I'm in the process of converting an existing project to TypeScript with many bower and npm dependencies (bower.json and package.json). According to the tsd github page,
TSD supports discovery and linking of definitions from packages
installed with node or bower. Use the link command and your tsd.d.ts will be updated with paths to the files in the node_modules or bower_modules folders.
However when I run the command tsd link after tsd init it just says no (new)packages to link even though my package.json is chalk full of modules. This led me to discover, maybe it does not do what I think it does.
This feature will scan package.json and bower.json files for a
typescript element. This element then contains definition or
definitions sub-element that contain relative path(s) to .d.ts files:
What? What is the purpose of this link feature if it doesn't just get type definitions from my package.json? Is this command merely to pull tsd configurations from my package.json instead of in my tsd.json file? What then, is the point, other than eliminating the tsd.json file?
So if it's not tsd link, I'm asking if there is any better way to automatically include tsd definitions for all my dependencies. It seems kind of crazy to me that these would all be managed by hand.
tsd link is not a magical command. I assume just like you when I see this command first time.
If you install new packages via bower or NPM, and the package bundled with .d.ts and also have a "typescript": { "definition": "..." } in the config file, that .d.ts will include into your tsd.d.ts file like below:
/// <reference path="jquery/jquery.d.ts" />
/// <reference path="../bower_components/angular/angular.d.ts" />
If the package doesn't serve a d.ts file and definition configuration, this command can do nothing.
Related
What i want is to have a library locally that when i change it those changes are reflected in the project that is using the library.
i have check out this library here in my local machine: https://github.com/manfredsteyer/angular-oauth2-oidc
So what i'm doing right now, is that i go to the library directory and then
npm link
And then get in my project directory and do
npm link angular-oauth2-oidc
The library folder appears inside my node_modules folder but i can't manage to use it, since when i start the app ng serve it says:
Cannot find module 'angular-oauth2-oidc'
I'm importing like this:
import { OAuthModule } from 'angular-oauth2-oidc';
I've tried to add the the path under the compilerOptions of the tsconfig.json file but haven't been sucessful.
Any ideas on what i'm missing here? I've tried several suggestions i've found on angular github issues but none solved my problem.
Thanks in advance
npm link in a package folder will create a symlink in the global folder {prefix}/lib/node_modules/ that links to the package where the npm link command was executed
Dont use npm link to add a library to your project, use npm install :
npm install angular-oauth2-oidc --save
You have to install it not just link it, so use this line to with flag --save to ensure that it will be saved in your package.json
npm install [package_name] --save
You can get the package name from the source website or from
https://www.npmjs.com/package/angular2
When you say:
So what i'm doing right now, is that i go to the library directory and
then npm link
Do you mean you are executing npm link in the folder you cloned the repository in? Because if so, that's likely your issue as that's the source directory and not what's actually published as a package. You must build the library, change directory into the distribution folder for the package, and then run npm link. Then when you run builds of that library, any Angular applications with that linked will automatically have the last version of your build in their node_modules.
Also, in your Angular applications where you are using the linked library you'll want to make sure you are setting preserveSymlinks to true in your angular.json.
While you can create multiple projects (e.g. an Angular app and an Angular library) under one Angular project to make this process a bit easier, I prefer to separating these two since I like one git repository to present one module.
First, you need to link your modules to your project's package.json file. Here's how to link files locally in general:
Local dependency in package.json
Linking a plain Typescript library is pretty straight forward as you just create an entry point (usually index.ts) file and export everything you want from there. This file needs to be in the same folder as the package.json file in your project.
An Angular library is a bit different as angular modules needs to be compiled before it can be properly exported. If you just import the module to your project without compiling you will get an error stating this: cannot read property 'ɵmod'. This happens at least at the time of writing this.
