If you've used Expo on iOS or Android recently you've probably used Fast Refresh (by Dan Abramov) to achieve stateful hot reloading during development. But how do you use Fast Refresh with Expo for web.?.. (Pretty easily).
On web this will update the DOM without reloading the page, this means the state will remain the same across updates. To fully update you can simply reload the window with ⌘ + R.
🤔 How to use
Currently there's no official Fast Refresh Webpack plugin, but you can get started today using a great community plugin by Michael Mok!
- Bootstrap a new universal React Native project:
-
Expo:
expo initthen select any project -
Other:
npx create-react-native-app
-
Expo:
- Install the community Fast Refresh package:
yarn add -D @pmmmwh/react-refresh-webpack-plugin webpack-hot-middleware
- Eject the Webpack config:
expo customize:web
- In your newly created
webpack.config.js:
const createExpoWebpackConfigAsync = require("@expo/webpack-config");
const ReactRefreshWebpackPlugin = require("@pmmmwh/react-refresh-webpack-plugin");
module.exports = async function (env, argv) {
const config = await createExpoWebpackConfigAsync(env, argv);
// Use the React refresh plugin in development mode
if (env.mode === "development") {
config.plugins.push(
new ReactRefreshWebpackPlugin({ disableRefreshCheck: true })
);
}
return config;
};
- Now in your
babel.config.js:
module.exports = function (api) {
// This caches the Babel config by environment.
api.cache.using(() => process.env.NODE_ENV);
return {
presets: ["babel-preset-expo"],
};
};
- Now run
expo start:webto use it!
💡 BTW
When the official React fast refresh has been released, we will work on unifying it with native to create a universal solution. Until then this is a pretty nifty little feature! :]
Why share now then?
I got the idea for this tutorial from my friend Tim Neutkens of Next.js. I highly recommend using Next.js with Expo for web especially for navigation!
👋 That's all
Thanks for reading, that's all I've got for you today. Let me know if you enjoyed this article, and reach out if you have any more questions!
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Top comments (15)
This was the result for me (though I didn't do this on a new project, but an existing one):
Invalid options object. React Refresh Plugin has been initialized using an options object that does not match the API schema.
remove disableRefreshCheck (deprecated option)
I also couldn't make it work, both with
@expo/webpack-config 0.12.20and@expo/webpack-config 0.12.17.My save does trigger a new compilation, but the webpack message sent via websocket to the browser is
{"type": "invalid"}When I do this, my iOS project gets errors like
no such file or directory "css-to-react-native"Which seems related to styled-components, but never had the issue before, and it immediately goes away when I revert.
Great tutorial!
In my case to make it work, @younes0 change was required, and additional command to solve issue with this library:
yarn add -D react-refreshAfter that is working, Expo SDK 46.
This is broken by @expo/webpack-config 0.12.20. And not just fast refresh: no refreshes happen at all.
The issue was opaque, but after enough digging I found pinning that dependency to @0.12.17 restored fast refresh functionality.
Followup: I no longer experience this problem with @expo/webpack-config 0.12.25.
it doesn't seem to work for me
ah nevermind. it worked after upgrading Expo
expo customize:webdoesn't appear to work anymore.It just says 'Exiting with no change...'
I was an expo fan, untill I started using Flutter :)
EXPO is my favorite
I could make it work in 2022 like this:
forums.expo.dev/t/enabling-fast-re...
Aaaand in 2023, not working (for me at least). Same results as with this article, it prevents the automatic refresh which loses state, but instead, nothing updates. Will keep looking.
I am here bc I can't get HMR working on Expo Go either 😥