How to use Faker.js in NPM-based browser project? - node.js

I use npm as a package manager for my web frontend projects. I have a need to generate some fake data locally within JavaScript in a project. Faker.js seems to be the perfect library to do so.
Most libraries, when I install them with npm, either have usable js files at the root of the installed files or provide a dist or similar folder with the .js files that I can reference, e.g. <script src="node_modules/angular/angular.min.js"></script> Faker.js however does not include this.
The documentation for faker simply includes this line: <script src = "faker.js" type = "text/javascript"></script> Clearly this will not work since the package doesn't even install a file called faker.js anywhere. My assumption is that you're expected to either use it with Node.js (non web frontend) projects or you're expected to build it somehow to get the faker.js file.
One tutorial I found online says you can npm install faker and then use <script src="node_modules/faker/build/build/faker.js">. But I also do not have a build folder. The tutorial didn't give any instructions on building the faker.js file.
Can someone shed some light on how this works? I have actually seen at least one other package (jQuery) that is similar and does not include a compiled usable browser version in the distribution. In past projects I've simply downloaded a compiled .js file and included it in my source control, but I'd like to try to avoid that if at all possible!
(Please don't answer with "just use a CDN" - I am working in an environment with specific policy requirements that HTML on the production server may not directly reference any off-site assets or scripts, but it is OK to pull in those libraries and self-host them. Frustrating, yes, but I don't get to make the rules.)

Related

Including font-end javascript compiled from node module

I am playing with a node application, which is running a basic hello-world HTML page.
I want to use isomerjs, which I installed via npm - though I imagine this question is more general than this one particular module. I do see it in the node_modules directory.
I'm not sure where to point my <script src="/path/to/isomer.min.js"></script> at. The module directory appears to only have the uncompiled files.
What is the accepted or standard way of utilizing front-end code from a node module? Am I missing a step?

Project too large

I'm just starting to learn Angular, I installed in my Ubuntu Linux:
Angular CLI: 7.1.4. and
Node: 10.14.2.
My question is, why one project is too large? I mean a simple "helloworld" is 334MB, I don't know why, Is it possible resize it? or delete any folder that is unnecessary? Or Is there something wrong with my installation? (how can I detect that?)
The bigger folder is node_modules, and when I create my projects, generates a lot of folders.
I was reading about "angular lazy loading", but I'm new.. It is not totally clear for me.
this is the folder spaces:
Please... I hope somebody can help me...
best regards
You might be using big bundles which are not needed, so you can break them up:
https://medium.com/#julienetienne/javascript-bundles-are-too-big-break-up-the-libraries-3be87d5ef487
In modern JavaScript, projects require modules that themselves require modules that require modules... resulting in node_modules directory with hundreds of dependencies. A 100Kb library might be included because someone needed one function from it. JavaScript is not compiled, so all that source tends to be rather big. This is an unfortunate, but unavoidable truth; your Angular project directories will be big, and there's nothing you can do about it. It is perfectly normal.
The good part: modern JavaScript deployment typically includes packing up those libraries with Webpack or Parcel or similar code bundlers. Most of them implement "tree shaking", which analyses the code to find only the functions that are potentially utilised starting from the entry point, and only bundle those, ignoring the rest. This means that 100Kb library whose one function is used is transformed into just that one function in the final distribution bundle.
Not all of the bundlers are equally good at it at this point. For example, Webpack cannot tree-shake the CommonJS modules, only ES6 ones.
You can remove node_modules folder when you are not going to use the app.
And, when you need work on the application, you can re-generate node_modules using the command: npm install
Those are just node-modules, they are needed for building the project, but not necessarily everything inside of them will be deployed to production. As Amadan said, there is a process of tree-shaking (filtering only used modules) and also in production you use the minified version of the same JS code (where for example whitespace is missing and variable-names are shortened), among other optimizations. A production-optimized Angular project should not be more than a 100KB for a hello-world application.
In the provided image I see packages like
selenium-webdriver
protractor
Those belong to dev-dependencies (see your package.json file) because they are used for testing. When building for production, no code from dev-dependencies should be included. The typescript package (which is nr.2 in size in your screenshot) will also not be present in production because types like string are only used for writing Typescript code, but the browser receives Javascript, which it is compiled to.

Getting the path of a node module in a view

I'm a beginner using NodeJS. I'm using a plugin for video-js called videojs-playlist. The docs say to include it like this:
<script src="path/to/video.js/dist/video.js"></script>
<script src="path/to/videojs-playlist/dist/videojs-playlist.js"></script>
What exactly is the path/to supposed to be if not root/node_modules or something like that? How am I supposed to access those files from an ejs view? I have installed both video-js and videojs-playlist using npm.
Right now I get redirect errors on my page because it's not finding the file from the paths I've tried.
If the path doesn't have a / at the beginning, then the path is relative to the file the <script> tag is in; otherwise, it is relative to the site root -- which may mean different things depending on if/how you are bundling/deploying your javascript.
For a simple case, if you have the script tags in an index.html, and you copied video.js to the same directory as index.html, you would reference by:
<script src="video.js">
If you are using Node to test things out on your personal machine, you could reference a file relative to your HTML file and node_modules directory; however, this wouldn't really be the best in the context of deploying and managing a real application.
Node gives you require() to import modules from dependencies you've installed without needing to specify their exact location and directory structure, but it looks like this particular plugin may not have given you that convenience here.
It looks like you are in need of a bundler. One widely-used and well-documented bundler is webpack, but there are others such as parcel and FuseBox. These can all serve your needs.
These tools are most likely what the videojs-playlist README on GitHub is referring to when they say:
Include videojs-playlist on your website using the tool(s) of your choice.
Among other features, these tools can take a file from one of your node_modules dependencies, and "bundle" relative your javascript application (however you desire), so that you don't have to carry around some pre-installed giant node_modules directory everywhere with you -- you only take what you need with you and structure it the way you want.

