I'm developing a library in TypeScript.
This library uses the https://github.com/Simonwep/pickr library.
I would like to make my library available so users can use it, but question is: do I need to bundle pickr library or just put a reference in the package.json?
I tried to use the library in a sample project and in dev mode all works since it loads from node_modules, but when I build the project and try to load it fails to load it.
It works only by importing the library using
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/#simonwep/pickr/dist/pickr.min.js"></script>
If library will be used in a web browser I made it so the script tag is automatically added.
But what if someone will use the library in an ionic project for instance which will run on a tablet?
In this case Pickr library needs to bundled in the final build.
Is this an automatic process? What's the correct way of using a third-party library in this case?
If you want pickr to get bundled with your code you will have to
List it under dependencies
Import it in your code (see pickr docs)
If its not imported in your code it wont be bundled.
If you want to tell the user to manually add pickr when he uses your module you can list pickr as a peerDependency in your package.json
Related
Background
I have a django app that I want to create an admin widget for. The widget will display text in a particular way (like a terminal). It's so that app admins can see forwarded logs from an analytics process that is orchestrated by django (the app is django-twined).
To do that I want to use something like terminal-kit or one of the other libraries requiring npm install <whatever>
Building the app
The app is built in docker, and I don't want the entire node stack to end up in my production image.
I could use a multi-stage docker build; so install node and a lib from NPM in the first stage, then copy the library from node_modules in the second stage, but this feels unnecessarily slow.
Also, because all I'm doing then is using the raw js static assets that get bundled with the django app, I'm not sure how to go about importing the module (or if this is even possible).
The questions
Can I install an npm module without having the node stack present, and therefore avoid dealing with unwieldy multi stage builds?
How can I then import or require the contents of that module into vanilla javascript to use in a django widget?
Is this even in general possible? If it looks like moving a mountain, I'll give up and just slap a text area with monospace font on there... but it would be nice if log highlighting and colours were properly handled in a terminal-like way.
Can I install an npm module without having the node stack present, and therefore avoid dealing with unwieldy multi stage builds?
You can rollup an npm package using a dev tool like Browserify.
This can be done by rolling up the entire package using something like:
browserify --require terminal-kit
Browserify will parse the package and create a single JS file that you can try loading in the browser. There are some limitations to this so I'd recommend experimenting and exploring the Browserify docs.
How can I then import or require the contents of that module into vanilla javascript to use in a django widget?
You can do this by including a Django template file reference in the backend admin class definition. In the template you'll need to include an html JS source tag that points to the JS script you want to load. Django can include static files when building, you can use that to include the JS file during build time and then a local resource reference to point the template file to the right location.
Is this even in general possible?
Generally speaking this is definitely possible but YMMV. It boils down to the complexities of the npm package and what exactly it is trying to do in the browser.
In steps I would do the following:
Use Browserify to convert the npm package to a single JS file.
Create an html file that loads the local JS file, open this in the browser.
Open the console and see if the commands/context you're hoping to reproduce are working as expected in the browser. You could also write another vanilla JS file and load that in the html file to test.
Include the JS file reference in the Django admin template/widget.
Write custom JS code in the widget that uses/shows the globally instantiated JS script.
This strategy is based off my personal experience, I have had success following this strategy, hopefully it is helpful.
I am using ViteJS to npm install any libraries or packages that I need, and I plan to use vanilla JavaScript and HTML. One of the libraries I am using is called os-gui, a styling library. The docs state that I can use npm install it, but also calls for directly importing the library in the HTML like this:
Since I am not using ReactJS but ordinary HTML, and since I have not directly downloaded the library, how can I properly format the href so that it points to the correct packages that I downloaded in npm?
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.
So I've created a simple program using node.js and a couple of libraries using puppeteer and kijiji-scraper from npm and I want to run it on a webpage like Github pages. In the past, I've had success using a CDN to import the node library I needed to do so by following the instructions on the readme. But for these packages, there aren't any instructions for importing using CDN. Is it just not possible to do so or am I missing something?
Packages:
https://www.jsdelivr.com/package/npm/kijiji-scraper
https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer
NodeJS and the web have fundamentally different moduling systems. You won't be able to import libraries written for Node in the web. If the libraries are pure JavaScript libraries (not relying on the standard library or native modules) or are browser-based libraries relying on the DOM, then you can use Browserify to compile the library's source code into a single file and include that on the web page with a <script>. Otherwise, you'll need to restructure your application around this limitation.
In your case however, it looks like Kijiji is a client-side library and Browserify will be your solution here.
You can come to this conclusion by skimming some of its source code. You'll notice that there's a require call in it. The require function doesn't exist on the DOM API and hence will throw the error you're getting.
The solution I would use in your case would be a) Grunt or Gulp or b) compiling the code and import them statically.
If you have a more complex build chain, I would suggest including the browserify stage in it. I would also not use the CDN based library, rather use the NPM library. The browserify stage will bundle the library and all required dependencies into a single file that can be used in HTML
<script src="/static/kijiji.js"></script>
<script src="/app/index.js"></script>
I'm not sure what your file structure looks like but you get the idea.
I'm relatively new to modern Javascript dependency management. I'm writing a web app in Typescript and have started to use Jasmine as a unit test framework.
Once I started using Jasmine it became clear I needed to start exporting/importing the classes and functions in my source code files, since there is no HTML page loading all of them via script tags. This has been fine for my own files, but I am using a third-party library that is provided minified:
https://currency.js.org/
https://unpkg.com/currency.js#1.2.2/dist/currency.min.js
I can't seem to get my code running via Jasmine to recognize the existence of the currency function defined in this file. I'm guessing it's because the function seems to be dynamically created.
What would be a proper way to export the currency function above for use in my own modules?
That package actually is published on npm (with TypeScript typings included), and I was able to successfully import it as a module in a test application:
npm install currency.js
Then in your code:
import currency from "currency.js"
console.log(currency(1.23).add(.01).format());
https://www.npmjs.com/package/currency.js