Install and Initialization#

Before all start, you may need install yarn.

$ yarn create react-app antd-demo

# or

$ npx create-react-app antd-demo

The tool will create and initialize environment and dependencies automatically, please try config your proxy setting or use another npm registry if any network errors happen during it.

Then we go inside antd-demo and start it.

$ cd antd-demo
$ yarn start

Open the browser at http://localhost:3000/. It renders a header saying "Welcome to React" on the page.

Import antd#

Below is the default directory structure.

├── README.md
├── package.json
├── public
│   ├── favicon.ico
│   └── index.html
├── src
│   ├── App.css
│   ├── App.js
│   ├── App.test.js
│   ├── index.css
│   ├── index.js
│   └── logo.svg
└── yarn.lock

Now we install antd from yarn or npm.

$ yarn add antd

Modify src/App.js, import Button component from antd.

import React from 'react';
import { Button } from 'antd';
import './App.css';

const App = () => (
  <div className="App">
    <Button type="primary">Button</Button>
  </div>
);

export default App;

Add antd/dist/antd.css at the top of src/App.css.

@import '~antd/dist/antd.css';

OK, you should now see a blue primary button displayed on the page. Next you can choose any components of antd to develop your application. Visit other workflows of create-react-app at its User Guide.

We are successfully running antd components now, go build your own application!

Test with Jest#

create-react-app comes with jest built in. Jest does not support esm modules, and Ant Design uses them. In order to test your Ant Design application with Jest you have to add the following to your package.json :

"jest": {
  "transformIgnorePatterns": [
    "/node_modules/(?!antd|@ant-design|rc-.+?|@babel/runtime).+(js|jsx)$"
  ]
}

Advanced Guides#

In the real world, we usually have to modify default webpack config for custom needs such as themes. We can achieve that by using craco which is one of create-react-app's custom config solutions.

Install craco and modify the scripts field in package.json.

$ yarn add @craco/craco

/* package.json */
"scripts": {
-   "start": "react-scripts start",
-   "build": "react-scripts build",
-   "test": "react-scripts test",
+   "start": "craco start",
+   "build": "craco build",
+   "test": "craco test",
}

Then create a craco.config.js at root directory of your project for further overriding.

/* craco.config.js */
module.exports = {
  // ...
};

Customize Theme#

According to the Customize Theme documentation, we need to modify less variables via loader like less-loader. We can use craco-less to achieve that,

First we should modify src/App.css to src/App.less, then import less file instead.

/* src/App.js */
- import './App.css';
+ import './App.less';

/* src/App.less */
- @import '~antd/dist/antd.css';
+ @import '~antd/dist/antd.less';

Then install craco-less and modify craco.config.js like below.

$ yarn add craco-less

const CracoLessPlugin = require('craco-less');

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    {
      plugin: CracoLessPlugin,
      options: {
        lessLoaderOptions: {
          lessOptions: {
            modifyVars: { '@primary-color': '#1DA57A' },
            javascriptEnabled: true,
          },
        },
      },
    },
  ],
};

By adding modifyVars option of less-loader here, we should see a green button rendered on the page after rebooting the server now.

We provide built-in dark theme and compact theme in antd, you can reference to Use dark or compact theme.

You could also try react-app-rewired and customize-cra to customize create-react-app webpack config like craco did.

eject#

You can also eject your application using yarn run eject for a custom setup of create-react-app, although you should dig into it by yourself.

Summary#

Finally, we used antd with create-react-app successfully, the source code of this guide was pushed to create-react-app-antd which you could clone and use it directly.

Next part, We will introduce how to use antd in TypeScript and Umi, let's keep moving!