how do I install React?

Hey @tinnis,

There are two ways to go about this, the first one would be using the Droplet you have and the second one going for the DigitalOcean App platform.

In case you choose the DigitalOcean App platform, you can follow this tutorial:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-deploy-a-react-application-to-digitalocean-app-platform

In case you choose the Droplet, you can follow these steps:

To install React in your Digital Ocean droplet, follow these steps. This assumes you’re using Ubuntu and that you already have npm (Node.js Package Manager) installed.

1. Log into your server:

Use SSH to log into your Digital Ocean droplet:

ssh root@your_droplet_ip

Replace “your_droplet_ip” with the IP address of your droplet.

2. Update your Ubuntu system:

Before installing any new software, it’s generally a good idea to make sure your Ubuntu system is up to date. You can do this with the following commands:

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade

3. Install create-react-app:

Create React App is a comfortable environment for learning React, and is the best way to start building a new single-page application in React. It sets up your development environment so that you can use the latest JavaScript features, provides a nice developer experience, and optimizes your app for production.

You can install it globally using the following command:

npm install -g create-react-app

4. Create a new React application:

Once you have create-react-app installed, you can use it to create a new React application with the following command:

create-react-app my-app

Replace “my-app” with the name of your application.

5. Start the application:

To start your React application, navigate into the application directory and start the server:

cd my-app npm start

Your React application should now be running. You can access it by opening a web browser and navigating to http://your_droplet_ip:3000. Replace “your_droplet_ip” with the IP address of your droplet.

6. Set up a production build (optional):

The above steps will run your application in development mode. If you’re ready to create a production build, use the following command in your application directory:

npm run build

This will create a build directory in your application directory with a production-ready version of your application.

Please note that you’ll want to set up a proper web server like Nginx to serve your production React application, as the built-in server is not suitable for production.

Remember to open up the necessary port (3000 by default) on your server if you have a firewall running.

If you run into any issues or have additional questions, feel free to ask!