💥 Native preact/compat alias using only NPM

[iamandrewluca]

I'm playing around to move to Preact in a create-react-app.

In docs Preact says you need to alias react and react-dom to preact/compat.
create-react-app not allows aliases by default, you need to eject or use craco or `react-app-rewired

Then I remembered that NPM allows you to install a package under any name, using:

npm install new-name@npm:real-name

And I ralised that npm: is just the protocol, and we can use other protocols, like file:

Install Preact

npm install preact

NPM Alias react and react-dom to preact/compat

npm install react@file:node_modules/preact/compat
npm install react-dom@file:node_modules/preact/compat

After install, remove compat types so TypeScript can consume @types/react

npm set-script postinstall "rm node_modules/react/src/index.d.ts"

Boom 💥 -33.8KB from bundle

There is no need to configure your build system at all.
And it just works!

PR: roataway/roataway-web#153
Build: https://app.netlify.com/sites/roataway/deploys/61721171aa8d4d00086a89d2
Preview: https://deploy-preview-153--roataway.netlify.app/

[piotr-cz]

Same effect should be simpler to accomplish with @preact/compat package.
However I'm not sure how well it will play with create-react-app.