React with Typescript hot reload IIS webserver

Question

I would like to use hot reloading when developing my React Application in TypeScript with a C# Web Api backend. I use .Net framework and not Core so I need to use IIS or IIS Express. I can have hot reloading for the front end using webpack dev server without a problem but then I can't access the API resources. Can I achieve this?

Answer 1

Found a solution for it using webpack dev server as reverse proxy to the IIS.

NPM:

npm install --save react-hot-loader@next

npm install webpack-dev-server --save-dev

webpack.config.js, proxy is where the IIS is running:

var webpack = require('webpack');
var path = require("path");
var proxy = 'localhost:61299';

module.exports = {
    entry: [
        // activate HMR for React
        'react-hot-loader/patch',

        // the entry point of our app
        './Scripts/src/index.tsx',
    ],
    //entry: "./Scripts/src/index.tsx",
    output: {
        filename: "./Scripts/dist/bundle.js",
    },

    // Enable sourcemaps for debugging webpack's output.
    devtool: "source-map",

    resolve: {
        // Add '.ts' and '.tsx' as resolvable extensions.
        extensions: [".webpack.js", ".web.js", ".ts", ".tsx", ".js"]
    },

    module: {
        loaders: [
            // All files with a '.ts' or '.tsx' extension will be handled by 'ts-loader'.
            //{ test: /\.tsx?$/, loader: "ts-loader" }
            { test: /\.tsx?$/, loader: ['react-hot-loader/webpack', 'ts-loader'] }
        ]
    },

    plugins: [
        new webpack.HotModuleReplacementPlugin(),
        // enable HMR globally

        new webpack.NamedModulesPlugin(),
        // prints more readable module names in the browser console on HMR updates
    ],

    devServer: {
        proxy: {
            '*': {
                target: 'http://' + proxy,
            }
        },
        port: 8080,
        host: '0.0.0.0',
        hot: true,
    },
}

I can then start the web server by using this command from the project root folder: node_modules\.bin\webpack-dev-server. If I then access http://localhost:8080/ I have hot reloading and I can still use the C# web api since it will proxy IIS Express at "http://localhost:61299/"