "react-app-rewired start",
- "build": "react-scripts build",
+ "build": "react-app-rewired build",
- "test": "react-scripts test --env=jsdom",
+ "test": "react-app-rewired test --env=jsdom"
}

Custom webpack setup

To install webpack, run:

npm install --save-dev webpack webpack-cli webpack-dev-server

If you don't have a webpack config in your project, copy the following to webpack.config.js get started:

const path = require('path');

module.exports = {
mode: 'development',

// Path to the entry file, change it according to the path you have
entry: path.join(__dirname, 'App.js'),

// Path for the output files
output: {
path: path.join(__dirname, 'dist'),
filename: 'app.bundle.js',
},

// Enable source map support
devtool: 'source-map',

// Loaders and resolver config
module: {
rules: [

],
},
resolve: {

},

// Development server config
devServer: {
contentBase: [path.join(__dirname, 'public')],
historyApiFallback: true,
},
};

Also create a folder named public and add the following file named index.html:

<!doctype html>
<head>
<meta charSet="utf-8" />
<meta httpEquiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,minimum-scale=1,initial-scale=1" />

<title>App</title>

<style>
html, body, #root {
height: 100%;
}

#root {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="root"></div>
<script src="app.bundle.js"></script>
</body>

Now we're ready to start configuring the project.

Configure webpack

1. Alias react-native to react-native-web

First, we have to tell webpack to use react-native-web instead of react-native. Add the following alias in your webpack config under resolve:

alias: {
'react-native$': require.resolve('react-native-web'),
}

2. Configure babel-loader

Next, we want to tell babel-loader to compile react-native-paper and react-native-vector-icons. We would also want to disable reading the babel configuration files to prevent any conflicts.

First install the required dependencies:

npm install --save-dev babel-loader @babel/preset-env @babel/preset-react @babel/preset-flow @babel/preset-typescript @babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties @babel/plugin-proposal-object-rest-spread

Now, add the following in the module.rules array in your webpack config:

{
test: /\.js$/,
exclude: /node_modules[/\\](?!react-native-vector-icons)/,
use: {
loader: 'babel-loader',
options: {
// Disable reading babel configuration
babelrc: false,
configFile: false,

// The configuration for compilation
presets: [
['@babel/preset-env', { useBuiltIns: 'usage' }],
'@babel/preset-react',
'@babel/preset-flow',
"@babel/preset-typescript"
],
plugins: [
'@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties',
'@babel/plugin-proposal-object-rest-spread'
],
},
},
},

3. Configure file-loader

webpack < 5.0

To be able to import images and other assets using require, we need to configure file-loader. Let's install it:

npm install --save-dev file-loader

To configure it, add the following in the module.rules array in your webpack config:

{
test: /\.(jpg|png|woff|woff2|eot|ttf|svg)$/,
loader: 'file-loader',
}
webpack >= 5.0

Use asset/resource, since file-loader was deprecated in webpack v5.

{
test: /\.(jpg|png|woff|woff2|eot|ttf|svg)$/,
type: 'asset/resource'
}

Load the Material Community Icons

If you followed the getting started guide, you should have the following code in your root component:

<PaperProvider>
<App />
</PaperProvider>

Now we need tweak this section to load the Material Community Icons from the react-native-vector-icons library:

<PaperProvider>
<React.Fragment>
{Platform.OS === 'web' ? (
<style type="text/css">{`
@font-face {
font-family: 'MaterialCommunityIcons';
src: url(${require('react-native-vector-icons/Fonts/MaterialCommunityIcons.ttf')}) format('truetype');
}
`}</style>
) : null}
<App />
</React.Fragment>
</PaperProvider>

Remember to import Platform from react-native at the top:

import { Platform } from 'react-native';

You can also load these fonts using css-loader if you prefer.

Load the Roboto fonts (optional)

The default theme in React Native Paper uses the Roboto font. You can add them to your project following the instructions on its Google Fonts page.

We're done!

You can run webpack-dev-server to run the webpack server and open your project in the browser. You can add the following script in your package.json under the "scripts" section to make it easier:

"web": "webpack-dev-server --open"

Now you can run yarn web to run the project on web.