Using angular-ui-tinymce with JSPM - unable to load templates and plugins

I have the same problem that has already been documented on GitHub here. ui-tinymce references a number of dependencies which cannot be reached in my application.
GET http://localhost:8080/jspm_packages/github/tinymce/tinymce-dist#4.3.12/themes/modern/theme.min.js # angular.js:6084
tinymce.js:9426 Failed to load: /jspm_packages/github/tinymce/tinymce-dist#4.3.12/themes/modern/theme.min.js
I am able to use the workaround suggested in the github issue above, which changes the baseURL. This works fine in my development environment. However, when I run jspm bundle-sfx it does not pick up these dependencies and I am left in the same situation without templates or plugins.
What is the best way to address this? Can angular-ui-tinymce be broken down so that the dependent files are available in separate packages? Or should I just use gulp to get around this problem?
I tried using Gulp to concatenate the missing files, however this will not work because by default tinymce still expects the files to be at the relative locations which it uses in its own internal file structure.
I still think it would be helpful for Tinymce to provide separate packages for the most common themes, however I admit that there are a lot of themes and plugins so this would be a fair amount of work.
In the end the simplest thing to was to copy the theme and plugin files into the "correct" relative directories within my own source code. This way I can change the relative baseURL for tinymce and it will be correct when I run it in production as well as development environments.
This way I can run jspm bundle-sfx and it will bundle these files along with everything else. However you may have to import the files explicitly if you do not serve the area statically in your application. For example:
import 'sysadmin/app/tinymce/themes/modern/theme';

Angular 2 required libraries

I would like to start working with the Angular2 Beta, but I am facing a few problems regarding the required libraries.
I am using Eclipse and it's TypeScript Plugin.
Also, I am using SystemJSas module loader.
My problem is that if I install Angular2 using npm install angular2 it loads the whole Angular-Project, including the CommonJS-Version, ES6-Version and the TypeScript-Version. This results in a over 30 MB big folder with almost 2000 files, though I only need the TypeScript-Version (still a few 100 files), without examples.
Also, importing the /ts-folder in Eclipse gives me errors, that the modules from "rxjs" do not exist ("rxjs/Subject"...). So i guess i have to download that project too.
Using the package.json used in the 5 Min Quickstart, npm install downloads over 80MB (almost 10000 files), and I am sure, I don't need all those files.
So i would like to know, which files are really needed by Angular2 and how can i download them?
Should i create my own package.json-File? Or is there a even simpler way?
EDIT:
Taking a look at our (working) Angular 1.X Project, i can see a single angular.js file, as well as files for the different modules (like restangular.js, angular-route.js etc.), in total about 10 files.
What i am now looking for is an angular2 counterpart of those files.
Do those counterparts exist? Where can i find them?
"What i am now looking for is an angular2 counterpart of those files":
<!-- 1. Load libraries -->
<script src="node_modules/angular2/bundles/angular2-polyfills.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/systemjs/dist/system.src.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/rxjs/bundles/Rx.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/angular2/bundles/angular2.dev.js"></script>
You need those 4 .js (not .ts) files.
"Where can i find them?"
They got downloaded with npm. You can keep those 4 and delete everything else. You can also get them from a CDN, or download them manually.
<!-- 1. Load libraries -->
<script src="https://rawgithub.com/systemjs/systemjs/0.19.6/dist/system.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/tools/typescript.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/2.0.0-beta.0/angular2-polyfills.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/2.0.0-beta.0/Rx.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.angularjs.org/2.0.0-beta.0/angular2.dev.js"></script>
HOWEVER. These are already compiled javascript files, and they'll work for you if you write your app using JS, but right now 90% of the scarse documentation you will find about Angular 2 is on typescript and in order to work with typescript you'll need the source files of Angular 2 which is the whole package you are getting.
My suggestion if you are doing it in typescript: Don't worry about all those files getting downloaded, they are meant for development, not neccesarily part of your build. You can only include the ones I told you in your build and that will keep you real app small. Also you are not suppose to add all those files into the git repo or w/e repo you are using, the idea is that you have git ignore the whole "node_modules" folder and you only commit the package.json file, which will work for other developers so they run npm install and they get all the dependencies themselves. So all those files are only meant to be in dev machines, you don't have to worry about them making you app too big cause they won't be part of your app.
The package.json file in Angular 2 Quickstart guides contains development dependencies like concurrently,lite-server, typescript etc along with es6-shim etc for older browser compatibility.
Basic dependencies for angular 2 are
angular2
typescript
systemjs
rxjs
You can look into this Angular2 Tutorial Plunker to start a simple application. It also contains routing library.

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