What if RequireJS could read bower.json files for module paths and dependencies?

This Bower plugin for RequireJS reads your root bower.json parsing your projects dependencies and their dependencies (TIAB). It then constructs a requirejs.config object ({"paths": {}, shim: {}}) with an auto load option.

This plugin works both InBrowser (dependencies reread each page load) & InBuild (config object saved to disk, so you can dump your bower.json files).

May also work on other AMD loaders (never tested it).

Install

You can use bower to install it easily:

bower install --save requirejs-plugin-bower

Plugins

• bower : For creating requirejs.config({paths:{},shim:{}}) settings automatically.

Documentation

check the examples folder. All the info you probably need will be inside comments or on the example code itself.

Basic usage

Put the plugins inside the baseUrl folder (usually same folder as the main.js file) or create an alias to the plugin location:

main.js

requirejs.config({
    baseUrl:'/js',
    paths : {
        //create alias to plugins (not needed if plugins are on the baseUrl)
        bower: '../bower_components/requirejs-plugin-bower/src/bower',
        json: '../bower_components/requirejs-plugins/src/json',
        text: '../bower_components/requirejs-text/text'
    },
    bower: {
        baseUrl: '../bower_components',
        extensions: 'js|css',
        ignore: 'requirejs|requirejs-domready|requirejs-text',
        auto: true
        deps: ['dependencies', 'devDependencies'],
        loader: {
             css: 'css'
        }
    }
});

// use plugin 
define(['bower!../bower.json'], function(bowerConfig) {

    //  requirejs.config(bowerConfig); // optional if bower: {auto: true}
    requirejs(['bootstrap']);

});

bootstrap.js

// use other modules using name without location path
define(['image'], function(image) {

    requirejs(['image!img/bower2requirejs.png'], function(requirejs2bower) {

        var wrapper = document.getElementById('wrapper');

        if (requirejs2bower) {
            wrapper.innerHTML = '<h2>Success</h2><br>';
            wrapper.appendChild(requirejs2bower);
        }

    });

});

Removing plugin code after build

r.js nowadays have the stubModules setting which can be used to remove the whole plugin code:

({
    // will remove whole source code of "json" and "text" plugins during build
    // JSON/text files that are bundled during build will still work fine but
    // you won't be able to load JSON/text files dynamically after build
    stubModules : ['json', 'text', 'requirejs-plugin-bower']
})

For more plugins check RequireJS Wiki.

Writing your own plugins

Check RequireJS documentation for a basic reference and use other plugins as reference. RequireJS official plugins are a good source for learning.

Also be sure to check RequireJS Wiki.

License

requirejs-plugin-bower is released under two licenses: new BSD, and MIT. You may pick the license that best suits your development needs.

Copyright (c) 2014 Rodney Robert Ebanks foss@rodneyebanks.com