I am very new to Node.js (which I'm assuming this is; I'm so new that I'm not really understanding what's going on here). I'm working with a client library for a system called RJ Metrics. I'm basically tying their API in with a Volusion API in order to import data into their system from the Volusion site. The code for that all makes sense but I'm not understanding how to install it and use it.
Their documentation is here:
And I'm needing to use the Javascript library because I'm working with Volusion which is on a Windows server and there is no ASP/C# option here. It says The RJMetrics Javascript client library is available via npm: and then terminal code. After research, it appeared that this uses Node.js so I installed that on my computer and ran the npm install rjmetrics in the Terminal which succeeded. I was assuming though that I must have to log into their server and run the code in order to get it to work.
Does this require me to SSH into the server? Am I way off base and is there a way I can just include some JS files in my page? I looked at their GitHub too and all of the main files use the require() function in them which I'm gathering is a Node.js function?
Apologies if I'm way off, I'm into this up to my neck and just trying to sort it all out now.
This part of the documentation (to which you refferred) is just plain ol' javascript. though NPM is the node package manager. So if you want, it looks like you can just run this .js script in a web browser like any other.
var rjmetrics = require("rjmetrics");
client = rjmetrics.Client(api_key, client_id);
# do stuff with client
If you wanted to do it in Node, you would create a .js file on your machine with their API code inside of it doing whatever you want. Then in terminal you run the script by going "node myfile.js". A local webserver setup is all you need to create and test this.
Related
I am making a small website for a buddy but he only has a Webserver from hostinger, for his website I want to use a Node.js Package. Is it still possible to use this hosting service if I just point the URL to the index.html file?
Or does the javascript not work anymore if I use Node.js?
tl'dr: Most likely not.
If the plan your friend has does not offer support Node.js you will not be able to use such package, but it will be hard to say for sure without knowing exactly the plan your friend has.
Webserver usually means static content (HTML, CSS and JS) hosting, and serving to the browser as-is. In this case no actual processing is done on the server - which is what node.js is for.
You could use other browser npm packages (or isomorphic ones, that support Node.js and browser environments), but in the case you described you won't be able to use node specific packages.
According to Hostinger's website, you can only use node.js if you are on VPS plan.
EDIT: It is worth mentioning that you could use a node package if you use it locally to generate or preprocess the assets before putting it in a webserver. But in this case the package will be executing in your machine instead of the server, during build time (not run time).
It depends on the package and what you want to do with it.
Node.js can be used to run server-side JavaScript. If you need to run server-side JavaScript then you need a hosting service that supports it. A service that supports only static files will not suffice.
The term “a Node.js package” might refer to a package available via NPM. Some such packages require Node.js (in which case see the previous paragraph). Others will run client-side in the browser. Typically, if you are using such a package in client-side code you will use a bundler (such as Webpack or Parcel) to convert your program (which imports said package) for use in browsers.
Some websites are generated programatically at build time and the resulting static files uploaded to a static hosting site. Node.js can be used to do that generation. It is, for example, the usual means by which sites using Gatsby.js are built.
after searching quite a lot without findind nothing about it I'm here to ask you if there is a way to implement Git in a pure Javascript web application.
I already know about Git.js but it implements just some basic things and I also wanted to build my own library to learn more in depth about Git.
What I'm not looking for is an API or a lib that could help me.
What I'm looking for is something like:
var command = {{git commit -m "Hello world"}} // Also pure git implementation
gitExecute(command);
I'm still a junior developer and maybe this could be impossible...thanks for the reply :)
What you are asking for may be difficult to do in a browser (because you will need access to the file system to run git commands). What you may need to do is create a NodeJS server which exposes REST endpoints which can be accessed by code in the browser which provides the GUI. The NodeJS server code can run commands as needed and respond to the REST HTTP requests which can be then used by your code in the browser to show/update the GUI.
The disadvantage with this method is that you will need to run your NodeJS server on the computer which has the repository and will not work if the repo is not local to the server.
Another alternative is to use the REST APIs exposed by popular GIT providers like GitHub.
EDIT:
Come to think of it, your usecase may be a good fit for an Electron App. That will allow you to build a desktop app (with access to the filesystem and privileges to execute commands) using Javascript.
For this purpose, NodeJS is mandatory.
