When I install a JS library with npm, say:
npm install chartjs
It places the required JS file in ./node_modules/chartjs/chart.js.
Since I want the file to be located in, say, ./public/js/chart.js, I could just copy and paste it there. But is there a proper way to do that, like linking directly to the file installed by npm ?
Thanks in advance for your help. (Yes I'm kind of new to JS...)
In general, if you are using npm to manage your dependencies then you would use a bundler (such as Rollup, Webpack, or Parcel) to combine them into a browser-friendly file in your distribution directory.
MDN has a tutorial which walks through setting up a basic project in Parcel.
Related
A client would like to use an npm package to access our JavaScript file's functions instead of adding a script tag to their html. Is this possible? The only resource I've come across for creating an npm package is for NodeJS files (https://docs.npmjs.com/creating-node-js-modules).
This is possible but you cannot import the npm package and have it work in the browser without some sort of bundling system like webpack.
Alternatively, which is a bad idea, would be to ship your dist folder with node_modules in it. This isn't recommended for a multitude of reasons, but it will work.
Following approach might be suitable for your client's requirement.
Create a NPM project using the javascript file you have
Publish it on client's Github account as a package.
Create a .npmrc file in root of your client's project.
Add your package in .npmrc file and in packages.json both.
Refer this doc for using a package with .npmrc file:
https://docs.github.com/en/packages/guides/configuring-npm-for-use-with-github-packages#installing-a-package).
I've followed the instructions in this URL (https://github.com/react-component/calendar) to install a component app in my dependencies. I have succesfully installed it, imported it and it is visible and usable in my web app.
npm install rc-calendar
import Calendar from 'rc-calendar';
<Calendar />
However, I can't seem to edit it or find a 'Calendar.js' file to make changes to it? I'm able to see it in my package.json file but not more than that
You'll find the source files in your node_modules folder in your project. But I would not edit them there. If you want to use that plugin as a starting point and edit it from there, I recommend downloading the source files from the github repo and including it in your project as a regular .js file / regular component. Then you can edit from there. It looks like that plugin has many files that are written in typescript.
TL;DR You can, but you shouldn't.
When you use npm it's supposed that you don't change those packages, what you can do is create your own version. If you want to find the source code, some packages come with it, you'll find it in: <project folder>/node_modules/rc-calendar.
The typical convention is to not edit packages installed via npm . However, you can clone the package repo and include it in your project. There, you can do what ever you want.
I am relatively new to using git and GitHub, and I am working on my personal website. I am using the JS plugin Slick, a responsive carousel feature. I downloaded all of the necessary files and stored them within my local repo. The size and content of the Slick zip folder is much larger than the files for my site at the moment, so when syncing with GitHub this makes my project appear as 75% Javascript, whereas the actual website is not.
Am I doing this correctly, storing the files for my JS plugin directly within my repository folder? Or should I be using some other method to implement Slick on my site? Or is this just something I should not be worried about? Thanks
If you're just using one library, manually storing it in your Git repo is fine. You'd have to manually update the files if a new version is released, but that's not a big deal for one library. (And you might not even care about updates to this library).
However if you're using more than one library, I'd highly recommend using Node Package Manager (NPM) and a build tool like Webpack.
Here's an article that introduces these tools (plus a few others): https://medium.com/front-end-hacking/what-are-npm-yarn-babel-and-webpack-and-how-to-properly-use-them-d835a758f987
For using git, you should store your dependencies in a folder that is in your .gitignore. If you install browserify or another similar tool like webpack, you can use the npm package manager to create a dependency list file with npm init that allows for easy package installation with npm install by anyone. You can install packages slick with npm install --saveslick-carousel and use them with require() in your main js file. Then, take your js file and run browserify jsfile.js -o outputfile.js and it will package your js and your dependencies together to be used by the browser
When uploading to your git repo, add a .gitignore like this one for Node. This prevents your dependencies from being uploaded to the repo and instead when someone wants to run your project, they must run npm install to get all the dependencies.
Browserify gives an output JS file you add to your web server, the name of this file should be put in your .gitignore as well. Your code is stored in the js file you pass to browserify and other people can still access it without the output file, but they need to run the browserify command to package your code.
Possibly a stupid question. I installed Chart.js using package manager. It's in Solution explorer.
But where are the actual JS files or how do I get them? When I installed it, there are no changes that Git detects, so I'm not sure if anything at all happened.
Chart.js 2.5.0 includes a Content\Scripts directory inside its NuGet package which contains a Chart.js and Chart.min.js. Depending on what sort of project you are using these files may or may not be added directly into your project.
If you are using a .NET Framework project that has a packages.config file then the JavaScript files will be added into a Scripts folder into your project.
If you are using a project.json file, or your project uses PackageReferences, then nothing will be added since this sort of project only supports files that are in a contentFiles directory inside the NuGet package. Your project looks like a .NET Core project which will use PackageReferences. The Chart.js NuGet package itself will be in the %UserProfile%\.nuget\packages directory if you need to get the javascript files.
Tseng's answer that recommends switching to using Bower or the Node Package Manager to add the JavaScript files seems like the best solution here instead of using NuGet, which does not have good support for adding source files to your project for newer project file formats.
The usage of NuGet for css/javascript libraries is discouraged. For ASP.NET Core you should use the java script / node package managers, bower and npm respectively.
You can use either one. Bower is more focused on browser libraries and css, while NPM is more for server-sided stuff (using node.js). But node.js also contains most (if not all) of the packages bower has, so it's matter of preference.#
For that, you need to select your MVC project and add a new file to the project root. While in the template manager (Add->New File...), search for "Bower Configuration File" or "npm Configuration file".
Then edit the file and add your dependency, i.e.
package.json (npm)
{
"dependencies:" {
"chart.js": "2.5.0"
}
}
Once you save, the file will be downloaded in a directory named "node_modules`. This alone won't be enough, as the required files need to be copied over to wwwroot folder, where they can be accessed when the application runs.
For this you'd need either use the bundler to bundle the files together (should be in default ASP.NET Core project template) or use task runners such as Gulp or Grunt to run tasks on build/publishing, which does that for you. See ASP.NET Core Docs on Gulp examples.
Update
Bower been deprecated now for over a year.
If I have a directive, and I wish to package it in its own node package; and then include it from another another node package containing the main angularjs app, how would I do this?
My rough idea about how to go about this is:
put the html, javascript, and css for the directive in the package folder
enable compilation of these assets - preprocessing, minification (how?)
configure as bower package
in the app folder install the bower package
how to do this locally, without publishing?
in the angular.module() statement that creates the main app, add the name of the module containing the directive
Is this correct?
Have I missed out on anything?
Your idea of how to go about this looks good to me. To answer your questions in the list:
Look at Grunt or Gulp for your preprocessing / minification needs. These are both excellent build tools. Grunt is more widely used, but Gulp is newer and gaining a lot of ground. I'd look at both and use the one that suits you.
How to use a local bower dependency w/o publishing:
In your main app's bower.json file, instead of putting a version number for your module, put the folder where it can be found on your local system, like so:
{
"dependencies": {
"my-module": "/home/me/modules/my-module"
}
}
To clarify, you refer to it as a "node package" in your question, but in reality, you are creating a Bower package. Node packages (published to npmjs.org) are for node, and unless processed with something like Browserify, won't run in the browser (and even then, the node package can't do anything the browser doesn't support, like file access.) Bower packages (published on bower.io) are specifically for the browser. You will however find packages that publish to both NPM & Bower, such as jQuery or underscore, but you can't use the npm jquery package in the browser, it's built to run in node, and vice-a-versa.