Building an editable restaurant menu using Next.js, GraphCMS and Heroku

With this tutorial you will learn how to create GraphQL APIs with user generated content using Next.js, GraphCMS and Heroku. This setup provides users a friendly admin interface to create, edit and delete content, while also letting developers build using their preferred tools (in this case server side rendered React and a GraphQL API).

You are going to build a restaurant menu with a design inspired by the stylish menu of The Roof, a Shanghai restaurant.

Users will be able to edit meals, drinks and prices thanks to GraphCMS's content management system.

The app will be rendered on the server using Next.js. This means that content is indexable by search engines. Search engine discoverability is the main reason why you'd choose to develop an app using Next.js instead of Create React App.

Rendering the menu on the server also improves your user's experience. As soon as they enter the page, they will receive an HTML page with the content already in place. This provides a better performance than client side rendering; which would mean that the users receive an empty page, wait for the API to respond, and seeing the menu only after it responds.

In order to implement this restaurant menu, you will first identify the elements that make up this particular menu. The second step will be setting up a Node project. After that, you will design the shape of the data as a JSON structure. Once the data has a nice shape, you will use it to develop a menu with static content. You will bring the content to life by connecting the app with data from a GraphCMS instance. Finally you will deploy this application to Heroku.

Contents

Analysis

Let's analyze the menu that you are going to turn into a webpage. Painting a mental picture of the elements of the domain model is a nice way to understand it before jumping into coding.

There are two pages, food and drinks. Let's name them categories.

Each category is divided into many subcategories. Food is is divided into plates, breads, snacks and sweet. Drinks is divided into martinis and drinks.

All subcategories have many items. Each item has a description and a price.

Now that all elements of the menu have a name, the next step is setting up the development environment.

Project setup

You need to have NodeJS and Yarn installed on your machine.

Create a new folder which will contain the project's source code.

Run yarn init -y to create a package.json file with default values.

To make development a little easier, you will create three yarn tasks. The tasks will be called dev , build and start . To create them, add a key named scripts to package.json with the following contents.

"scripts" : { "dev" : "next -p ${PORT-3000}" , "build" : "next build" , "start" : "next start -p ${PORT-3000}" }

The dev and start tasks use a bash feature called parameter expansion. next -p ${PORT-3000} means that the app will receive a default value of 3000 in case the PORT environment variable is not set. Read more about bash's parameter expansion in the Bash wiki.

Now it's the time to install all the dependencies. The project will only use four libraries. React and React DOM for rendering components. NextJs will take care of project configuration tasks like serving content, server side rendering and routing. Finally, Isomorphic Unfetch will server as a fetch polyfill that works on the server and on the client.

Run the following command to install all dependencies.

yarn add react react-dom next isomorphic-unfetch

Your dev environment is ready, in the next step you will focus on data.

Data

Let's translate the menu analysis to a JSON file. Having a clear image of what the data looks like will make future steps easier, like building components or creating a schema.

The JSON data will have a key named categories . This will contain an array with two categories, food and drinks.

Each category will be an object with two keys, name and subcategories .

Each subcategory will be an object with a name key and a menuItems key.

Finally, every menu item will be an object with a description and a price .

Create a static/ folder and inside it, create a new file called data.json . Paste the following JSON object in that file. You'll use this object as a starting point for the next step, which is creating an initial version of the menu with non-editable content.

static/data.json

{ "data" : { "categories" : [ { "name" : "Food" , "subcategories" : [ { "name" : "Plates" , "menuItems" : [ { "description" : "tuna tartare, avocado, sesame" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "fresh marinated anchovies, confit tomato, chunky bread" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "'caesar' salad, pancetta, quail eggs" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "heritage tomato, basil salad" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "green salad" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "cheese 'table' chutney" , "price" : 100 } ] }, { "name" : "Bread" , "menuItems" : [ { "description" : "bread basket, olive oil, taramasalata" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "chicken, avocado and bacon" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "tomato, mozzarella and pesto" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "crab mayonnaise and chilli" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "grilled ham and cheese, parsley mustard" , "price" : 100 } ] }, { "name" : "Snacks" , "menuItems" : [ { "description" : "cayenne and rosemary roasted chestnuts, almonds and cashews" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "marinated olives" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "vegetable crisps, vinegar foam" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "boiled quail eggs, toasted sesame seeds and paprika salt" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "potato chips, brava sauce" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "cured meat 'table'" , "price" : 100 } ] }, { "name" : "Sweet" , "menuItems" : [ { "description" : "chocolate pots, spiced fruit, cinnamon doughnuts" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "tiramisu" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "créme catalan, strawberry gel, mint" , "price" : 100 } ] } ] }, { "name" : "Drinks" , "subcategories" : [ { "name" : "Martinis" , "menuItems" : [ { "description" : "pure martini" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "dirty lychee martini" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "white cosmo" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "kats martini" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "watermelon cosmo" , "price" : 100 } ] }, { "name" : "Cocktails" , "menuItems" : [ { "description" : "sparkling cosmo" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "basil caipirinha" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "kiwi mojito" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "strawberry caipiroska" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "kampong freeze" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "platano" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "batida" , "price" : 100 }, { "description" : "goatini" , "price" : 100 } ] } ] } ] } }

Static content

In this step, you'll transform the data representation of the menu into a server side rendered menu. Fortunately, Next.js takes care of all the configuration, so you will focus exclusively on developing React components.

