Using GULP to load Jquery CDN and other external JS sources - javascript

I've been trying to find a definitive answer to a problem I'm having using GULP to load the latest jquery CDN or any other Javascript CDN external sources.
What I've got so far is all our JS files being found in a folder, concatenated to a single file and placed in a new folder called min. Ideally I'd like to also link into the concat process the jquery CDN's and other external js files.
Does anyone know what is the best way to do this?
Here is the code I've got so far:
var gulp = require('gulp');
var concat = require('gulp-concat');
var uglify = require('gulp-uglify');
var notify = require('gulp-notify');
gulp.task('js', function () {
return gulp.src('js/**/*.js') //select all javascript files under js/ and any subdirectory
.pipe(concat('mynewfile.min.js')) //the name of the resulting file
.pipe(uglify())
.pipe(gulp.dest('min')) //the destination folder
.pipe(notify({ message: 'Finished minifying JavaScript'}));
});
gulp.task('watch', function() {
gulp.watch('js/**/*.js', ['js']);
});
gulp.task('default', ['js', 'watch']);

As far as I know, Gulp is a helper to manage your project locally, not by connecting to external sources.
A common approach would be to manage current library versions by a package manager like Bower – there is an integration bridge available (didn't test it though, I just update packages manually).

Related

How to minify my personal jquery frontend microframework

I've made my personal jQuery microframework with useful utilities. It has a directory structure like this:
/jspocket
- jspocket.js
/scripts
- include.js
- navigation.js
- slider.js
- popups.js
...
Therefore it is imported into html like this:
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-3.3.1.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jspocket/jspocket.js"></script>
In jspocket.js is this code for importing all the .js files from '/script' directory into an html file:
$.getScript(jspocket_dir + "/scripts/navigation.js");
$.getScript(jspocket_dir + "/scripts/popups.js");
$.getScript(jspocket_dir + "/scripts/slider.js");
$.getScript(jspocket_dir + "/scripts/include.js");
...
Now I would like to create a minified version of my framework so there will be only one file jspocket.min.js. But the problem is that the commands like:
$.getScript(jspocket_dir + "/scripts/navigation.js");
will not work, simply becouse scripts/navigation.js does not exist in minified version, it should be all in one file.
So the question is how could I minify the framework into one file (without manually copying all the code into one file)? Should I change the way scripts are imported? Does the new import/export features of JS solve it somehow? How is this problem solved in general? I'm using node.js and npm, so maybe there could be a good packages for this?
You need to use a build system to minify the files into one file but leave jspocket.js out of the process.
There are many build systems out there like GruntJs , Webpack or Gulp
This following is how to do it in Gulp
// the plugins
var gulp = require('gulp')
var uglify = require("gulp-uglify");
var concat = require('gulp-concat');
// task
gulp.task('minify-js', function () {
gulp.src([
./jspocket/scripts/navigation.js,
// the rest of your files in your order
])
.pipe(concat('jspocket.min.js'))
.pipe(uglify())
.pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
});
then run gulp minify-js

Gulpfile not outputting to correct location

So I'm trying to set up the basic gulp workflow with sass and I am missing something, but I can't find it. I've searched the web for a workflow example with dist/src folders, NOBODY takes you step by step on how and why things are done.
Anyway, I have a basic folder project with dist, src, node_modules, gulpfile.js and package.json.
My main problem is that the outputted src/sass/main.scss is not outputted into dist/css/main.css. This works only if I create a src/css/main.css file and the outputted .css file is generated there, although I clearly have .pipe(gulp.dest("dist/css")) in my gulpfile.js.
Here's my gulpfile.js
var gulp = require('gulp');
var browserSync = require('browser-sync').create();
var sass = require('gulp-sass');
// Static Server + watching scss/html files
gulp.task('serve', ['sass'], function() {
browserSync.init({
server: "./src"
});
gulp.watch("src/scss/*.scss", ['sass']);
gulp.watch("src/*.html").on('change', browserSync.reload);
});
// Compile sass into CSS & auto-inject into browsers
gulp.task('sass', function() {
return gulp.src("src/scss/*.scss")
.pipe(sass())
.pipe(gulp.dest("dist/css"))
.pipe(browserSync.stream());
});
gulp.task('default', ['serve']);
And in my html file I'm linking the .css with this:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/main.css"/>
I haven't even tried to add more plugins into gulp because for the life of me I can't figure out why this doesn't work.
Directory tree to make things easier to understand:
|-dist
|-css
|-main.css
|-img
index.html
|-node_modules
|-src
|-css
|-main.css
|-img
|-sass
|-_custom.scss
|-main.scss
index.html
gulpfile.js
package.json
Can someone please explain why I need to run the server in src and not dist?
Does gulp generate the sass and then knows how to copy it to dist?
What is actually wrong in my gulpfile?
in src there is no scss folder that you are targeting with
return gulp.src("src/scss/*.scss")
try to fix that first

