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universal-redux

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An npm package that lets you jump right into coding React and Redux with universal (isomorphic) rendering. Only manage Express setups or Webpack configurations if you want to.

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# Universal Redux

[![npm version](https://badge.fury.io/js/universal-redux.svg)](https://badge.fury.io/js/universal-redux)
[![build status](https://img.shields.io/travis/bdefore/universal-redux/master.svg?style=flat-square)](https://travis-ci.org/bdefore/universal-redux)
[![Dependency Status](https://david-dm.org/bdefore/universal-redux.svg?style=flat-square)](https://david-dm.org/bdefore/universal-redux)
[![devDependency Status](https://david-dm.org/bdefore/universal-redux/dev-status.svg?style=flat-square)](https://david-dm.org/bdefore/universal-redux#info=devDependencies)
[![Demo on Heroku](https://img.shields.io/badge/demo-heroku-brightgreen.svg?style=flat-square)](https://universal-redux.herokuapp.com)
[![Discord](https://img.shields.io/badge/Discord-join%20chat%20%E2%86%92-738bd7.svg?style=flat-square)](https://discord.gg/0ZcbPKXt5bXmzEb4)

### Deprecation Notice

This tool had a nice good run of things, but it's no longer recommended for greenfield projects. Consider [Create React App](https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app) to be a currently maintained spiritual successor.

### What and Why

Universal Redux is an npm package that when used as a dependency in your project provides a universal (isomorphic) rendering server. You can either use its defaults and begin coding your project, or configure it to your liking with custom Webpack options and Express or Redux middleware. It's intended as both an easy starting point for developers new to React and Redux, as well as an extensible base by which advanced developers can augment with their own middleware and keep up to date with the fast-moving React ecosystem.

### Getting Started

The quickest way to get started is to clone the [starter project](https://github.com/bdefore/universal-redux-starter). This gives you a base project that is set up with default configurations of Webpack and Express.

#### Other Examples

- [An example with JWT authentication](https://github.com/bdefore/universal-redux-jwt) ([Heroku demo](https://universal-redux-jwt-example.herokuapp.com))
- [A refactor of react-redux-universal-hot-example with universal-redux and react-router-redux](https://github.com/bdefore/react-redux-universal-hot-example/tree/babel6) ([Heroku demo](https://universal-redux.herokuapp.com))
- [An example using Koa instead of Express](https://github.com/bartolkaruza/universal-redux-koa)

### Usage

Your project must define a set of routes as specified by a [React Router](https://github.com/rackt/react-router) configuration, but other than that, your folder structure and development path is up to you. Depending on your other dependencies, you may want to use a version of Universal Redux that is not the latest, using the [section below](https://github.com/bdefore/universal-redux#what-version-to-use) to decide.

#### Requirements

Node.JS >= 4.1.1
npm >= 3.3.12 (install via `npm install -g npm@3` if you are on Node 4)

#### Install

```
npm install --save universal-redux
```

### Customization

The configuration file in your project at `config/universal-redux.config.js` defines what properties you want to customize. You can start by copying the [annotated example](https://github.com/bdefore/universal-redux/blob/master/config/universal-redux.config.js). The configuration file is optional and is only necessary if you wish to modify default behavior.

#### Routes

Generally kept in `src/routes.js`, this is where you define what routes map to what views. See [`routes.js`](https://github.com/bdefore/react-redux-universal-hot-example/blob/example-project/src/routes.js) in the example project.

#### Webpack configuration

Any items specified in the `webpack.config` of your configuration will be merged with the [default Webpack configuration](https://github.com/bdefore/universal-redux/blob/master/config/webpack.config.js). You may also turn on `verbose` mode to see the exact Webpack configuration you are running.

#### Express middleware

You can add Express middleware by creating your own server.js like so:

```javascript
import { express, renderer, start } from 'universal-redux';
import config from '../config/universal-redux.config.js';

const app = express(config);

// app.use(someMiddleware);
// app.use(someOtherMiddleware);

app.use(renderer(config));
start(app, config);
```

You will need to run this server.js instead of calling the default universal-redux-server.

Alternatively, you may create your own Express instance, add middleware beforehand and pass that instance as parameter when calling `universal.app(app)`.

#### Redux middleware

You can activate your own Redux middleware by specifying the `middleware` property in the configuration file. This must be a path to a file which exports each middleware as a function. All properties specified in `globals` will be available to the middleware.

#### Adding your own items to HTML head

The `html.head` configuration allows you to define your own `<head>` that will be merged with the necessary items for serverside rendering. You can see an example of this in the JWT project [here](https://github.com/bdefore/universal-redux-jwt/blob/master/src/containers/Head/Head.js).

Alternatively, you can specify `html.root` in your configuration and this will be used instead of the default one. If you do take that approach, you'll want to be sure to include the items from `src/server/head.js` and `src/server/body.js`.

#### Webpack Isomorphic Tools configuration

You can add or override the default [webpack-isomorphic-tools](https://github.com/halt-hammerzeit/webpack-isomorphic-tools) configuration, by providing a `toolsConfigPath` value to your `config.js`.

#### Scripts

The following npm bin aliases have been defined:

```
universal-redux-watch
universal-redux-server
universal-redux-build
```

You'll generally call these from the corresponding section of your project's scripts. See [`package.json`](https://github.com/bdefore/react-redux-universal-hot-example/blob/example-project/package.json) in the example project.

### What version to use

Peer dependencies for each version:

#### 0.x

[Babel](https://github.com/babel/babel) 5, [Redux Router](https://github.com/acdlite/redux-router)

```
"react": "^0.14.3",
"react-dom": "^0.14.3",
"react-router": "^1.0.0",
"redux-router": "^1.0.0-beta4"
```

#### 1.x

[Babel](https://github.com/babel/babel) 5, [Redux Simple Router](https://github.com/rackt/react-router-redux)

```
"react": "^0.14.3",
"react-dom": "^0.14.3",
"react-router": "^1.0.0",
"redux-simple-router": "^1.0.1"
```

#### 2.x

[Babel](https://github.com/babel/babel) 6, [Redux Simple Router](https://github.com/rackt/react-router-redux)

```
"react": "^0.14.3",
"react-dom": "^0.14.3",
"react-router": "^1.0.0",
"redux-simple-router": "^1.0.1"
```

#### 3.x

[Babel](https://github.com/babel/babel) 6, [React Router](https://github.com/rackt/react-router) 2, [React Router Redux](https://github.com/rackt/react-router-redux) 3 (Redux Simple Router renamed) is available but optional.

```
"react": "^0.14.3",
"react-dom": "^0.14.3",
"react-router": "^2.0.0-rc4",
```

#### 4.x

[Babel](https://github.com/babel/babel) 6, [React Router](https://github.com/rackt/react-router) 2, [React Router Redux](https://github.com/rackt/react-router-redux) 3 (Redux Simple Router renamed) is available but optional.

```
"react": "^15.0.0",
"react-dom": "^15.0.0",
"react-router": "^2.0.0",
```

### Local development

If you'd like to develop on Universal Redux, clone the repo and while testing with a project that uses it, you can run `PROJECT_PATH=/path/to/project npm run dev` from the Universal Redux root, which will watch for changes and copy them over to your project's `node_modules/universal-redux/lib` directory. If any of your changes add dependencies, you will need to copy those over manually.

### Inspirations

This project forked off of [react-redux-universal-hot-example](https://github.com/erikras/react-redux-universal-hot-example). Please refer to the README there for more details and join the discussion at the [pull request](https://github.com/erikras/react-redux-universal-hot-example/pull/759).

universal-redux

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