Start building a GraphCommerce custom storefront

Previously, you created a new GraphCommerce app. You're now ready to start working on your GraphCommerce custom storefront.

In this tutorial, you'll complete a series of tasks to add some specific functionality to your GraphCommerce app. Your final modification will be simple, but you’ll learn where to find resources to build more complex features on your own.

What you'll learn

After you've finished this tutorial, you'll have accomplished the following:

• Customized text and component styles
• Fetched data from server components
• Made changes to GraphQL queries

Requirements

You're using the most recent version of GraphCommerce. We recommend using the latest release to get the benefits of performance, new components, and other best practices.

You've completed the Create a GraphCommerce app tutorial.

Step 1: Make customizations

Add text

• Make sure your development environment is running at http://localhost:3000
• In /pages/page/[url].tsx, add:

<Typography variant='h1' gutterBottom sx={{ textAlign: 'center' }}>
  Hello
</Typography>

• Add import { Typography } from '@mui/material' to the list of imports at the top of the file
• Save the file to see your changes updated in real-time

Change a component's style

• After you've finished step 1, in /pages/page/[url].tsx find the following code:

<Typography variant='h1' gutterBottom sx={{ textAlign: 'center' }}>
  Hello
</Typography>

• Make the background color red for the Hello text:

<Typography
  variant='h1'
  gutterBottom
  sx={{ textAlign: 'center', backgroundColor: 'red' }}
>
  Hello
</Typography>

Step 2: Make GraphQL changes

You might want to make changes to a GraphQL query to fetch data from Magento for a specific need. For example, if you want to display a certain category property, you need to modify a query.

• In /graphql/CategoryPage.graphql, ...CategoryQueryFragment is included as a fragment
• Open the fragment's file /node_modules/@graphcommerce/magento-category/queries/CategoryQueryFragment.graphql, and copy it's contents
• In /graphql/CategoryPage.graphql, paste the contents of ...CategoryQueryFragment and add children_count property:

query CategoryPage($url: String!, $rootCategory: String!) {
  ...MenuQueryFragment
  ...FooterQueryFragment
  ...PageContentQueryFragment
  ...CategoryQueryFragment

  categories(filters: { url_path: { eq: $url } }) {
    items {
      uid
      children_count
      ...CategoryBreadcrumb
      ...CategoryDescription
      ...CategoryChildren
      ...CategoryMeta
      ...CategoryHeroNav
    }
  }
}

• Save the file. /graphql/CategoryPage.gql.ts should be regenerated, and contain the following addition:

{ "kind": "Field", "name": { "kind": "Name", "value": "children_count" } }

• In /pages/[...url].tsx, show the children_count next to category title (3 occurrences):

{category?.name} - ({category?.children_count})

Step 3: Interactive GraphQL interface

You can explore the Storefront API and run test queries in your GraphCommerce app. When you're running the GraphCommerce local development environment, you can visit the following URL to load the GraphQL Explorer:

http://localhost:3000/api/graphql

Next steps

• Learn how to build a custom header in GraphCommerce