At first, you will only focus on the markup that each component contains. Once the page shows all the content correctly, you will add styles to it.

The first component you are going to build is the index page. It will load data from /static/data.json and pass as props to a Menu component.

Create the file pages/index.js with this content:

pages/index.js

import React from "react" ; import fetch from "isomorphic-unfetch" ; import Menu from "../components/Menu" ; export default class Index extends React . Component { static async getInitialProps() { const url = `http://localhost: ${process.env.PORT || 3000 } /static/data.json` ; const options = { headers : { "Content-Type" : "application/json" } }; const { data } = await fetch(url, options).then( res => res.json()); return { data }; } render() { return < Menu data = {this.props.data} /> ; } }

Now create the file components/Menu.js that index.js imports. This file will contain four components: Menu , Category , Subcategory and Logo . It will only export Menu , the rest will be internal.

The responsibilities of Menu will be receiving a data prop and mapping data.categories into Category components.

components/Menu.js

import React from "react" ; const Menu = ( { data = { categories: [] } } ) => { return ( < article className = "menu" > {data.categories.map(category => ( <Category key={category.name} data={category} /> ))} </article> ); }; export default Menu;

Now create the Category component. This component will be very similar to Category . It will also receive a data prop. It will map over this property's subcategory field and transform every item into a Category component.

import React from "react" ; const Category = ( { data = { subcategories: [] }, ...props } ) => ( < section className = "category" { ...props }> <Logo /> {data.subcategories.map(subcategory => ( <Subcategory key={subcategory.name} data={subcategory} /> ))} </section> ); const Menu = ({ data = { categories: [] } }) => { // ...

Every category shows a Logo that says "menu".

import React from "react" ; const Logo = () => ( < h1 > menu </ h1 > ); const Category = ( { data = { subcategories: [] }, ...props } ) => (

Every subcategory renders its name and a list of menu items. Name will be an h2 element, and menu items will be a ul element with many li items inside of it, containing a description and price.

import React from "react" ; const Subcategory = ( { data = { menuItems: [] }, ...props } ) => ( < div className = "subcategory" { ...props }> <h2>{data.name}</h2> <ul> {data.menuItems.map(element => ( <li key={element.description}> {element.description} <span className="price">{element.price}</span> </li> ))} </ul> </ div > ); const Logo = () => (

Run yarn dev to see this menu on http://localhost:3000 .

Now you have a page that correctly shows all the data from data.json . But it could really use a coat of paint, right?

You will add styles to every component. The tool you will use this time is Styled JSX. It's a nice library that Next.js supports out of the box. It lets you use plain old style tags, but all styles you write inside them will target only the current component. This means that you can write really simple CSS queries, knowing that you won't accidentally target elements outside of the component's scope.

First you will add some global styles to pages/index.js .

render() { return ( < React.Fragment > <Menu data={this.props.data} /> <style global jsx>{` html, body { padding: 0; margin: 0; } * { box-sizing: border-box; } `}</style> </React.Fragment> ); }

Now let's add a meta tag to improve the menu's appearance on mobile devices. NextJs lets you modify the initial server side rendered markup with a special file called _document.js . Read more about it in the NextJs docs.

Create a file called pages/_document.js with the following content.

import Document, { Head, Main, NextScript } from "next/document" ; export default class MyDocument extends Document { static async getInitialProps(ctx) { const initialProps = await Document.getInitialProps(ctx); return { ...initialProps }; } render() { return ( < html > <Head> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no" /> </Head> <body> <Main /> <NextScript /> </body> </html> ); } }

Now that all global styling is in place, you will focus on the CSS of each individual component. Explaining the reasoning behind each component's styles is outside the scope of this tutorial, but I encourage you to learn about each new styling concept that you stumble upon. Mozilla's MDN docs are a great resource for learning CSS.

This is what the final, styled version of components/Menu.js contains:

