Packages

Background

• JS doesn't know about packages but node invented it some time
• a package is installable and is something you can actually ship
• lively adopted having packages since it is a nicer way of handeling code
• we group modules into packages so you can load the package and get all the modules out
• package.json is a dictionary that has a lot of information about the modules and the structure of the modules
• it defines how the packages looks like
• whereas index.js knows how to export which modules

Creating a package it self

• open a browser
• click the + sign at the top of the browser
• choose Create Package
• enter a name and click ok

Making your package saveable

• write in the index.js what should actually be exported
• export {name} from ./name-of-module-file.js
• also you can copy some package.json code for example:

{
  "name": "packagename",
  "version": "somenumber",
  "lively": {
    "isObjectPackage": true
  },
  "dependencies": {},
  "devDependencies": {},
  "main": "index.js"
}

• if isObjectPackage is set to true the package gets also serialized while false says that it can be found on the server
• lively first looks whether packages are core packages or whether they are thirdparty packages
• therefore it looks the packages up in lively.installer/packages-config.json
• just insert your package name there
• it is important to write the package name there while the repourl is not used at the moment
• now you only need write import {name} from '[packagename]' in all of your code
• AND the world can be saved and no package information is missing!! :+1: