How to publish a browserify bundle for npm and the browser - javascript

I wrote an editor in HTML/JS that I want to use for multiple Electron based applications and a website.
For testing purposes I have package all dependencies, some are npm modules, some are font files, some are images, into a single file using browserify. For development I find this quite attractive as npm take care of keeping the packages up-to-date and browserify build even things like images and CSS into a single JS file. And included this bundle using a script tag in a html file.
Now I would love to get this onto npm to use as a dependency for other projects. But frankly I am at a loos as to how to do this.
Some blogs suggest to use:
module.exports = mymodule
But I want people and myself to be able to either get a single file and insert it using a script tag to get a global function to start my editor as well as require it using npm for Electron based apps.
startEditor = require('mymodule')
<script src="path/to/mymodule"></script>
Should both be valid ways to use the editor.
You can see the current state of the project on GitHub

Related

Other way to share react ts components between projects

I have been looking for a way to mostly share some code between projects specifically for SPFX and fluent ui. We found 3 main ways to do that.
1.
Creating a component library is the way that seemed least complicated cause it uses the same infrastructure and do all building without the need to configure it.
But this adds some issues, we need to built and manually link the solution locally to make it work, this will also work if we put in a repo. so this is mitigated.
The second is that implicitly this will also require the fluent ui and react. Plus having to place it inside a SPFX component library project.
2.
I saw some promise using paths in ts and this works fine while using the ts compiler. It will go to the folder that your proj is referring and build it at calling time. which is great. But it did not work in SPFX.
3.
Another way was to have a post install to sync the folders which seems easy enough but I wonder how practical this is plus how people are doing it, if they are, how.
All I wanted to figure out now is a way to take my component code and share as if they were in a folder of my src or a simple extension of the code. No need to have extra dependencies or build steps, just the code that can be used as a ts/tsx file. ex:
shared lib:
//assuming I have react and fluentui already installed for the project.
import button from 'fluentui';
export const fancyCustomButtom = (props) => {
return (<Button text="Standard" />);
};
src project folder:
import {fancyCustomButtom} from 'shared-lib'
It is fine if it needs to build the files before we can use it but can we do it at build time or when the package is installed? also wouldn't it increase my bundle size by making both module dependent on things already available (react, fluentui)?
Given the way Microsoft have architected the loading of bundles in SharePoint and Teams - I believe an SPFX component library is the best way to share code between different solutions, particularly if you are looking to minimise bundle size...
Imagine you have a library for something re-usable: a form, a set of standard branded components - something of that nature. You could put your shared code in repos and add references to it - either by publishing your own repo publicly or using the npm install git+https://yourUrl syntax; but what effectively happens there is that your code is pulled down in to node_modules for each project, and any referenced module code is included in your bundles. If you have two, three, four or more webparts on the same page - using those same libraries, you're multiplying how many times that code is included on the page.
If you follow Microsoft's guide on setting up a component library project however, your npm link commands allow your types to be recognised in consuming projects without needing to actually include the bundled distribution code. You can deploy your library code once to the App Catalog, and if it's referenced in other solutions -- it's loaded on pages as needed: once.
I have found the development experience to be quite flaky at times, but it does work. When I run gulp clean on my library code, or come back to it after some time, I sometimes find that I need to run npm link and npm link my-project-name again as per the instructions in the above tutorial. Whenever you run gulp build on your library, you should also rebuild the project that consumes the library, either by using gulp build / bundle or by saving a file (if you're running gulp serve). This process works well for developing, and once it comes time to deploy, all you need to do is add a named reference to your library inside package.json and then deploy both .sppkg files to your App Catalog.
In terms of your last question re: bundle size - react is not actually included in the dependencies for an SPFX library project, but you will find it's available to use. When you build your library, if you take a look in the generated javascript in your dist folder, you will see it's listed as one of the dependencies for the webpacked content along with react-dom and ControlStrings. It's on line 1.
office-ui-fabric-react is included as a devDependency thanks to the #microsoft/sp-webpart-workbench package that gets scaffolded with all SPFX projects - and if you check your library's dist javascript, you will see that included components are being webpacked and included in your bundle. I'm not entirely sure if when you pull this code in to your consuming project, whether webpack then tree-shakes to de-duplicate and ensures only necessary code is included: I don't know. Someone else may be able to illuminate us there or provide a more accurate explanation of what's going on... I will update this response if anyone comments to let me know.
And finally, this is more of a personal way of working, but it may be worth consideration:
When developing a library, I sometimes reference it in other projects via a local npm install ../filepath command. This ensures that when I install the library as described, the consuming project installs any necessary dependencies. I'm able to tweak both projects if I need o. When it comes time to deploy, I commit my changes to both projects, deploy my library code to the App Catalog, and then npm uninstall the library from the consuming project and add a reference as described in the above tutorial. When I deploy projects that use my library, they just work.
I recently developed a library that uses pnpjs, in particular the #pnp/sp library that is used to talk to SharePoint. If you look at the Getting Started guide for that library, they expect you to pass a reference to your Application Customizer or Web Part context during setup, or explicitly set things up using a base URL and so forth - and of course, a library doesn't really have a page context of any sort - the whole point of this code is that it's reusable. So that poses a challenge. My solution was to do the setup in the consuming web part(s) and ensure that they pass a reference to the sp object (which is of type SPRest) to any code or components that exist in my library. My library has peerDependencies on those pnp libraries so that the code isn't duplicated in consuming projects. Sometimes you have to think about what your library needs to include in its bundle and what you expect consuming solutions to already have, and maybe find ways to ensure things aren't included that aren't needed.
For example, in the scenario you talk about, you may want to ensure fluentui or office-ui-fabric-react are only devDependencies or peerDependencies for your library. As long as your library and the project(s) consuming your library both use the right version(s) you shouldn't have any trouble, and you can document any pre-requisites with your library documentation. You can check which versions of these libraries are installed per the SPFX version you are currently using ie. SPFX v1.11 or v1.12 etc. Just run npm ls <packagename> to get a breakdown, or check your package.json file.