You could install git on your server machine, and thene execute your cmds through nodejs' child processes (DOCs)
This is probably a very green question, but I've been designing a react app for a while using webpack and installing various packages using npm install. Every package is for some front end widget such as tabs, or D3, etc. My question is does this mean I have to make my server a node server if and when I go production? Could it be a Flask server, or some other random type and still use these node packages? I know that seems like a stupid question because I'm using node, and they're called node modules, but they're all for the front end and not the back end, so I don't know if they require a node back end or not.
My question is does this mean I have to make my server a node server if and when I go production?
Nope. You can use whatever web server you like. WebPack is going to bundle everything up as static resources which are deployed to your server in a normal way.
In fact, you probably shouldn't be using Node.js for normal static HTTP file serving. You would have a more performant site by using something like Nginx.
NPM was poorly named, but the naming made more sense at the time it was created. Web developers can use it as a package manager as well.
I want to create a Javascript (using Electron) app, but I want this app to be run and executed with terminal commands, like how you run git, is there a way to accomplish this?
I know that python and ruby are better languages for this purpose but I have a reason to use electron.
For non-GUI applications, you can just use node.js directly. If you want to make a TUI, you can use node.js + a module like blessed (and possibly blessed-contrib).
Electron is basically Chromium browser with tabs and all that stuff stripped out, plus a pile of tools to work with the user's desktop environment added in. It lets you use add HTML and CSS to a Node.JS application to create a GUI.
If all you need is a terminal command, Electron is completely unnecessary.
Here's a little pile of links to help you get started creating your command line app:
Writing command line applications in Node (Free Code Camp)
Scripting with Node (Atlassian)
Node.js with Commander npm module would work very well for your requirement.
What i need is a way to bundle all my javascript dependencies into one javascript file with Webpack (Just like with socket.io-client), but i can't do that with twilio.js.
I can see that the latest of twilio.js is listed here.:
https://www.twilio.com/docs/client/twilio-js as a script tag to:
//static.twilio.com/libs/twiliojs/1.2/twilio.min.js
But this is just a loader script for building the real twilio.js library here:
https://static.twilio.com/libs/twiliojs/refs/82278dd/twilio.min.js
And none of these supports Webpack.
https://github.com/twilio/twilio-node also exsistes, but this is for node.js only - not just plain client side javascript.
So my question is, is there a way to require the twilio.js library with Webpack ?
This answer is for Twilio.js client version 1.3.16 (script file, documentation).
The Twilio codebase is pretty bad. They don't publish their code to npm, and simply loading the twilio.js file from their CDN has side effects, including reading from window and looping through all script tags on the page. This means, even with the below answer, the client code can't be loaded in node, blocking server side rendering and testing, etc.
I published the package to npm as a mirror of the code, but it's not straightforward to use. Webpack can't correctly handle whatever bogus require structure they have set up. First, install:
npm install --save twilio-client-mirror
Then to use, require as normal:
import * as loadTwilio from 'twilio-client-mirror';
However, you can't actually use the loadTwilio object. You have to reference the global Twilio object, injected by the script:
const Twilio = window.Twilio;
Twilio.Device.setup(token);
...
This is a first attempt I made to try to include this flaky code inside a modern codebase. Hopefully with the coming 1.4 beta they will address these issues.
I know this is late, but I, too, just wrestled with this issue. Being new to Node, TypeScript and Webpack, I failed to understand that Webpack should be used for client-side scripts, while the Twilio-node library is a server-side library (as discussed loosely here). In other words, you shouldn't use require('twilio') in any client-side scripts...only Node scripts.
I had success with the following:
Add <script type="text/javascript" src="//static.twilio.com/libs/twiliojs/1.2/twilio.min.js"></script> to my main .html page
Use var twilio = require('twilio'); inside of a Node (server) script...not in client-side JavaScript (for example, add the Twilio calls inside of API methods, which can be created using a framework such as Express)
If you happen to be using TypeScript for Node scripting, use a transpiler such as the native TypeScript transpiler tsc (easy to do from a command line). If using JavaScript, use GulpJS (my fave) or GruntJS to help you consolidate and even run your Node server-side scripts
Use Webpack for anything else
Again, I'm new to this, so I'm open to input or corrections if I've stated anything incorrectly.