Improvements: Remote Files

[lagoasoft-lucasschmidt]

Hey guys, this is what I want to accomplish:

• I want to have prodModeOnlyRemoteFiles, since I have a use case where I store a jquery dependency in a server, but I dont want to merge into my other files (join) and I dont want to have to download from the server when I am in development mode, but instead, use devModeOnlyFiles.
• Another problem that I have is that I have multiple servers, based on environments that store remoteFiles. Meaning, I want to set "/js/jquery" as a remoteFile. The problem is that the way its implemented right now, the only difference between remoteFile and other files is that one is parsed as URL. -- For now, I am able to solve this problem by not managing jquery with cartero.

I didnt look into how to do the prodModeOnlyRemoteFiles, but it should be easy. But to accomplish the second improvement, I think it may require some more work. I havent analyzed this yet, so I may be wrong.

I just wanted to see if you guys have any ideas regarding this. Thanks.

[go-oleg]

@lucastschmidt,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

As far as prodModeOnlyRemoteFiles goes, I think you can already accomplish what you are trying to do by using remoteFiles, devModeOnlyFiles, and prodModeOnlyFiles. I updated example 5 on the dev branch to do it for JQuery. It's bundle.json looks like:

{
  "remoteFiles" : [ "http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.1.min.js" ],
  "devModeOnlyFiles" : "jquery-1.10.1.js",
  "prodModeOnlyFiles" : "http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.1.min.js"
}

In dev mode, the local JQuery file will be used and in prod mode, the remote CDN file will be used.

As for multiple servers storing remote files, could you elaborate on the usecase and your setup a bit more? For example, what determines what server JQuery should be loaded from?

[lagoasoft-lucasschmidt]

Well, if the infrastructure has multiple servers, for testing, development, staging, production and you are storing these remoteFiles there.

staging.domain.com testing.domain.com www.domain.com

where

/static-files - you have the jquery files or other files /myapp - is my node application

Considering that and, based on the application environment configuration, I have to obtain the file from the correct server.

One way to do this, since, in my use case, all files are stored within my domain in another application, I can simply say "remoteFiles" :[ "/static-files/js/jquery.js"]. It will be correctly loaded by the browser.

Problem is that, as you know, the "remoteFiles" depends on that https protocol to be identified. Otherwise, we simply dont know if its really a remote file or not.

Thanks for the reply @go-oleg

[lagoasoft-lucasschmidt]

Hey @go-oleg , I did an implementation that solve my problems, but the way I implemented, it just doesnt look too safe :smile:

Not a lot of code was changed, but its one of those things that if someone tries to understand whats going on, its impossible, its all based on trial and error. The best thing would be a complete re-write of a lot of things (architecture). If anyone needs this support, I did here: https://github.com/lucastschmidt/cartero/tree/cdn_plus_support

Basically, now, a remoteFile can be an object or a string. In case of an object, you can have the following attributes: path, devMode, prodMode, ext. The last one, I just added to properly fix that crazy case where a remote file doesnt have a recognizable extension.

I would say it doesnt make any sense to merge this into the library, but, it would be good one day, for a change of architecture/re-write, so that more features can be added (options) without possibly breaking anything.

[go-oleg]

@lucastschmidt,

Cool! Thanks for sharing it!