Building Scalable and Efficient Apps with Next.js and Ant Design
As a developer, building a rich user interface with minimal work and less time is crucial for delivering high-quality applications. This is where Ant Design comes in – an enterprise UI design library for React applications that helps speed up development cycles. In this article, we’ll explore how to integrate Ant Design with Next.js, a popular React framework known for its performance, developer experience, and prebuilt configuration.
Getting Started
To begin, let’s create a new Next.js app using the following command:
npx create-next-app my-app
Next, install Ant Design using the following command:
npm install antd
Configuring Ant Design
Import the Ant Design CSS file in the _app.js file to globally import the styles:
jsx
import 'antd/dist/antd.css';
Adding Ant Design Components
Let’s start adding Ant Design components to our app. We’ll cover the essential components, including layouts, forms, tables, and icons.
Layouts
Remove the existing code from index.js and add the following code to include the top bar and sidebar with menus:
“`jsx
import { Layout } from ‘antd’;
const { Header, Sider, Content } = Layout;
function App() {
return (
);
}
export default App;
“`
Forms
Create a custom form component in the components folder and add the following code:
“`jsx
import { Form, Input, Button } from ‘antd’;
const CustomForm = () => {
const [form] = Form.useForm();
const onFinish = (values) => {
console.log(values);
};
return (
);
};
export default CustomForm;
“`
Tables
Create a custom table component in the components folder and add the following code:
“`jsx
import { Table } from ‘antd’;
const columns = [
{
title: ‘Name’,
dataIndex: ‘name’,
key: ‘name’,
},
{
title: ‘Age’,
dataIndex: ‘age’,
key: ‘age’,
},
];
const dataSource = [
{
key: ‘1’,
name: ‘John Doe’,
age: 32,
},
{
key: ‘2’,
name: ‘Jane Doe’,
age: 28,
},
];
const CustomTable = () => {
return (
);
};
export default CustomTable;
“`
Icons
Install the Ant Design icons package using the following command:
npm install @ant-design/icons
Import the icons in your component and use them as follows:
“`jsx
import { SmileOutlined } from ‘@ant-design/icons’;
const CustomIcon = () => {
return (
);
};
export default CustomIcon;
“`
Optimizing Performance
One major issue when using Ant Design is the large CSS bundle size. To optimize performance, we can reduce the CSS bundle size by importing only the necessary styles for each component.
Use the next-plugin-antd-less and babel-plugin-import packages to achieve this. Install the packages using the following commands:
npm install next-plugin-antd-less babel-plugin-import
Configure the plugins in the next.config.js file:
js
module.exports = {
// ...
plugins: [
require('next-plugin-antd-less'),
require('babel-plugin-import'),
],
};
Remove the imported Ant Design CSS file from the _app.js file.
Conclusion
Ant Design helps build rich user interfaces with minimal work and less time. By integrating Ant Design with Next.js, we can build scalable, efficient, and developer-friendly apps. By optimizing performance, we can reduce the CSS bundle size and improve the overall user experience.
Explore the Ant Design documentation to learn more about the available components and features.