Typescript compiler for Meteor 1.3+

This package implements TypeScript 2.1.x (nightlies). It will only work with Meteor 1.3, because it depends on the modules package.

The TypeScript Meteor plugin caches the generated code between builds to speed up your workflow. When you first start (or restart) Meteor, all files will be compiled by TypeScript. After that, only changed files will be recompiled, as you make changes and save them.

Install

meteor add pbastowski:typescript

tsconfig.json

For Meteor 1.3 this package allows you to configure the following options in tsconfig.json

Transpiling .js files

By design, only files with the ".ts" extension will be transpiled by TypeScript into JavaScript. But, if you want also to also transpile ".js" files then add the config below to your tsconfig.json.

{
  "extensions": ["js", "ts"]
}

Partial templateUrl support for Angular 2

HTML files are compiled down to JavaScript files that export the template as text. This means that it is virtually impossible to also use these HTML templates in the Angular 2 templateUrl property. To get around this limitation we can let the TypeScript plugin change the following code for us from

templateUrl: './myFile.html'

to

template: require('./myFile.html').default

This will simulate templateUrls, but not actually implement them as such. So, this will work for any code that you are compiling, but not for external libraries, which are not compiled with the plugin.

{
    "replaceTemplateUrlWithTemplate": true
}

Optionally transpile node_modules

If compileNodeModules is true in tsconfig.json, then JavaScript files in node_modules will also be transpiled. If absent or false JavaScript files in node_modules will not be transpiled.

{
    "compileNodeModules": true
}

JADE inline templates

JADE tagged template strings are compiled to HTML first, before passing the code through the TypeScript compiler. I know, the previous sentence probably sounds like gibberish, so, let's have a look at the example below.

Notice the jade tag before the template string, below.

JADE template

@Component({
    selector: 'my-app',
    template: jade`h2 This is my app`       // JADE inline template
})

is compiled to the following

HTML template

@Component({
    selector: 'my-app',
    template: `<h2>This is my app</h2>`    // HTML inline template
})

Is this valid JavaScript?

Yes it is. The ES2016 standard, which TypeScript is a super-set of, supports something called "tagged template literals". The word jade is the tag for the template string `h2 This is my app`. So, this is valid ES2015 code, which should not create linting errors in your IDE or editor.

Read more about Tagged template literals.

Changelog

2016-11-13 v1.3.14

• Updated TypeScript to 2.2.0-dev.20161113 nightly - Object spreads are now built-in
• Simplified the JADE inline template (in TypeScript) algorithm

2016-10-02 v1.3.13

• Updated TypeScript to 2.1.0-dev.20161002 nightly
• Fix for "Errors prevented startup" message envountered during the development of this plugin.

2016-09-11 v1.3.12

• Removed an extra new-line added to the top of each .ts file, because it puts the sourcemaps out of sync with the source.

2016-09-11 v1.3.11

• Updated TypeScript to 2.1.0-dev.20160911 nightly
• Changed the custom require function, because there were still issues with some imports. Now it seems to behave the same as what you expect to get from Babel.
  

2016-08-30 v1.3.8

• Updated TypeScript to 2.1.0-dev.20160830 nightly
• Added custom require function to each generated module to handle synthetic default imports, i.e. imports from module.exports instead of exports.default. This enables us to do import angular from 'angular' using TypeScript, just like Babel, instead of having to do this var angular = require('angular').

2016-08-09 v1.3.7

• Updated TypeScript to 2.1.0 nightly
• Added compileNodeModules tsconfig.json option. If absent or false JavaScript files in node_modules will not be transpiled.

2016-08-08 v1.3.6

• Updated TypeScript to 2.1.0 nightly
• Added ability to transpile templateUrl: 'xxx' to template: require('xxx).default

2016-07-12 v1.3.5

• Updated TypeScript to 2.0.0

2016-06-16 v1.3.4

• Added ability to process embedded JADE templates

2016-06-16 v1.3.3

• Updated TypeScript to 1.9.0-dev.20160615-1.0
• Changed Meteor versionsFrom to 1.3

2016-06-08 v1.3.2

• Fixed source map support with Meteor 1.3

2016-03-20 v1.3.1

• You can now configure this package to transpile ".js" files also, thus entirely removing the need for Babel. Some features, such as async/await, are not supported by typescript 1.8.9, so, if you need those then you will still need Babel.

2016-03-20 v1.3.0 for Meteor 1.3-rc.3 or higher

• Bumped version to 1.3.0 to match Meteor versioning
• Added dependency on the modules package
• Updated typescript to v1.8.9
• Modules default to CommonJS

Breaking Changes

• Modules default to "commonjs" instead of "systemjs", because Meteor 1.3 supports them by default and allows us to import modules without the need for SystemJS (it uses webpack to resolve and bundle all imports and exports).