import React from "react" ; const Logo = () => ( < h1 > menu <style jsx>{` h1 { margin: 0; grid-column-start: 2; justify-self: flex-end; transform: rotate(-5deg); padding: 20px; font-size: 5rem; } `}</style> </ h1 > ); const Subcategory = ( { data = { menuItems: [] }, ...props } ) => ( < div className = "subcategory" { ...props }> <h2>{data.name}</h2> <ul> {data.menuItems.map(element => ( <li key={element.description}> {element.description} <span className="price">{element.price}</span> </li> ))} </ul> <style jsx>{` ul, h2 { margin: 0; text-transform: lowercase; } ul { list-style: none; padding: 0; } li { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; font-size: 1rem; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 10px; font-family: Arial; } .subcategory { display: flex; flex-direction: column; padding: 20px; transform: rotate(-5deg); justify-content: flex-end; } @media (min-width: 750px) { .subcategory { flex-direction: row; } } .subcategory > h2 { font-size: 3rem; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; } .price { margin-left: 20px; } `}</style> </ div > ); const Category = ( { data = { subcategories: [] }, ...props } ) => ( < section className = "category" { ...props }> <Logo /> {data.subcategories.map(subcategory => ( <Subcategory key={subcategory.name} data={subcategory} /> ))} <style jsx>{` .category:nth-child(even) { background: #0b0b09; } .category:nth-child(odd) { background: #a72203; } .category { padding: 20px; display: grid; grid-template-columns: 1fr 90vw 1fr; } @media (min-width: 750px) { .category { grid-template-columns: 1fr 700px 1fr; } } .category > :global(div) { grid-column-start: 2; } `}</style> </section> ); const Menu = ({ data = { categories: [] } }) => { return ( <article className="menu"> {data.categories.map(category => ( <Category key={category.name} data={category} /> ))} <style jsx>{` .menu { color: #eee; background: #eee; /* System font stack: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/system-font-stack/ */ font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; padding: 10px; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden; min-height: 100vh; } `}</style> </article> ); }; export default Menu;

And this is what the styled menu page looks like:

The next step is allowing restaurant users to edit the content as they please.

Editable content

Allowing users to edit content is very straightforward. GraphCMS provides a headless CMS for your content creators, and a nice GraphQL API for your developers. You will use its free plan to create a CMS for the restaurant menu from the previous step.

Head over to https://graphcms.com/ and create an account. Once you have an account, create a project called Menu .

Once you have an account, you will perform the following steps in order to have a working, CMS backed restaurant menu.

Define a Schema Create content Consume GraphQL API

In order to stay true to data.json , the Schema will contain three models: Category , Subcategory and Menu Item .

Create a new Model called Category and add a single line text field called Name .

Create a Subcategory model. Add a single line text field called Name . Also, add a reference to Category . Indicate that it's a one to many reference. One Category has many Subcategory , make sure it's setup this way and not backwards. After adding this reference, make sure that Category has a Subcategories field and Subcategory has a Category field.

Finally, create a Menu Item model. Add a single line text field called Description . Add an Int field called Price . Also add a reference to Subcategory . Mark that one Subcategory has many Menu Item .

Now that the Schema is ready, head over to the Content tab and start adding content. This is where having a CMS truly shines. GraphCMS provides a powerful role system so you can make sure that the correct stakeholder can manage content. Since this is a tutorial restaurant menu, you will be in charge of creating all content.

Create two categories, Food and Drinks.

Next, create four subcategories in Food. Name them Plates, Bread, Snacks and Sweet. Create two categories in Drinks, called Martinis and Cocktails. Make sure to connect each item to its correct Category .

Now comes the fun part, take a look at all the menu items in static/data.json and connect them to their appropriate Subcategory .

Once you've finished adding content, you can make sure that you correctly created all entities by opening the API Explorer tab.

Paste the following query, hit play and make sure that the result matches the contents of static/data.json .

{ categories { name subcategories { name menuItems { description price } } } }

The final step before connecting the app to its new GraphQL API is going to the Settings tab, and marking the Public API Permissions to "Read".

Now copy your API's URL from the project's Dashboard. You will load data from this API instead of from static/data.json .

The only thing you need to change is the url and options variables in pages/index.js . GraphQL does not need any framework, fetch is a perfect GraphQL client because it's just HTTP.

Replace getInitialProps in pages/index.js with the following code. Remember to set the GraphQL URL that you copied in the last step.

static async getInitialProps() { const url = "YOUR_GRAPHCMS_API_URL" ; const options = { method : "POST" , headers : { "Content-Type" : "application/json" }, body : JSON .stringify({ query : ` { categories { name subcategories { name menuItems { description price } } } } ` }) }; const { data } = await fetch(url, options).then( res => res.json()); return { data }; }

Congratulations! You have an editable restaurant menu, server side rendered with NextJs and backed by a headless CMS powered by GraphCMS. Take it out for a spin by changing the menu items' descriptions or prices, and refreshing the page to see those changes.

In the next step you will deploy your app to Heroku.

Deployment

Deploying a NextJs app to Heroku should be pretty straightforward. Besides having a Heroku account and a local installation of the Heroku CLI, you only need to have a GIT repository, create an app using the CLI, add a heroku-postbuild command, and calling git push heroku master .

Initialize a GIT repository with git init and create a .gitignore so you don't track any unnecessary files.

node_modules . next

Add a script to package.json called heroku-postbuild .

"scripts" : { "dev" : "next -p ${PORT-3000}" , "build" : "next build" , "start" : "next start -p ${PORT-3000}" , "heroku-postbuild" : "next build" },

Create an initial commit.

git add . git commit -m 'Editable restaurant menu'

Create a Heroku app and name it restaurant-menu or something.

heroku create restaurant-menu

Finally push your changes to see them live.

git push heroku master

And that's it. Now your app is live!

You can find the complete source code of this tutorial on Github.

Conclusion

You learned how to build a GraphCMS backed GraphQL API and consumed its data with a server rendered React application. This combination provides your users with a nice interface to manage content, and frees your developers to use top notch tools like GraphQL, React and NextJs.