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Project introduction and setup

Building a Full Project with Nextjs: Project Introduction and Setup

Welcome to this comprehensive tutorial on setting up your first project with Next.js. By the end of this guide, you should have a solid understanding of the project structure and be able to set up a new Next.js project on your own.

Introduction​

Next.js is a powerful, open-source JavaScript framework developed by Vercel. It's built on top of React, Node.js, and JavaScript, and it's perfect for developing server-rendered JavaScript applications. Next.js provides a robust set of features like pre-rendering, automatic code splitting, and hot code reloading. It also supports TypeScript out of the box, allows for static website generation, and has excellent support for APIs and routing.

The project that we are going to create will be a simple blog site where users can read, write, and comment on posts. This will give us a chance to explore a wide range of Next.js features including data fetching, dynamic routes, and API routes.

Project Setup​

Before we begin, ensure you have Node.js and npm installed on your computer.

  1. First, open your terminal and navigate to the directory where you want your project to reside.

  2. To create a new Next.js application, we will use create-next-app, which sets up everything automatically for you. To create a new project, run the following command in your terminal:

npx create-next-app@latest my-blog-app

This command will create a new Next.js application in a directory called my-blog-app. Feel free to replace my-blog-app with the name of your project.

  1. After running the command, navigate into your new project directory:
cd my-blog-app
  1. Now, you can start the development server:
npm run dev

After running this command, you should see a message saying that your server is running and listening on http://localhost:3000. Open that URL in your browser, and you should see your new Next.js application.

Project Structure​

A new Next.js project will have the following directory structure:

  • pages: This is where you put all your pages. Next.js will automatically route files under this directory.
  • public: This directory is used for static files. They will be automatically served by Next.js.
  • styles: This is where your stylesheets go.
  • package.json: This file contains the list of project dependencies and scripts.

Conclusion​

You have successfully set up your first Next.js application and understood the basic project structure. In the next steps, we will start building out the blog application. Take some time to explore the files and directories that create-next-app generated, and make sure you understand what each one does. This will give you a good foundation for the rest of your Next.js journey. Happy coding!