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Essential React Course Setup

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csalv22 edited this page Jan 9, 2024 · 13 revisions

Welcome to Essential React. We are excited to have you on our course!

To focus on React during the course, we ask you to install the required software before the course begins. Please ensure that you have the following set up:

  • Node.js (latest LTS version)
  • A code editor like VS Code (In case you prefer a different editor for web development, feel free to use that.)

If you don't have this software set up yet, here are instructions to get you ready for the course:

  1. Download and install Node.js (latest LTS version).
  2. Open a terminal (macOS) / PowerShell (Windows).
  3. Verify that the following commands produce similar output:
$ node -v
v20.x
$ npm -v
8.x
  1. Download and install VS Code.
  2. Launch VS Code and verify that you can open and edit files with it.

Troubleshooting

Common problems are:

  • You already have some version of Node.js installed on your machine. Try to remove it and start from scratch. See below in case you want to keep multiple Node.js versions on your system.
  • (Windows) The command node -v is not found, even though you have installed it. Make sure that the path to your Node.js installation folder is set as an environment variable. If not, add it to the PATH variable.

Node.js and VS Code are popular tools. In case you are stuck setting them up, you will probably find a solution on Google when searching for the error message. If everything fails, please contact us on Teams.

Advanced: Using multiple Node.js versions with NVM

The advantage of using a Node Version Manager (NVM) is that multiple Node.js versions can be installed in parallel, without conflicts.

Note: You don't have to install Node.js using NVM. Using the above setup guide is fine.

  1. Remove all current installations of Node.js.
  2. Install a Node Version Manager
  3. Install Node.js: nvm install lts
  4. Select lts as current active version: nvm use lts
  5. Verify that everything has been installed correctly (see above).
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