initial commit. Created a basic webpack.config.js file, some basic .babelrc settings, and some notes on the build

docs/build-notes.md

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+# Building the plugin
+
+These are some basic notes on building the plugin
+
+## yarn
+
+The subscription-manager plugin for cockpit is built using webpack 2.x.  Although npm can be used to install the various
+dependencies, it is recommended to install [yarn][-yarnpkg] and use it instead:
+
+```
+yarn install
+```
+
+After this command finishes, all the node_modules will be installed.
+
+## babel
+
+The .babelrc file contains the settings for the various things babel can do, namely transform es6 to es5 code, and to
+transform react jsx code to regular javascript. When building, the webpack.config.js setting will output a bundled file
+in ./build/bundle.js.  It will run the babel-loader plugin to transform es6 to es5
+
+**TODO**: Figure out how to configure babelrc to transform jsx code
+
+## index.js
+
+This is the entry point for webpack, and will most likely contain the main parent react component.
+
+
+## Directory layout
+
+**TODO**: describe the high level layout of the folders, eg. component folder is for react components.
+
+# Making a build
+
+To actually build the plugin, simply run:
+
+```
+yarn run build
+```
+
+or alternatively if you didn't install yarn:
+
+```
+npm run build
+```
+
+This works because the package.json file has a scripts object, and the build key tells us to run the webpack command
+with the build option.
+
+Why do it this way instead of just doing `npm install -g webpack` and then `webpack build`?  By doing that, different
+users trying to build the plugin might have different versions of webpack installed.  By installing webpack as a dev
+dependency, and then using yarn or npm to run a command, it will use the webpack version installed locally.
+
+[-yarnpkg]: https://yarnpkg.com