Loading vendor javascript as modules

Question

I'm working on an application built with Brunch. I would like to load some* of the vendor-supplied javascript as modules, so that I can require them in my code, rather than relying on global variables. Is there some way to do this, without copying all the vendor code into my app directory?

I tried creating a vendorlib directory, but brunch doesn't seem to look anywhere bu app and vendor. I also tried making a vendor/modules directory, but brunch seems to not wrap anything found under vendor (even when I convinced it to combine those files with the files other modules found under app.)

*The "some" that I'm working on right now are Chaplin, Backbone and Underscore. If I get those to work, I'll move more over later.

Answer 1

You can override config.modules.wrapper and make it wrap, for example, all files in vendor/modules directory. Or you can make add more directories that are handled by brunch to config.paths.watched.

Answer 2

For those following along at home, this is what my config.coffee eventually looked like:

  paths:
    watched: ['app','vendor','test','vendorlib']
  files:
    javascripts:
      joinTo:
        'javascripts/app.js': /^app/
        'javascripts/vendor.js': /^vendor/
        'test/javascripts/test.js': /^test[\\/](?!vendor)/
        'test/javascripts/test-vendor.js': /^test[\\/](?=vendor)/
      order:
        # Files in `vendor` directories are compiled before other files
        # even if they aren't specified in order.before.
        before: [
          'vendor/scripts/console-polyfill.js',
        ]
        after: [
          'test/vendor/scripts/test-helper.js'
        ]

    stylesheets:
      joinTo:
        'stylesheets/app.css': /^(app|vendor)/
        'test/stylesheets/test.css': /^test/
      order:
        after: ['vendor/styles/helpers.css']

    templates:
      joinTo: 'javascripts/app.js'

  modules:
    nameCleaner: (path) ->
      path.replace(/^(app|vendorlib)\//, '')

This lets me populate a vendorlib directory with modules from vendors that support loading as modules. I currently have Chaplin, jQuery, and Backbone in there. I had to rename them not to include the version numbers.