I'm trying to use chart.js in a project I'm working on but on the system I'm on I won't have access to node.js or a CDN to link to it externally. I have to have it somewhere where my project can access it without increasing the complexity or overhead for configuring the web server to interact with my project.
Is there a way to do this? If it helps, I'm using django framework as a backend
You can clone their GitHub repo and build it yourself (npm run build from what I see from their package.json). You will need npm for this one step, but you will have a dist folder in the repository where you find all the files you need. Serve them as static resources from Django and include them in your templates as needed.
Just bear in mind that, as the say (quote below), you will be in charge of keeping Chart.js current yourself.
If you download or clone the repository, you must build Chart.js to generate the dist files. Chart.js no longer comes with prebuilt release versions, so an alternative option to downloading the repo is strongly advised.
Related
I'm afraid this will be a stupid question. But I don't manage it to use my JS-Package (for example jQuery), which i have installed with Visual Studio Nuget-Package-Manage in my .net 5 Blazor Server-App.
What i did:
Installing the Package. Here I installed jquery.datatable which includes jQuery itself:
Image of my Project
But now, i don't know how to include it for example in my "_Host.cshmtl"-File:
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="???WHERE IS IT????"></script>
Where is my *.js-File? For example: query.dataTables.js ??
I found it on "C:\Users\xxxxx.nuget\packages\jquery.datatables\1.10.15" and
"C:\Users\xxxxxx.nuget\packages\jquery\1.7.0"
Do i realy have to copy it to my wwwroot-Folder manualy?
If so, why i should use the package-manager?
Thanks for your help!!
Traditional web applications using JavaScript normally load the file from a local folder or from a web CDN (e.g. CDNJS.com etc). This is then loaded from the page (often referenced from a layout file).
Early on it used to be the case that JS libraries could be loaded via NUGET packages but this approach is now discouraged. It had to fix the creation of the script in a set location, e.g. /Scripts and there was no flexibility. Almost all client-side libraries are now in NPM as packages or on CDNs like cdnjs.com.
The current approach for .NET web apps to load client-side assets is either use LibMan or NPM and have some sort of webpack arrangement to compile/pack/copy. You would never load the JS from a /packages folder in the way you suggested.
Blazor Approach
Blazor (since .NET 5.0) can load either embedded JS modules (from your code), or from a URL directly.
If you want to package some JS with your application you should look at Razor Component libraries. This allows static assets such as JS files to be embedded in the code, which Blazor makes available via the _content route, e.g.
_content/LibraryName/myfile.js.
Because Blazor is a SPA you don't include JavaScript using a <script> tag in your HTML, you should load it as a module and reference it there.
This documentation explains it:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/blazor/call-javascript-from-dotnet?view=aspnetcore-5.0#blazor-javascript-isolation-and-object-references
DataTables, JQuery
So should you include jquery.min.js and jquery.datatables.min.js in your library? I'd suggest a better approach is to load from a CDN - your package is smaller and there is a chance the URL is already cached and loaded, e.g.
var module = await js.InvokeAsync<IJSObjectReference>(
"import", "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/datatables/1.10.21/js/jquery.dataTables.min.js");
This loads the module on-demand from the URL directly. You'd also need to load jquery before this.
Finally I'd make this observation: are you sure you want to go down this route?
There are several native Blazor libraries on NUGET for rendering and handling tables. You'll find it much easier to go this way rather than try to patch jquery-based libraries into a Blazor app.
I had a similar issue. Not with the same libraries, but I was wanting to do something that wasn't available in a Blazor library yet. I needed a video player that could handle a certain format that the default HTML 5 video element can't handle. There is an open source player, videoJS , that did the job, but it's a javascript library. It's available on npm and there are cdn's - however the plugins (as far as I could tell) weren't on CDN - so I had to go down the npm route.
When you install an npm package it puts it into a hidden node_modules folder. Unfortunately even if you point to that path or even copy the file in with your other js files it won't work. Npm packages are designed to be run by nodejs, rather than directly in the browser. In order for them to run in a Blazor app (in the browser) you have to do an intermediary step of transpiling it into a browser friendly format.
What I really wanted was a re-usable component, that wrapped the javascript.
It took me a while to get there but I finally figured it out. I've written a series of articles on my blog detailing it. The final one ports everything into a Razor Class library that can be consumed with no knowledge of the underlying js. The fourth article deals with importing npm libraries and using them within a web assembly app. I'll put the link below but essentially the process is:
Create a folder eg JS and initialise it for npm (npm init -y)
Install the required npm packages (npm install --save)
Create a src folder within the JS folder that that you will put your own js files in
Create an index.js file in src that imports the required javascript modules and exports what you want to consume
Install snowpack (npm install snowpack --save-dev) (or webpack but I found snowpack seems to work better)
Configure snowpack to process the contents of the src folder into wwwroot/js (without snowpack or similar the files in the npm package won't be in a browser or blazor useable format)
use javascript isolation to pick up your index.js file from wwwroot/js
See blog post here for full details (It's part 4 of a 5 part series - part five puts it all in a razor class library so you can add it to a project without ever seeing the javascript)
I know this is late but this SO question was one I kept coming across when searching on how to do what I wanted, so thought I'd put my solution here in case it helps anyone else searching for what I did.
