Create React Front-End Web Applications with Python

Create responsive front-end web applications in Python using the React and Material-UI JavaScript libraries, without having to program in JavaScript. How can you do this? By using the Transcrypt transpiler that turns your Python code into JavaScript.

Using a Python-centric viewpoint, this book outlines the developer tools and software libraries needed to develop front-end web applications with Python. It specifically focuses on the popular React library and open-source Material-UI library that includes a collection of themed React components. It presents React concepts in a way that is specifically geared towards Python developers. This means that you don't have to be an expert in JavaScript to be able to learn how to create React applications with Python.

The book includes chapters covering the developer toolchain setup, as well as how to implement specific application features. Then, in a learn-by-doing fashion, the last section of the book walks you through building a fully functional example application from start to finish. This part of the book is a full project tutorial that will give you a good idea of how everything fits together. This includes setting up a REST API using Flask, creating a functional single-page application with React that is coded using Python, and serving up the transpiled front-end web application with the Flask server.

Included in the book are chapters covering topics such as:

Form creation
Asynchronous requests with a Flask REST service
Client session management
Single Page Application routing
Incorporating Google Analytics

React to Python project screen capture — Demo project from Part III of the book:

Book Outline

Part I: Getting Started

Introduction
First Application
JavaScript Functions
Sourcemaps
Intro to React
React Concepts
Cleaner Code
Managing JavaScript Packages
Package Bundler

Part II: Building Blocks

Text Input
Lists
Forms
React Components
JavaScript Examples
CSS
Material-UI
Parcel Web Proxy
Asynchronous Requests
React Context Hook
Transcrypt Miscellany
Application Versioning
Google Analytics
Developer Tools

Part III: Putting it all Together

Project Outline
Environment Setup
Landing Page
Modal View
REST Service
Books
Menus
User Login
Lookups
User Context
Editing Lookups
Filtering Data
Editing Books
SPA Redirect
Deploying the Application

The Developer Toolchain

Python

Because Python is the programming language you love to use!

Transcrypt

The Python-to-JavaScript transpiler that makes it all work.

React & Material-UI

Functional reactive web development with themed components.

Flask

Lightweight Python application server for REST API services.

npm & Parcel

JavaScript package management and zero-configuration bundler.

Where to Buy