So we need to compile the library and then link it:
open two terminal windows
in the first terminal, go to your Angular library's root folder and run ng build --watch
check the output folder of the compiled module, usually something like dist/[library name]
change your Angular project's package.json to point to the output folder e.g. "my-angular-library": "file:../my-angular-library/dist/my-angular-library"
run npm install in the same folder
Add path to your Angular project's tsconfig.json e.g:
compilerOptions: {
"paths": {
"my-angular-library": ["./node_modules/my-angular-library"]
}
}
Otherwise you'll get errors like Error: Symbol MyComponent declared in /path/to/library/my.component.d.ts is not exported from my-angular-library
in the second terminal, go to your Angular project's root folder and run ng serve. Make sure you serve the project only after you have installed the local dependency.
You should now be able to use components, services etc. exported via your library module.
TL;DR
for the library ng build --watch
make the library dependency to point to the output folder e.g. "my-angular-library": "file:../my-angular-library/dist/my-angular-library"
npm i
Add path to your Angular project's tsconfig.json e.g:
compilerOptions: {
"paths": {
"my-angular-library": ["./node_modules/my-angular-library"]
}
}
ng serve
I am pretty new to Gulp and I've got a question: should I install gulp plugins (such as gulp-sass or gulp-imagemin) locally or globally? In examples around the web people mostly do it locally (with --save-dev option). As I understand, by doing so the modules are stored in the local node_modules folder, added in the local package.json as devDependencies and can be referenced to in the local gulpfile.js via require(). So, if I need to install the same modules for another project I work on, it may be accomplished by copying package.json to a new project's folder and typing in npm install in a command line tool (after getting to the project's folder). Fine.
But what if I, as a regular gulp user, don't have plans to upload and share my stuff on the npm space and not interested in maintaining devDependencies, can I in this case just install gulp plugins globally like npm install -g gulp-sass? Will they be found through a global path in my system? Is it an option on the whole, if I don't want to bother myself to copy package.json, run npm install every time I create a new project or have multiple copies of the same modules scattered around on my disk?
For plugins that you are using via gulp, what you have to do is install them locally to the project. Although you have to install gulp itself globally and locally, to run the file and then for the project to pick up the gulp based commands and functions.
The reason you should install the plugins via npm locally is so that it is specific to the project, for example if you then went to upload this project to your server or host on github then you would have to then go and have to globally install all of your packages again. If they are saved, they exist in your packages.json, this is so that when you go to run npm install to install all the packages for said project npm knows what to install.
If I can further clarify anything let me know.
A kind of "global install" for the typical case OP explained, could be to have a folder where you put your package.json with every dependencies you need for each of your projects, and run npm install from there.
And put here also your gulpfiles for each project (you could named them as you want), like gulpfile-project1.js, conf-project2.js... whatever.
Of course adjust your paths in those files accordingly.
And from this directory, run gulp using the -f flag:
gulp -f gulpfile-project1.js
So you end with this kind of scaffolding :
my_dev_directory
- project1
- dev
- main.less
- main.js
- www
- main.css
- main.js
- gulp
- node_modules
- package.json
- package-lock.json
- gulpfile-project1.js
In your gulpfiles, start to declare a const with the base path of your project to ease all path declarations, like:
const path_dev = '../project1/dev';
const path_www = '../project1/www';
This way you have only one node_modules directory installed on your disk and your projects directories contain only public files you want to upload, no dev files.
Of course one of the main drawback is that you share the same module version with all your projects, but it answered to OP's need and even if it's not recommended, not the "proper way to do", you are free to do as you want with your dev tools :)
I have a large team working on a repo using Typescript, and nobody checks in the /typings folder into the team's shared repository, they only check in the typings.json file which specifies the version information for each definition set required by the project.
Sometimes someone will delete a definition set from typings.json, since the part of the project they are working on no longer uses that library (or we found a better definition set), using
typings uninstall --global --save dt~whatever, and that works fine on their local machine, BUT when they push up the new typings.json and I or someone else pulls it down, when we then run typings install, the command only adds new definitions to the typings folder, and does not delete definitions from the typings folder which are no longer present in typings.json.
Is there a command which I can run to both add new definition sets and delete removed sets by diffing the current typings.json from the state of typings.json when the typings command was last run?
