create-near-app VS nvm

For this guide, I decided to build an NFT Market Place using Near Protocol, although there is a much faster way of setting up a near project using create-near-app, I wanted to put the pieces together to make it easier to understand.

For near dapps there is a npx binary create-near-app. It has some options to choose what type of frontend you are going to use and also what type of smart contract you are going to use. Here are the option you can use:

That's it, now you can try to build some nice web app to have a frontend application which can use your smart contract. Usefull library to get started with the js api for building near web apps is near-api-js or if you're familiar with react you can use create-near-app library. Good luck!

Node.js + Nvm - runtime for javascript without a browser

Install Node.js if it hasn't been installed. There are several ways to install Node.js. You may download the installer from the official website, or install it with tools like NVM. After installation, run this command to verify its installation.

Our server also needs Node.js to run our app. We could install the binary directly, but I prefer to use a tool called NVM, which allows us to easily manage Node versions. We can install it with this command:

By setting up your environment in isolation, you can prevent yourself from a lot of issues when experimenting with code. It makes your code behave more predictable due to the defined state of the runtime environment you are working with. This article should provide you with enough information to get started, but obviously, there is a lot more power embedded in NVM, Virtual Environment and RBEnv. So make sure to check their documentation.

I highly recommend setting up nodejs with a version manager, nvm was and still is a popular option, however, I now recommend and have been using fnm, a simpler and faster alternative to manage my nodejs versions.

The purpose of a version manager is to help you navigate or install any tools for development easily. Version Manager can be one tool for each dependency (e.g. NVM, g) or One tool for all dependencies (e.g. asdf, mise).

I usually develop on Windows so I installed NVM for Windows from here, but if you’re on other OS I’m sure you can find a version that supports it, probably this is the answer.

This was a very quick introduction to how I setup NodeJS on my environment using nvm. If you have any questions please refer to the official documentation or contact me via my Social Links.

Source: Can this be used to create/download npm as a standalone executable? #3237.