How to use external JS library methods in my Node.JS project if this library does not exist in NPM

I have a problem which can be easily solved by importing an external JS library into Node.js. However, this library does not exist in NPM.
I found out an old solution on StackOverflow which seems to fix the problem. However, it looks wierd.
Is there a more convenient solution in 2k20 to use external JS library methods into my Node.js code?
If your library have a package.json: You can install the package directly from the git repository, for example npm install https://github.com/vendor-creator/vendor-package. NOTE that for this method to work, in cases where the module has to be built, the git repository should contain a dist/ folder containing the built code or have in its package.json, a prepare step responsible for building the package upon installation.
If your library does not have a package.json and is simply a vanilla JavaScript file like the Lodash JavaScript file, I would advise just like in the post you linked, to create a vendor.js file (.min if the script is minified), copy and paste the content of the file and require it. Be aware that some libraries using CDN and not NPM, are designed for browser environment and may lack CommonJS support preventing you from using require. In that case you'll have to modify the library source code.
If it's a small library, there is no need to create an advanced build system. If the library is stable, just copy and paste it and you'll be fine. When in doubt always follow the K.I.S.S principle.

Convert NPM project to browser-compatible JavaScript file?

is it possible to convert a fairly small NPM package to a javascript file that I can reference in HTML with a <script> tag?
The NPM package that I am trying to do this with is not complex at all and is basically just an API wrapper that I'd like to use, but I don't want to use Node.
NPM is just a build tool, it helps you organise dependencies and much other.
You can manually make the particular *.js files you want from node_modules available for your html file and use them from there.

Project structure when using VueJS, VuelidateJS with NodeJS/Express

My web development is principally intranet sites and web front-ends for embedded devices using NodeJS.
My current structure is to have everything in one NPM package. I run NodeJS behind Nginx, and let Nginx serve css/image/client-side-javascript files directly from public.
I'm starting to use VueJS and Vuelidate, both of which use the now ES6 modules system - e.g. import { required, minLength } from 'vuelidate/lib/validators'.
While I've (rather hackily) made these work with my current structure, I think the time has come to get into the world of Javascript build-systems/bundlers.
If I use VueJS's preferred option of WebPack, how should I change the structure of my code?
Should I have one NPM package for the frontend (generated by vue-cli init) and another for the Express backend app?
Should I put my Express App into the generated Vue frontend package?
Should I use browserify to do the job of WebPack and stay with my existing structure?
Or something else entirely?
I’m not sure why you’re intent on putting your JavaScript code in other packages. If you have an application then you can keep your raw JavaScript files in there, along with the build script(s). Someone should be able to check your application out and be able to build it.
If you’re looking to get started with a build system, then a nice “bridge” might be to use Mix, a project created by Laravel for building front-end assets such as Sass and JavaScript. It uses Webpack under the hood, but in turn exposes a more user-friendly, fluid API.
If you go down this route, then you could put your raw JavaScript files in a lib/ or src/ directory. You could then use Mix to compile these components like this:
mix.js('lib/your-entry-point-script.js', 'public/js/app.js');
Your entry point script would just be the script that requires all your other scripts and components and the script that you want “built”. Mix would then compile that and place the resultant script at public/js/app.js.
Mix itself is just a npm package, so all you need to do is npm install laravel-mix --save-dev.
You can read more about Mix at https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/mix

Publish Aurelia component on NPM?

We have built a small-ish application using Aurelia, and would like to be able to integrate the app into a larger codebase. For example, it may be desirable to publish the Aurelia app on NPM, so other projects could integrate our code.
How can we build/publish the Aurelia app, so that it can be instantiated in a larger JavaScript application?
Typically, you wouldn't publish an entire Aurelia application to NPM, rather you would push plugins to NPM.
The simplest way to learn how to do this is to follow the example of the various Aurelia repos. We build the code in to multiple formats, but the most important are AMD and CommonJS (which is more important for your company is dependent on what tooling your company is using). Once you've built the code, the next step is to make sure your package.json file is set up correctly. It's best to copy the example of what we're doing in our own repos.
I would start by looking at either the dialog plugin or the templating-resources plugin. Both of these show good examples of how to publish your Aurelia plugin to NPM, whether it is a public or private npm feed.
https://github.com/aurelia/dialog/blob/master/package.json
https://github.com/aurelia/templating-resources/blob/master/package.json
Both of these plugins are set up to support Webpack, JSPM/SystemJS, and the Aurelia CLI out of the box.
I totally agree with #Ashley in not publishing larger applications to the global NPM registry. The big advantage of it is the simplicity of all that small packages which can be used to build large applications.
If you feel you got some reusable code, put in an own package and publish it.
Anyway, to give you an answer which does not require you to publish your complete app: you can include a complete repository (which is probobly what you are lookig for) in a different application via NPM.
npm install git://github.com/somegit/hubrepo.git
Or directly via the package.json:
"dependencies": {
"private-repo": "git+ssh://git#github.com:somegit/hubrepo.git#v1.0.0",
}
You can also do something similiar e.g. using JSPM. This would be simply:
jspm install your-app=github:OrgOrUser/your-app#your-branch
If you are facing long relative paths in your imports now, depending on your tooling, you may be interested in something like e.g. Resolving require paths with webpack which shows how to alias relative paths.
Sources/Links:
How to install a private NPM module without my own registry?
npm install private github repositories by dependency in package.json

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