Currently we just have everyone delete the entire typings folder and run typings install again each time they pull, but that is getting to be a bit inefficient, since we have a lot of definition sets now.
NOTE: we tried typings uninstall and typings uninstall --save but those just throw errors (it seems you may only specify specific definition sets to uninstall).
Use
typings prune
on your project directory. It will remove all typings that are present on the typings directory and not listed on your typings.json file.
More info on the Typings documentation.
I am doing an internship in a company.
I need to create a node server.
I installed node on the computer (Windows) and I should install some plugins like:
- nodejs-webpack
- colors
- uglify
Normally I need to enter a command like : npm install "theModule"
But the software can not access the internet (due to company restrictions) and support service can not authorize the software (or do not want).
Can I install modules in any other way ? (download from Google and slide archives in the correct folder for example).
If the answer is no, do you know how can i get around this security?
You need a private npm repository.
Check out this answer:
can you host a private repository for your organization to use with npm?
I found it !
Just for exemple, we will install 'nodejs-websocket' :
1) You just have to download it here.
2) Put files into your Node's directory (for me it's "C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules")
3) in your .js file just add this line : var ws = require("C:/Program Files/nodejs/node_modules/npm/node_modules/nodejs-websocket/")
Done ! Thanks for all :D
I added this as a comment on your own answer, but I figured I should add a real answer with a better explanation.
Normally when you run npm install package-name npm installs the package to a node_modules directory in the directory you are in at that moment. So if your app was located at C:\code\my-app then you would cd into that directory and run npm install package-name. This would create a node_modules directory at C:\code\my-app\node_modules if it didn't already exist. Then it would install package-name into that directory at C:\code\my-app\node_modules\package-name.
As long as the module is in the node_modules directory for your app, you can require the module in your code without entering a big long file path.
var ws = require('nodejs-websocket');
The place you manually installed your module is the global node_modules directory. It's where npm would install a module if you did npm install -g package-name. The global node_modules directory is added to your system path when you install npm. In other words, any modules you install in there would be accessible from the command line like any other command. For example:
npm install -g bower
That would install the "bower" package to the global npm module directory. Bower would then be accessible as a command line tool for you to use. For example:
bower install angularjs
The global directory is more for tools like that and not really for modules that you intend to use in your code. Technically you can require a module from anywhere by including the full path in the require call like you did, but the standard practice would be to place it in the node_modules directory in the root of your application, and then require it with just its name and not a full path.
Edit: Here's another tip that you might like to take advantage of as well.
When you normally install a module with npm install package-name, your application usually has a package.json file at the root of it. If it does, you can do npm install package-name --save and npm will add the package-name module to a list in your app's package.json file. Once a module is listed in your app's package.json file it's called a "dependency" of your app because it basically says your app depends on package-name.
Normally, when you have dependencies listed in package.json, you can completely delete your app's node_modules directory and then simply run npm install from within your app's root directory and npm will automatically install all dependencies it finds listed in your app's package.json file. Since your corporate firewall won't allow this automatic downloading of modules, you won't get that benefit. However it is still good practice to follow the same conventions.
A trick you can do to create your package.json file is to manually install your dependencies into your app's node_modules directory. Once you have the modules your app needs, you can instruct npm to create a package.json file for your app by simply running npm init. It will walk you through a few little prompts to fill out your package.json file with details about your app. It will then peek inside your node_modules directory to see if you've already installed any modules before having a package.json file. If it finds any, it will automatically add them to the dependencies field in the package.json file it creates :D
With a proper package.json in place you'll always have a nice tidy list of what dependencies your application needs, even if your node_modules directory gets deleted. Normally people add their app's node_modules directory to their .gitignore file, only checking in the package.json file. This way they don't store their dependencies in source control but they can still be easily installed on new machines that clone it by simply running npm install from inside the app's directory. In your case though you may want to just add node_modules to your source control since you can't let npm install dependencies automatically.
When I want to add a package (and check in the dependency into git), where does it belong - into package.json or into bower.json?
