[webpack] Add ability to disable liveReload in webpackDevServer

Preflight Checklist

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Problem Description

I am working on a React + Redux application using the Webpack + Typescript template and want to get Hot Module Replacement working for my React components. By default, whenever I update a module, the log will say Content base changed. Reloading... and the entire app reloads which resets my Redux state.

Proposed Solution

https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-forge/blob/master/packages/plugin/webpack/src/WebpackPlugin.ts#L297

I’d like the ability to pass in additional options here. Specifically liveReload: false. After I hardcoded this option in the WebpackPlugin.ts file, I was able to have the desired functionality of an individual module updating without breaking my Redux store. However I am not sure if this breaks other important functionality as I am currently just testing in a sandbox project.

Alternatives Considered

In the past I’ve used react-hot-loader but that was on Webpack 4 and I’m not sure if there will be issues with Webpack 5. Another possibility that I have not yet looked into would be React Fast Refresh which has a Webpack plugin, though I have yet to try that with electron-forge.

Additional Information

In my testing, this did prevent the Redux store from resetting. However it does not prevent state within a React component from resetting. Ideally preservation of React component state would also work though this is less important for my purposes.

Even if there are better solutions for electron-forge + webpack HMR + react + redux, it could still be beneficial to allow custom options (and overrides) to be passed to the webpackDevServer.

[yourfavorite]

@malept Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get either of the alternatives working on my end.

react-hot-loader didn’t work and I found some conversations over there stating that the package was deprecated and instead react-refresh-webpack-plugin should be used. So I attempted that but it seems there is an incompatibility with webpack-dev-server somewhere as it throws the error below. I also had to do a --force install due to electron-forge using some beta webpack stuff (IIRC I saw webpack-dev-server)

[malept]

I am generally reluctant to add more code to the Webpack plugin if I can help it, because it’s currently pretty complex (even after a lot of it got refactored for Webpack 5, which got rid of a lot of complexity), which makes it pretty difficult to maintain.