Customize webpack paths (src/build)

[sebald]

tl;dr; Are there any plans (or is there any demand) in making some paths customlizable? Like appIndexJs, appHtml or appBuild.

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Context: The reason why I am asking this is that I am developing an app and wanted to use create-react-app to ease my way into working with React. Since the backend is a node server I want to share some code between client and server. Currently I have the folder setup like this:

project/
  src/
    client/
    server/
    shared/

I know about this example: https://github.com/fullstackreact/food-lookup-demo
The problem that I have with this setup is that webpack watchers would not automatically update/refresh when I change code in the shared folder. I know that I just can eject, but I want to profit from all the great updates! :)

So, I would like to change appIndexJs and appHtml to src/client/index.js/src/client/index.html.

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Proposal: Add some configuration options to package.json to further configure create-react-app. This is done by other software already, e.g. ava.

This would allow (beside the "no-config" usage) to have some "advanced" configuration without ejecting. If this is something other people than me want, I would love to make a PR :)

[shrynx]

@sebald Exactly my thoughts , Having a default yet configurable webpack would be really helpful. I am currently working on implementing this feature in my own repo (Hopefully will be done in a few hours.)
Gatsby (https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby) provides this feature by leveraging Webpack configurator (https://github.com/lewie9021/webpack-configurator). Though i am preferring to use webpack-config(https://github.com/mdreizin/webpack-config) as it is more active.

[shrynx]

For reference , this is from gatsby documentation
https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby#how-to-use-your-own-webpack-loaders

[sebald]

@shrynx I think this is not part of the core-ideas of create-react-app. I guess my proposal isn't either, but I wanted to ask anyway :)

[shrynx]

Oh yes definitely, That's why i am preferring on creating my own repo for this.
But there is thread regarding plugin system too , so maybe this could be useful
#670

[sebald]

Thanks for the link, that very interesting.

Just for reference: This is what I suggested https://github.com/sebald/create-react-app/commit/7407b19b7ec03410e8ee260101add60aa4ad0e05
Super minimal, but makes the package configurable/extensible.

[gaearon]

Hi, thanks for the suggestion. I expect that we might look into the problem of sharing code as part of work on #741.

However we won't be adding configuration options for source and build output folder. If configuring them is important to you, we recommend that you use Webpack (or other tools) directly to have full control over your setup.