Develop Reference

Making a local Javascript library - Do I have to publish an NPM package?

I have some javascript utility functions that I would like to be able put in a central folder and reference from different projects.
It seems I cant import functions from outside the src file in of my project.
Do I have to publish an NPM package?
Do I have to duplicate the code in each project?
Am using javascript/node + vscode.
thanks

To create a local (unpublished) library package
Create a 'my-library' folder. Include source code, exporting any desired functions. Folder must include the 'package.json' file generated by npm init
cd into the folder of the project that needs to use your library. Run npm install --save local/path/to/my-library.
The --save will add the package to your dependencies in the project's package.json file, as it does with 3rd party published packages. It will also add a copy of the source code to the node modules folder of the project, as always.
import/require the package as you would normally, from any project. For example
import { myFunction } from "my-library"

You can use Lerna for dividing projects into multiple packages locally. It uses the same node_modules and can be deployed to NPM anytime.

How do I generate a separate package.json file in the dist directory?

I'm creating a package to publish to npm.
Can someone please help how do I generate separate package.json and
place it to dist directory? I'm using gulp as build tool.
What should be the contents of the package.json that is meant to be published? I believe we need to exclude devdependencies. I'm not sure about others.
Please help.

You should have a single package.json for your project, and it's meant to be published on NPM. The idea with devDependencies is that they won't get installed when people install your package from NPM, as opposed to dependencies, which do get installed.
For your package to work as expected, you need at least the main field that points to your main JS file.
See the docs for package.json for a list of available fields.

You should use package.json in your directory.
Publish file you want with files of package.json,
choose your main file (file will call by require) with main of package.json
You should read npm package.json
Example: (dist is directory build by gulp)
{
"name": "<your_module>",
"files": [
"dist",
"someFile.js"
],
"main": "dist/index.js",
...
}
With this way, you should add module build your module to devDependencies, module was called by your module in dependencies

Install a library by using npm on a server

when i want to use some library, such as Croppie, i should install it by using npm or Bower:
npm install croppie
bower install croppie
As i am using a server, i dont know where is should install it. On the server? in the wordpress files? or in the same folder that contains JS file for this library.
Thanks a lot

Basically you need to add script in your wordpress web app. So there are multiple ways to do so.
1) Add <script src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Foliotek/Croppie/master/croppie.min.js" />. It's better either you download this file in your file system or add a CDN link of Croppie.
2) If you have bower.json configured in your project you can use bower install croppie and then link it in your index.php (root file)

If you just have copied your project over to your server, you should have a package.json file, which contains all libraries you used. (Given you saved it via npm install croppie --save or npm install croppie --save-dev)
Then you can just go into your directory which contains the package.json and run npm install.
If you ever install a library which you would like to use without a project, you can install it globally with npm install libraryName -g, thus making it available on the command line.

In general, if you develop locally and deploy to a server, you should install dependencies locally, in /wp-content/themes/(your-theme)/ and don't upload them to your web server along with the rest of the site. The .bowerrc file, placed in the theme directory, should include the target directory in which bower will place the dependencies you've required:
{
"directory": "bower_components"
}
Then you'd want to bundle those dependencies in css/js etc. directories within the theme and deploy those. .gitignore the bower_components directory or just don't FTP that directory up, depending on how you do things.

How to verify an object instance? instanceof and ....prototype.isPrototypeOf(...) are not reliable [duplicate]

Whenever I make projects, I have to download all dependencies of node modules. Without copying the node_modules, Is there anyway to share the central node_modules in multiple projects?
like the followings, I have to run many commands every time..
npm install gulp-usemin
npm install gulp-wrap
npm install gulp-connect
npm install gulp-watch
npm install gulp-minify-css
npm install gulp-uglify
npm install gulp-concat
npm install gulp-less
npm install gulp-rename
npm install gulp-minify-html

