Learning D3.js - The basics

Although this repository was created for learning purposes, it can be easily used as a boilerplate for D3.js projects.

One of the biggest advantages of this project setup is that it comes with the webpack-dev-server package, which gives you a really simple live reloading. As you will be working mainly with visual output, it is a great thing to have things updated without you having to change to your browser and reload the page manually.

Also, loaders for Babel and Sass are already configured so you are able to take advantages of ES6 features and structure your stylesheets in a fashionable way as well :)

If you want to read more about this project structure and the concepts behind it, you can take a look at this related post.

Setup

If you already have node and npm installed in your machine, you can simply run the commands listed in the steps below.

1. Install dependencies

$ npm install

Or using yarn

$ yarn install

2. Run server

$ npm start

Or using yarn

$ yarn start

Now you can open you browser and go to http://localhost:4800/. You should see the D3 version this project uses, which is provided by the snippet shown below (also available in app.js).

import * as d3 from 'd3'

d3.select('#root')
  .append('h5')
  .append('text')
  .text(`D3 version: ${d3.version}`)

Build

If you wanna generate the minified files for the project you can simply run the command below.

$ npm run build

Or using yarn

$ yarn run build

If everything goes alright, then you are ready to start some D3 hacking. Have fun! :)

Loading external data

As loading external data is one of the most common things in a D3 project, this setup includes a basic flow to serve data files, such as JSON and CSV.
The webpack.config.js file includes a step in which all the files living in the data folder are copied to the dist folder so you can require them as you want. The default folder is called data and lives in the project root. If you want to change the name or location for that folder you just have to update the constant called paths in the webpack.config.js to match with your desired folder location.

In the app.js file you can find an example on loading external files using D3. At the moment you clone this repo, the sample.csv file is already copied for you in the dist folder. However, if you want to add more data files or change the existing one, you will have to build the project so you will have those modifications available for you in the dist folder.

// Loading external data
d3.csv('/data/sample.csv', (error, dataset) => {
  dataset.forEach((data) => {
    console.log(data)
  })
})

Useful resources

• Scott Murray D3 Tutorials
• 25+ Resources to Learn D3.js from Scratch