From what I gather,
running bower install will fetch the package and put it in /vendor directory,
running npm install it will fetch it and put it into /node_modules directory.
This SO answer says bower is for front-end and npm is for backend stuff.
Ember-app-kit seems to adhere to this distinction from the first glance... But instructions in gruntfile for enabling some functionality give two explicit commands, so I'm totally confused here.
Intuitively I would guess that
npm install --save-dev package-name would be equivalent to adding the package-name to my package.json
bower install --save package-name might be the same as adding the package to my bower.json and running bower install?
If that is the case, when should I ever install packages explicitly like that without adding them to the file that manages dependencies (apart from installing command line tools globally)?
Npm and Bower are both dependency management tools. But the main difference between both is npm is used for installing Node js modules but bower js is used for managing front end components like html, css, js etc.
A fact that makes this more confusing is that npm provides some packages which can be used in front-end development as well, like grunt and jshint.
These lines add more meaning
Bower, unlike npm, can have multiple files (e.g. .js, .css, .html, .png, .ttf) which are considered the main file(s). Bower semantically considers these main files, when packaged together, a component.
Edit: Grunt is quite different from Npm and Bower. Grunt is a javascript task runner tool. You can do a lot of things using grunt which you had to do manually otherwise. Highlighting some of the uses of Grunt:
Zipping some files (e.g. zipup plugin)
Linting on js files (jshint)
Compiling less files (grunt-contrib-less)
There are grunt plugins for sass compilation, uglifying your javascript, copy files/folders, minifying javascript etc.
Please Note that grunt plugin is also an npm package.
Question-1
When I want to add a package (and check in the dependency into git), where does it belong - into package.json or into bower.json
It really depends where does this package belong to. If it is a node module(like grunt,request) then it will go in package.json otherwise into bower json.
Question-2
When should I ever install packages explicitly like that without adding them to the file that manages dependencies
It does not matter whether you are installing packages explicitly or mentioning the dependency in .json file. Suppose you are in the middle of working on a node project and you need another project, say request, then you have two options:
Edit the package.json file and add a dependency on 'request'
npm install
OR
Use commandline: npm install --save request
--save options adds the dependency to package.json file as well. If you don't specify --save option, it will only download the package but the json file will be unaffected.
You can do this either way, there will not be a substantial difference.
Update for mid 2016:
The things are changing so fast that if it's late 2017 this answer might not be up to date anymore!
Beginners can quickly get lost in choice of build tools and workflows, but what's most up to date in 2016 is not using Bower, Grunt or Gulp at all! With help of Webpack you can do everything directly in NPM!
Google "npm as build tool" result:
https://medium.com/#dabit3/introduction-to-using-npm-as-a-build-tool-b41076f488b0#.c33e74tsa
Webpack: https://webpack.github.io/docs/installation.html
Don't get me wrong people use other workflows and I still use GULP in my legacy project(but slowly moving out of it), but this is how it's done in the best companies and developers working in this workflow make a LOT of money!
Look at this template it's a very up-to-date setup consisting of a mixture of the best and the latest technologies:
https://github.com/coryhouse/react-slingshot
Webpack
NPM as a build tool (no Gulp, Grunt or Bower)
React with Redux
ESLint
the list is long. Go and explore!
Your questions:
When I want to add a package (and check in the dependency into git),
where does it belong - into package.json or into bower.json
Everything belongs in package.json now
Dependencies required for build are in "devDependencies" i.e. npm install require-dir --save-dev (--save-dev updates your package.json by adding an entry to devDependencies)
Dependencies required for your application during runtime are in "dependencies" i.e. npm install lodash --save (--save updates your package.json by adding an entry to dependencies)
If that is the case, when should I ever install packages explicitly like that without adding them to the file that manages dependencies (apart from installing command line tools globally)?
Always. Just because of comfort. When you add a flag (--save-dev or --save) the file that manages deps (package.json) gets updated automatically. Don't waste time by editing dependencies in it manually. Shortcut for npm install --save-dev package-name is npm i -D package-name and shortcut for npm install --save package-name is npm i -S package-name