Setup a Typescript project with classes shared between client and server apps? - node.js

I currently have a solution with two projects. ServerApp (nodejs NTVS) and BrowserApp (Html Typescript application).
I wish to share classes between both projects and get immediate intellisense.
How to do that ?
PS: for those how know GWT, what I want is similar to the shared project.

I managed to do it this way :
create a third project named SharedClasses (I used HTML Typescript template)
add my shared classes in it
add a shared_reference.ts file with references to those classes files
add a link to the reference.ts file in ServerApp and BrowserApp projects that point to shared_reference.ts
/// <reference path="../SharedClasses/shared_reference.ts" />
Autocompletion works, F12 too...

If you use an external build tool e.g grunt-ts its easier. For a demo check out : https://github.com/basarat/demo-fullstack
With a sample gruntfile (https://github.com/basarat/demo-fullstack/blob/master/src/Gruntfile.js). Important bit:
var commonFiles = "common/**/*.ts";
var serverFiles = ["server/**/*.ts", commonFiles];
var clientFiles = ["client/**/*.ts", commonFiles];

Related

AppImage from electron-builder with file system not working

I’m using Electron Builder to compile my Electron app to an .AppImage file, and I’m using the fs module to write to an .json file, but it’s not working in the appimage format (it’s working fine when I have the normal version not made with Electron Builder). I can still read from the file.
The code (preload):
setSettings: (value) => {fs.writeFileSync(path.join(__dirname, "settings.json"), JSON.stringify(value), "utf8")}
The code (on the website):
api.setSettings(settings);
The project: https://github.com/Nils75owo/crazyshit
That's not a problem with AppImage or Electron Builder but with the way you're packaging your app. Since you didn't post your package.json*, I can only guess what's wrong, but probably you haven't changed Electron Builder's default behaviour regarding packing your application.
By default, Electron Builder compiles your application, including all resources, into a single archive file in the ASAR format (think of it like the TAR format). Electron includes a patched version of the fs module to be able to read from the ASAR file, but writing to it is obviously not supported.
You have two options to mitigate this problem: Either you store your settings somewhere in the user's directory (which is the way I'd go, see below) or you refrain from packing your application to an ASAR file, but that will leave all your JavaScript code outside the executable in a simple folder. (Note that ASAR is not capable of keeping your code confidential, because there are applications which can extract such archives, but it makes it at least a little harder for attackers or curious eyes to get a copy of your code.)
To disable packing to ASAR, simply tell Electron Builder that you don't want it to compile an archive. Thus, in your package.json, include the following:
{
// ... other options
"build": {
// ... other build options
"asar": false
}
}
However, as I mentioned above, it's probably wiser to store settings in a common place where advanced users can actually find (and probably edit, mostly for troubleshooting) them. On Linux, one such folder would be ~/.config, where you could create a subdirectory for your application.
To get the specific application data path on a cross-platform basis, you can query Electron's app module from within the main process. You can do so like this:
const { app } = require ("electron"),
path = require ("path");
var configPath;
try {
configPath = path.join (app.getPath ("appData"), "your-app-name");
} catch (error) {
console.error (error);
app.quit ();
}
If you however have correctly set your application's name (by using app.setName ("...");), you can instead simply use app.getPath ("userData"); and omit the path joining. Take a look at the documentation!
For my Electron Applications, I typically choose to store settings in a common hidden directory (one example for a name could be the brand under which you plan to market the application) in the user's home directory and I then have separate directories for each application. But how you organise this is up to you completely.
* For the future, please refrain from directing us to a GitHub repository and instead include all information (and code is information too) needed to replicate/understand your problem in your question. That'd save us a lot of time and could potentially get you answers faster. Thanks!

How to expose a module from an Electron app to an external module

I am creating an Electron app and am using electron-builder to package and build the app. Users are able to make plugins for the app (plugins can be node modules with their own dependencies and such). Everything is working fine except the part of the app for exposing the app's API to the plugin.
I created a module in the app for handling the plugins "Plugin-handler" that imports the plugin and also exposes the API to the plugin (The app's API is just a set of functions and it is bundled with the app).
The dilemma is that the user should be able to place a plugin anywhere on their machine and the app does not know the path before the build. Consequently, I excluded the "plugin-handler" module in the Electron-builder config so it does not bundle with the Webpack. Now I need to find the right way to expose the API to the plugin.
Here is how I am doing it now, to load the plugins and passing the API:
// In the Plugin-handler module
const API = require('api')
const plugin = require('path-to-plugin')( API )
path-to-plugin is added by the user in the app when they import their plugin.
As seen above, currently I pass the API to the plugin as an argument, which is not ideal, instead, I need a way to exposing the API module (or any other module that is bundled in the APP) to the plugin so users can access it in their plugin like below:
// In the plugin
const { arg1, arg2,... } = require('api')
I've seen apps doing this, and allowing users to access their API in their plugins, but since I am new to all this, I may be doing things wrong, so please do be kind, and thank you for the help!
I drew a simple chart for better portraying the question:

