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Modules and Inheritance

At Springer Nature, we have a lot of code that we need to share between different applications. To do that, we enabled Shunter to pull in common resources, filters, helpers and templates from one or more declared npm modules. These modules are loaded in as dependencies via package.json and the application is made aware of them by configuration options set in config/local.json.

In this way, shared code rollout can be controlled through versioning, which reduces the risk of regressions.

Code loaded in through modules can be overridden by your application simply by having a file of the same name in your application.

Set-up Steps

  1. Set up your shared code with the same structures as you have for your main app, e.g. templates are put into a view folder, JavaScript goes into a resources/js folder, etc.
  2. In your application's package.json, add your sharing module to dependencies, e.g.
"dependencies": {
	"shunter": "^1",
	"my-shared-module": "~1.0"
},
  1. Add the module name to config/local.json, e.g.
{
	"modules": ["my-shared-module"]
}
  1. Run npm install to add in the code

Private Modules

We are using a private repository for versioned node modules so that we can use version ranges in package.json (Gemfury).

It isn't essential to use this - you can still use the other methods of setting your module location like GitHub urls. However without a repository you are limited to pointing to one specific version.

Config

When Shunter sets up configuration, it looks in your app's folders for config/local.json and extends the default config options object with the object found in the local.json file.

If there is a modules property with an array with one or more item in it, this is used within Shunter to find the relevant directory under node_modules and from there to load in Dust templates and helpers, add the resources files to the asset handler load path, and apply filters.

Overriding shared code

If your shared code module and your app have a file of the same name, Shunter will pick the file in your app over the one in your shared code module.

E.g. If you have both my-shared-module/resources/css/forms.css and my-app/resources/css/forms.css, CSS in the my-shared-module version will not be loaded into the compiled main.css file.

Developing with your module

Use NPM to point to your locally checked-out module code with npm link

Testing your code

You can run tests on your code in the same way as you do for your application.

The module's dev dependencies should include Shunter so that the rendering helper is available (see Testing)

Related: