Disabling opening of the browser in server start

[sheerun]

While "cool":

1. I already see what to open in terminal, I don't need script to open it for me
2. I restart the server often, and end up with multiple tabs in browser opened
3. Every time I start server I loose my terminal context.. and my flow becomes:
   • npm start
   • tab away from the browser
   • open file to edit in terminal
   • switch to browser again

Could we disable auto-opening of browser window? Or at least in non-interactive mode?

[sheerun]

For reason it's an option in custom-react-sctipts: https://github.com/kitze/create-react-app/tree/master/packages/react-scripts#others

[tbillington]

It seemed like at an earlier version of create-react-app, running npm start would reconnect to the existing tab/process that it had been interacting with. With the current version, opening a new tab every time, having to close the new and refresh the old is a bit of an anti-pattern.

[glennreyes]

@tbillington A commit before #831 introduced this bug with the tabs, so this is fixed with the next release.

[andreypopp]

I'd really like to see this configurable — in my case it opens Safari (the default on the system) but not Chrome (which I use for dev).

How about we make it configurable via BROWSER env var (similar to EDITOR, right)? BROWSER=none will make it not open any browser but BROWSER=<path>|<name> will make it open correct browser.

[gaearon]

@andreypopp 👍

[kachkaev]

Any known workaround? I'm developing inside VBox Ubuntu on one monitor and have the app opened in Windows Chrome on another monitor. After a few hours of Ctrl+C, UP, Enter iterations the whole browser on VBox is flooded with new tabs :-)

[gaearon]

No, there is currently no workaround except submitting a PR that @andreypopp suggested above.

[sheerun]

I've submitted a fix that disables opening browser in non-interactive terminal #1032

[glennreyes]

@gaearon There's a fork by @kitze that does very similar things like suggested from @andreypopp. Would you accept a PR for that?

[kitze]

@glennreyes yup, but in my fork you can just set OPEN_BROWSER=false in .env, you cannot specify the browser.

[GAumala]

+1 for choosing which browser to open. My default is firefox, but development is smoother on chrome.

[gaearon]

Is this fixed by #1032?
How can people opt into this mode? @sheerun