Sharing TypeScript classes between client and server

I have a Node.js project written in TypeScript. In my project, I have a folder named "public" which contains the client side code & HTML and also a file named classes.ts which is supposed to be shared to the server side.
The problem is that I need to add "export" before the classes declaration in order to make them accessible in the server, but then in the browser I get this Error:
Uncaught ReferenceError: exports is not defined
I found these questions:
https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/5094,
Setup a Typescript project with classes shared between client and server apps?,
Share module between client and server with TypeScript,
which suggests using commonjs in the server but amd in the client. The problem with this solution is that they have 3 different projects (server, client and shared) whereas I only have one project in which I use commonjs.
Another suggestion is:
the other option, which is more convoluted and will require a post
build step to massage the code; if you can not use module loaders in
your client code, is to isolate all module dependencies in your server
code, then in the shared, they are just classes. Build the shared
files without --module, and no exports or imports, but all inside a
single namespace, say namespace MyApp { ... }; in your client code,
you include them directly, and emit using --out. in your server code,
you first emit the shared code to a single file, shared.js, and a
single .d.ts shared.d.ts, augment these with some code to export them
as a module, e.g. append exports = MyApp at the end of your shared.js
and shared.d.ts, then import them from your server code.
But I don't want to deal with updating .d.ts files all the time, and I'm also not sure it will work in one project.
Any suggestion how to make a TypeScript class accessible both in browser and server?
Any help will be profoundly appreciated!
This is absolutely possible.
I have a project containing both SPA client application that runs in browser and server running in node.js that both share common typescript classes. For all of this I have just one tsconfig.json file (I am still not sure that this is the best approach but for now it works just fine)
Here are parts of my setup:
Use modules (previously called external modules). No need for namespaces and d.ts files for your own modules.
module = "commonjs" in tsconfig.
On client side use System.js as module loader (this will solve your 'Uncaught ReferenceError: exports is not defined'). You can use angular2 5 min quickstart as reference how to setup system.js.
It works like a charm.

How to add static files to an Electron app

How can I add JSON or TOML files in an Electron app for deployment? The following code works in development environment, but does not after packaging by electron-packager.
var presets = toml.parse(fs.readFileSync('presets.toml','utf8'));
According to the guide that took me way too long to find, the Electron team patched the fs module to provide a "virtual file system" under the root (/).
That means your file is accessible at fs.readFileSync('/presets.toml'); (notice the forward slash).
I went crazy till I found this one.
The problem is not adding it because it's already added.
Problem is finding base path after packaging.
So here it is:
const { app } = window.require('electron').remote;;
console.log(app.getAppPath());
Also, as you can see, if you're using React you need to use window.require instead of regular require (it throws nasty error otherwise).
Found about this here:
https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/3204#issuecomment-151000897

Meteor.js: How do you require or link one javascript file in another on the client and the server?

1) In node on the backend to link one javascript file to another we use the require statement and module.exports.
This allows us to create modules of code and link them together.
How do the same thing in Meteor?
2) On the front end, in Meteor is I want to access a code from another front end javascript file, I have to use globals. Is there a better way to do this, so I can require one javascript file in another file? I think something like browserify does this but I am not sure how to integrate this with Meteor.
Basically if on the client I have one file
browserifyTest.coffee
test = () ->
alert 'Hello'
I want to be able to access this test function in another file
test.coffee
Template.profileEdit.rendered = ->
$ ->
setPaddingIfMenuOpen()
test()
How can I do this in Meteor without using globals?
Meteor wraps all the code in a module (function(){...your code...})() for every file we create. If you want to export something out of your js file (module), make it a global. i.e don't use var with the variable name you want to export and it'll be accessible in all files which get included after this module. Keep in mind the order in which meteor includes js files http://docs.meteor.com/#structuringyourapp
I don't think you can do this without using globals. Meteor wraps code in js files in SEF (self executing function) expressions, and exports api is available for packages only. What problem do you exactly have with globals? I've worked with fairly large Meteor projects and while using a global object to keep my global helpers namespaces, I never had any issues with this approach of accessing functions/data from one file in other files.
You can use a local package, which is just like a normal Meteor package but used only in your app.
If the package proves to be useful in other apps, you may even publish it on atmosphere.
I suggest you read the WIP section "Writing Packages" of the Meteor docs, but expect breaking changes in coming weeks as Meteor 0.9 will include the final Package API, which is going to be slightly different.
http://docs.meteor.com/#writingpackages
Basically, you need to create a package directory (my-package) and put it under /packages.
Then you need a package description file which needs to be named package.js at the root of your package.
/packages/my-package/package.js
Package.describe({
summary:"Provides test"
});
Package.on_use(function(api){
api.use(["underscore","jquery"],"client");
api.add_files("client/lib/test.js","client");
// api.export is what you've been looking for all along !
api.export("Test","client");
});
Usually I try to mimic the Meteor application structure in my package so that's why I'd put test.js under my-package/client/lib/test.js : it's a utility function residing in the client.
/packages/my-package/client/lib/test.js
Test={
test:function(){
alert("Hello !");
}
};
Another package convention is to declare a package-global object containing everything public and then exporting this single object so the app can access it.
The variables you export NEED to be package-global so don't forget to remove the var keyword when declaring them : package scope is just like regular meteor app scope.
Last but not least, don't forget to meteor add your package :
meteor add my-package
And you will be able to use Test.test in the client without polluting the global namespace.
EDIT due to second question posted in the comments.
Suppose now you want to use NPM modules in your package.
I'll use momentjs as an example because it's simple yet interesting enough.
First you need to call Npm.depends in package.js, we'll depend on the latest version of momentjs :
/packages/my-moment-package/package.js
Package.describe({
summary:"Yet another moment packaged for Meteor"
});
Npm.depends({
"moment":"2.7.0"
});
Package.on_use(function(api){
api.add_files("server/lib/moment.js");
api.export("moment","server");
});
Then you can use Npm.require in your server side code just like this :
/packages/my-moment-package/server/moment.js
moment=Npm.require("moment");
A real moment package would also export moment in the client by loading the client side version of momentjs.
You can use the atmosphere npm package http://atmospherejs.com/package/npm which lets you use directly NPM packages in your server code without the need of wrapping them in a Meteor package first.
Of course if a specific NPM package has been converted to Meteor and is well supported on atmosphere you should use it.

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