You absolutely can share a node_modules directory amongst projects.
From node's documentation:
If the module identifier passed to require() is not a native module,
and does not begin with '/', '../', or './', then node starts at the
parent directory of the current module, and adds /node_modules, and
attempts to load the module from that location.
If it is not found there, then it moves to the parent directory, and
so on, until the root of the file system is reached.
For example, if the file at '/home/ry/projects/foo.js' called
require('bar.js'), then node would look in the following locations, in
this order:
/home/ry/projects/node_modules/bar.js /home/ry/node_modules/bar.js
/home/node_modules/bar.js /node_modules/bar.js
So just put a node_modules folder inside your projects directory and put in whatever modules you want. Just require them like normal. When node doesn't find a node_modules directory in your project folder, it will check the parent folder automatically. So make your directory structure like this:
-myProjects
--node_modules
--myproject1
---sub-project
--myproject2
So like this, even your sub-project's dependencies can draw on your main node_modules repository.
One drawback to doing it this way is you will have to build out your package.json file manually (unless someone knows a way to automate this with grunt or something). When you install your packages and add the --save arg to an npm install command it automatically appends it to the dependencies section or your package.json, which is convenient.

Try pnpm instead of npm.
pnpm uses hard links and symlinks to save one version of a module only ever once on a disk.
If you have npm installed, you can install in your terminal with:
npm install -g pnpm
To update your existing installations (and sub-directories) use:
pnpm recursive install
Or use the shorthand command (leave off -r if you need to target only one directory)
pnpm -r i
One helpful note: You may find some rare packages don't have all their dependencies defined. They might rely on the flat node_modules file directory structure of npm or yarn installs. If you run into issues of missing dependencies, use this command to hoist all the sub dependencies into a flat-file structure:
pnpm install --shamefully-hoist
It's best to avoid using the --shamefully-hoist flag as it defeats the purpose of using pnpm in the first place, so try using the command pnpm i your-missing-package first (See pnpm FAQ).

I found a trick, just take a look at the Symbolic Links (symlinks) on Windows or Linux, it is working just like shortcuts but more powerful.
Simply you need to make a Junction for your node_modules folder anywhere you want. The junction is nothing but a short cut to your original node_modules folder. Create it inside your project folder where the actual node_modules would have been created if used npm install.
To achieve this you need at least one node_modules real folder then make a Junction to it in the other projects.
On Windows, you can either use the Command Prompt, or use an application. Using the Command Prompt gives you a bit more control, using an application is easier I suggest Link Shell Extension.

Main directory should look like this
node_modules
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
Project 4
just open the file Project 1/.angular-cli.json
change the schema
"$schema": "./node_modules/#angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
to
"$schema": "./../node_modules/#angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json"
and don't forget to create node_modules empty folder inside your project directory

See also npm v7.0.0's support for workspaces
RFC
https://github.com/npm/rfcs/blob/latest/implemented/0026-workspaces.md
Documentation
https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v7/using-npm/workspaces

By looking at some articles it seems that Lerna
is a good tool for managing multiple projects inside a single directory (monorepo). It supports modules sharing without duplicating the entire packages in every folder and commands to install them in multiple projects.
Javascript monorepos
Monorepos by example
Building large scale apps in a monorepo
pnpm is also a simple and efficient tool, which doesn't duplicate those modules which are already installed for other projects.

Let's assume that having a single node_modules it should contain all the packages for all applications. thus your apps will also share most of the unique package.json entries (just the name should change)
my idea would be to have a single root and multiple src level as below
root\package.json
root\node_modules
root\\..
root\app1\src\\..
root\app2\src\\..
the only issue you might face would be having a backup of json (or tsconfig) for any app and restore them when you work on it or setup your startup scripts to serve any app

Yo generator subgenerator not available. When doing an NPM install it doesn't pull all the code down

I'm working on creating an Yo generator to generate hapijs modules. I've published this to NPM and when I create a new project and do an npm install generator-hapijs, it doesn't pull all the code down into my node_modules/generator-hapijs directory and therefore my subgenerator is not available when doing a yo --help. Why not and how can I fix this?
Here's my code: https://github.com/toymachiner62/generator-hapijs
Here's what's available in my node_modules/generator-hapijs folder when installing this package in a new project:
-/project
--/node_modules
---/generator-hapijs
----/app
----/node_modules
----package.json
----README.md

It had nothing to do with yeoman and yo, but rather had to do with the fact that I had a files array in my package.json and it only contained app so when installing it only installed files from the /app folder.
I just removed the files array from my package.json file.