I installed MathJax library for my site on ASP.Net Core from Package Manager.
I have seen 'MathJax (2.7.0)' in NuGet Dependencies:
Image of My Dependencies
But is it all. When I see wwwroot\lib directory in my project I don't see 'MathJax' folder or something similar in it:
Image of My fron-end lib
But when I need use MathJax I need write something similar in my html-page:
<script type="text/javascript" async src="~lib/MathJax/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS_HTML-full"></script>
I can't copy NuGet library directly in wwwroot\lib, because I don't want to add my git repository a lot of files external project (> 36 Mb, > 1500 files). Besides, why use NuGet then?
Also, I can't add existing items of MathJax NuGet library manually (menu Add -> Existing Item...), because they are a lot and the absolute path will not correctly on another PC.
How I can get correctly link on MathJax library in NuGet package?
The JavaScript/CSS library NuGet packages are not for Core. They're for MVC. ASP.NET Core has a completely different approach to static files and client-side libraries than ASP.NET MVC did.
For an ASP.NET Core site, you need to use either LibMan or npm to get your client-side libraries. LibMan is easier, but also very naive and limited. In particular, it only supports libraries that are on cdnjs. While there's a lot of coverage there, it's not comprehensive, and there's some libraries that just are available. I'm not sure whether your particular library is or not.
However, given that you'll almost inevitably end up needing something you can't get through LibMan, and and then you'll be forced to use npm anyways, you might as well just use npm and get used to it. There's more of a learning curve because you also need to create build tasks with something like Webpack, Gulp, Grunt, etc. The npm packages go into a node_modules folder, which should not be served directly. At the very least, you'll need to use Webpack, Gulp, etc. to copy the dist/build of the npm package (i.e. the actual JS/CSS files that you'll be referencing) into your wwwroot/lib directory. There's lots of guides online for how to set this up. Just do some research.
In the VS2019, go to the wwwroot/lib directory, right click and select Add -> Client-Side Library. then include your file.
Go to the web project, right click and go the manage client scripts, then search your library and instal.
I have a Javascript library that I wrote for a client. This is written in typescript using webpack and "compiles" into javascript. I want to give the client access to the distribution files but not the whole source. Ideally they can install from the command line to make installing updates easy.
The library provides some javascript functions. The client would install the script in one location on their server. They could then include the javascripts in their web surveys as they need it.
+project
+dist
-main.js
-vendor.js
-index.html
-README.md
-LICENSE.md
+src
-index.js
-index.html
...
My initial thoughts are to give them access to a private git repository that contains only the distribution files. So my project would be a git repository, only I would have access to this repo. I would then copy the contents of the dist directory to a release directory. The release directory would be another git repo I could supply to the client.
I'm not sure this is the best approach.
It was suggested that GitHub releases may be an option - but I don't use GitHub, I use GitLab and would like to continue to do so.
npm also doesn't seem like a good choice. It installs files into the node_modules directory and creates a package.json file. That's going to be confusing to my client and isn't "clean".
It sounds like a second git repository as submodule could work for you. On your side it would receive the built files, and on the clients side they could consume them.
I'd suggest making use of tags to indicate significant versions in the submodule
By using a separate repository there is no risk of leaking the original files.
Alternatively you could package the files as a zip, and upload somewhere like S3 as part of your ci process, and write a script to give the client that can automatically download the distribution files - but this seems more complex than just using a package manager like npm.
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.
I found a library on github that I would like to use but the download instructions only mention using npm but I am not using a NodeJS project (just a basic html,css,javascript front-end with no back-end server). Am I still able to use that library or is it a lost cause? Is there another way to download it without using npm?
Is there another way to download it without using npm?
If it's on github, then you can checkout or fork the repository as you can with any other git repo.
Am I still able to use that library or is it a lost cause?
Whether or not the library will work without Node will depend on the library.
If it presents itself as a Node module, then you'll probably have to modify it (or find a compatible module loader for browser-side JS).
If it depends on NodeJS features (such as the filesystem API) then you'll be out of luck (unless, for example, you polyfill them to work across HTTP)
If you use a build tool such as browserify, or webpack, you can author scripts that require node modules and the build tool will generate a script that includes all the necessary dependencies (assuming that the necessary dependencies are compatible with client-side JavaScript environments).
Downloading dependencies would still be done via npm, but only for local development. Your server would only need the generated script.
Alternatively, if the script is on github or any other repo online you may be able to download it directly. Many modules are published using UMD, which would allow you to use the script using various inclusion methods.