Remove browser builds from source

[imor]

Files lib/pathfinding-browser.js and lib/pathfinding-browser.min.js should be removed. These are release artefacts which should be produced only when making a release. For people to have ready access to these files they should be uploaded on the repo's release page.

Benefits of doing this are -

• It will prevent beginners from changing the wrong files. E.g. see add extra cost for turns in A* to avoid staircase #32.
• Because the minified file is a single line it is prone to merge conflicts. It will prevent those.

@qiao What do you say?

[qiao]

Hi @imor, I fully agree with you on setting up releases for the distribution files. And thank you for all your hard work on maintaining this project 👍

UPDATE: I've created a release and modified the README to let users download from the releases page.

[imor]

Closing the issue then :)

[vasa-chi]

After this change there is no way to import this project with bower. That is really problematic.

[imor]

@vasa-chi I'm not sure what you mean exactly because I'm not too familiar with bower but if you are trying to install pathfindingjs doesn't the following command work?
bower install https://github.com/qiao/PathFinding.js/releases/download/0.4.11/pathfinding-browser.min.js

[vasa-chi]

Surprisingly, it works... But the normal workflow would be to install through bower install PathFinding.js. That should clone the latest release from the repo. Since there are no files for browser in the repo, there is no way to use PathFinding.js, unless you compile it manually, which defeats the whole idea of dependency management.

[imor]

I don't like keeping release artifacts around in the source code.

When I do bower install PathFinding.js why does it pull the whole source code from the git repo? What a waste. In contrast npm keeps the release artifacts in a separate database from the source repo. A release manager explicitly pushes to this database when making a release and files from only that database are fetched when doing npm install <package>. Can't I somehow tell bower to pull a certain file though http when doing bower install PathFinding.js? If this is not possible then another option is to have a release only repo somewhere which contains only the minified file and nothing else. Ideas anyone?

Anyway I'm reopening this issue until a solution to this problem is found.

[chrisl8888]

I'm having this issue as well. when i perform a bower install it doesn't produce a packaged file for me to consume.

May i suggest a Seperate folder structure?

Also, in the time being i would suggest adding documentation on the command you just provided:

bower install https://github.com/qiao/PathFinding.js/releases/download/0.4.11/pathfinding-browser.min.js

My largest issue with doing the install (like above) is that it provides a folder with the wrong name of the repository:

Additionally, as you move to different minor and major versions it'll not provide the latest file.

One last suggestion. Change the project from pathfinding.js -> pathfindingjs or pathfinding. This will make globbing easier: [bower_components/*.js].

[cirocosta]

This is kind of a 'problem' (see this discussion around a postinstall on bower - comparing to npm, where we can specify a script to run after the install) of bower. I say kind of because bower really does not expect to run a build for something as i understand.

IMO the unique way of dealing with it with bower is to actually have the lib dir with the files built.

See jquery - Build: drop bower; use npm for front-end deps

---

Just created a PR related: #66

[imor]

To support bower:

1. A separate repo will be created (maybe call it pathfinding-bower or something) which contains only the browser builds.
2. Will be re-registered with the name pathfinding on bower.io. This will prevent globbing issues as pointed out by @chrisjlee and will be consistent between npm and bower.

[imor]

It is now possible to install using bower install pathfinding.
Ping @qiao @vasa-chi @chrisjlee @cirocosta. Could you all please give feedback if this works for you before I close this issue.

[RichardJohnn]

I had to add this to my bower.json :

"overrides": {
    "pathfinding": {
      "main": "pathfinding-browser.js"
    }
  }

but even so, there is no PF defined as in new PF.Grid(5, 3).

As a comparison, I tried easystarjs and also had to add an override to their .js file in bin/ and then new EasyStar.js() just worked

[imor]

@RichardJohnn Could you please post your folder structure i.e. where is pathfinding installed and how you import it in your webpage?

[imor]

Hi @RichardJohnn , thanks for reporting. Build 0.4.13 was broken as it it did not define the PF variable. I have released 0.4.14. Please try installing again and it should work.

Thanks,
imor

[RichardJohnn]

yes, that did the trick! also, it looks like your bower.json is good to go too, the 'overrides' section in my project's bower.json is not needed anymore

I'd say this issue is resolved.

[imor]

Thanks @RichardJohnn for your feedback 👍 . Closing the issue.