Gulp: how to use CDN for js lib?

I'm new in AngularJS and Gulp.
In one example, some libs are copied by Gulp from the node_modules folder in a js/lib/angular2 folder:
gulp.task('libs', function() {
return gulp.src([
'node_modules/angular2/bundles/angular2.dev.js'
... // other libs
]).pipe(gulp.dest(src + 'js/lib/angular2'));
});
then added in index.html via script tag
<script src="js/lib/angular2/angular2.dev.js"></script>
What if I would load them via CDN?
During development I can use local js files, copied by Gulp, but in production have I substitute them "by hand" with their corresponding CDN file (if any)? or there is a way to do it directly with Gulp?
EDIT
I found the plugin gulp-cdnizer
There is a plugin for gulp, gulp-processhtml, that can do this. It uses conditional comments that will remove/replace/add to your HTML files based on the gulp task.
https://www.npmjs.com/package/gulp-processhtml

Gulp output to multiple files rather than one big file?

Is it possible to configure the gulpfile to output several files rather than one?
All the examples I came across demonstrate minification and concatenation of all js files into one big bundle js file the index.html would load.
When your apps get bigger and more complex using many libraries, this bundle gets bloated pretty quickly and you come to an understanding that one big bundle file is not a good fit to scale your app.
Is this concatenation a must? or can we simple minify & uglify & browserify each file to a corresponding minified version in the output folder?
Cheers
Ajar
You can definitely configure a gulpfile to output several files rather than one. For instance, I have a gulp task:
gulp.task('styles', function () {
gulp.src('dev/less/*.less')
.pipe(plumber())
.pipe(less())
.pipe(prefix())
.pipe(minifyCSS())
.pipe(gulp.dest('dist/css'))
});
I have 5 .less files in my less folder, and they become 5 .css files with matching names in my distribution folder.
And for JavaScript files as well:
gulp.task('scripts', function () {
gulp.src('dev/landing/*.js')
.pipe(uglify())
.pipe(gulp.dest('dist/js'));
});
Four JavaScript files become uglified versions of themselves in my distribution/js folder.
However, this is a different question if you want to address browserify specifically. browserify builds with the intent of including any dependencies stemming from your initially included JavaScript file.
If keeping separate files is more important to you, you can look into browserify-deoptimizer

How to handle angular module dependencies in other directories?

Let's say that, I have a main module:
angular.module('myApp', ['myApp.view1']);
And the other module
angular.module('myApp.view1', ['ngRoute'])
the second one is in another directory in the project.The first module cannot find it's dependency, only if I also add
<script src="view1/view1.js"></script> in the index.html
,but it quickly becomes pretty hard to manage by hand, if one has lots of javascript files.
What is the best way to manage dependencies between angular modules, so that they can recognize each other?
You can use a task runner like grunt or gulp and concatenate all the javascript files during the build step and include that one file in your index.html file. I use gulp and here is a sample gulp task that helps you concatenate all the JS files using the gulp-concat plugin.
gulpfile.js
var gulp = require("gulp");
var concat = require("gulp-concat");
//if all your source js files are inside the src directory
var srcJs = ["src/**/*.js"];
gulp.task("js", function() {
return gulp.src(srcJs)
.pipe(concat("app.js") // concat into 1 file called app.js
.pipe(gulp.dest("dist"); //save app.js in dist directory
});
So add this gulpfile.js in your project root folder and every time you make code changes, go to the project root folder in the command line and run the command "gulp js". This will run the js task and concatenate all your JS files and store it in a file called app.js in the dist directory. And in your index.html file you can always point to this one file dist/app.js.
They can only recognize each other, if they are added as script files. A best practice is to minify all of the javascript files within your directory structure into one file before publishing.

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