[FEATURE] webpack.config.js for server-side rendering

[CDRO]

Hello!

First of all, I'd like to thank you for this awesome work! This really got us kickstarted quite well and we'll be able to work with this as a solid base for our React projects! It's awesome!

Still, I found one major concern with the current state of the project and it's mainly SEO.

So, with webpack it is possible to render the HTML staticaly (https://github.com/webpack/react-webpack-server-side-example) but I haven't figured out how to configure my relay-fullstack instance to do that, at all.

Here's my webpack.config.js, maybe you can tell me what is wrong or maybe suggest a way to do it properly?

Regards Tizian

webpack.config.js: 'use strict';

const path = require('path');
const webpack = require('webpack');
const autoprefixer = require('autoprefixer');
const precss = require('precss');
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin');
const FaviconsWebpackPlugin = require('favicons-webpack-plugin');

let appEntry;
let devtool;
let plugins;

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
  appEntry = [path.join(__dirname, 'client/index.js')];
  devtool = 'source-map';
  plugins = [
    new webpack.optimize.DedupePlugin(),
    new webpack.optimize.OccurrenceOrderPlugin(),
    new webpack.optimize.CommonsChunkPlugin('vendor', 'vendor.js'),
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      'process.env': {
        NODE_ENV: JSON.stringify('production')
      }
    }),
    new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
      compress: {
        warnings: false,
        screw_ie8: true
      }
    }),
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
      title: 'Relay Starter Kit - Integrated with Relay, GraphQL, Express, ES6/ES7, JSX, Webpack, Babel, Material Design Lite, and PostCSS',
      template: './client/index.html',
      mobile: true,
      inject: false
    }),
    new FaviconsWebpackPlugin('./client/assets/logo.png')
  ];
} else {
  appEntry = [
    path.join(__dirname, 'client/index.js'),
    'webpack-dev-server/client?http://localhost:3000',
    'webpack/hot/only-dev-server'
  ];
  devtool = 'eval';
  plugins = [
    new webpack.optimize.CommonsChunkPlugin('vendor', 'vendor.js'),
    new webpack.NoErrorsPlugin(),
    new webpack.HotModuleReplacementPlugin(),
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      __DEV__: true
    }),
    new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
      title: 'Relay Starter Kit - Integrated with Relay, GraphQL, Express, ES6/ES7, JSX, Webpack, Babel, Material Design Lite, and PostCSS',
      template: './client/index.html',
      mobile: true,
      inject: false
    }),
    new FaviconsWebpackPlugin('./client/assets/logo.png')
  ];
}

var commonLoaders = [
    { test: /\.js$/, loader: 'babel-loader', },
    { test: /\.png$/, loader: "url-loader" },
    { test: /\.jpg$/, loader: "file-loader" },
];

var assetsPath = path.join(__dirname, "public", "assets");
var publicPath = "assets/";

module.exports = [
    {
        // The configuration for the server-side rendering
        name: "server-side rendering",
        entry: "./server/page.js",
        target: "node",
        output: {
            path: assetsPath,
            filename: "../../server/page.generated.js",
            publicPath: publicPath,
            libraryTarget: "commonjs2"
        },
        resolve: {
            extensions: ['', '.jsx', '.js']
        },
        externals: /^[a-z\-0-9]+$/,
        module: {
            loaders:[
                { test: /\.jsx?$/, loader: "babel-loader", query: { presets: ['react', 'es2015'] } },
                { test: /\.jpe?g$|\.png$|\.gif$/, loader: "file-loader" }
            ]
        }
    }
];

/*
module.exports = {
  entry: {
    app: appEntry,
    vendor: ['react', 'react-dom', 'react-mdl', 'react-relay', 'react-router', 'react-router-relay']
  },
  output: {
    path: path.join(__dirname, 'build'),
    publicPath: '/',
    filename: '[name].js'
  },
  devtool,
  module: {
    loaders: [{
      test: /\.jsx?$/,
      loader: 'babel-loader',
      exclude: /node_modules/
    }, {
      test: /\.css$/,
      loaders: ['style', 'css']
    }, {
      test: /\.scss$/,
      loaders: [
        'style',
        'css?modules&importLoaders=1' +
          '&localIdentName=[name]__[local]___[hash:base64:5]!postcss'
      ]
    }, {
      test: /\.(png|jpg|jpeg|gif|svg|woff|woff2|eot|ttf)(\?\S*)?$/,
      loader: 'url-loader?limit=10000&name=assets/[hash].[ext]'
      //loader: 'file'
    }
    //,{test: /test woff/, loader}
    ]
  },
  postcss: () => [precss, autoprefixer],
  plugins
};
*/

[lvarayut]

Hi Tizian, Thanks for the question. I have planned to integrate server-side rendering for a long time. Unfortunately, I don't have time to do it very soon. Relay doesn't support server-side rendering out of the box. You might need to take a look at isomorphic-relay-router. A PR would be also very welcomed

[robrobkay51]

The Relay 2 (release date supposedly soon but not yet confirmed) approach to SSR might be of interest here:

"Our overall approach with the new core has been to build simple primitives that can be built upon in user space. So for example, there is a clear separation of the React integration layer and the core - the former being implemented entirely via the public API of the latter. It might take a few releases to refine and document this, but i expect that it will be easy for the community to build upon this to make a server rendering module for Relay." source: https://github.com/facebook/relay/issues/1369