NxPackaged

Demonstrates ng-packagr alongside Nx Workspace.

Develop your libraries and applications in a monorepo. Build distribution-ready binaries in Angular Package Format.

Transcript

This project was generated with Angular CLI version 1.5.0 using Nrwl Nx.

The following transcript documents reproducible steps to set up this project.

Create Nx Worksapce

First, create an Nx Workspace. This repository was created with the sandbox install script:

$ curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nrwl/nx/master/packages/install/install-next.sh | bash -s nx-packaged

Alternatively, you could convert an existing Angular CLI project to Nx Workspace. Please see the Nx documentation how to do that.

Create an app

For show-casing and documenting your library, create an Angular app in the Nx Workspace.

$ ng generate app one-app

Create a library

Now, let's create one library for reusable business code and a second library for reusable Angular building blocks:

$ ng generate lib one-lib --nomodule
$ ng generate lib two-lib --ngmodule

Develop libraries

Let's generate a component in the Angular library:

$ ng generate component myButton --app=two-lib

We also need to export the component through an Angular module in two-lib.module.ts:

import { MyButtonComponent } from './my-button/my-button.component';

@NgModule({
  imports: [CommonModule],
  declarations: [MyButtonComponent],
  exports: [MyButtonComponent]
})
export class TwoLibModule {}

And let's also implement some very veeee-ry smart business code in one-lib.ts:

export class OneLib {

  public foo(): string {
    return "bar";
  }
}

Develop the app

Now, import the libraries with @nx-packaged/one-lib and @nx-packaged/two-lib in our application.

Add the TwoLibModule to app.module.ts:

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { TwoLibModule } from '@nx-packaged/two-lib';

@NgModule({
  imports: [ /* ... */ TwoLibModule],
  declarations: [AppComponent],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule {}

Use the OneLib class in app.component.ts:

import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core';
import { OneLib } from '@nx-packaged/one-lib';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./app.component.css']
})
export class AppComponent {

  business: OneLib = new OneLib();
}

Wire up all the parts in app.component.html:

<h2>Develop Angular libraries with ng-packagr in a monorepo</h2>

<p>Here is a reusable button component, implemented in a library:</p>
<app-my-button></app-my-button>

<p>Here is reusable business code from a library:</p>
<pre><code>{{ business.foo() }}</code></pre>

Serve the app

Run the app with the standard Angular CLI command:

$ ng serve

Open your browser at http://localhost:4200 and you will see "my-button works!" and "bar" printed on the screen.

Compile the libraries to Angular Package Format

Add ng-packagr to development dependencies:

$ yarn add --dev ng-packagr

For each library, add a package.json in the library folders. Here is the example for the first library:

{
  "$schema": "../../node_modules/ng-packagr/package.schema.json",
  "name": "@nx-packaged/one-lib",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "ngPackage": {
    "lib": {
      "entryFile": "index.ts"
    },
    "dest": "@nx-packaged/one-lib"
  }
}

Add a build script to the package.json in the repository root folder:

  "scripts": {
    "build:libs": "ng-packagr -p libs/one-lib/package.json"
  }

Now, build the library to its binary representation with the following command:

$ yarn build:libs

The binaries are written to @nx-packaged/one-lib in the repository root folder!

Optional: add a 'productive' app configuration

Add a configuration for Angular CLI to build the app from Angular Package Format bundles in the @nx-packaged folder. The Nx Workspace configuration (by default) builds the app from TypeScript sources in libs/*.

This is a great way to verify that the application works with the distribution-ready binaries:

$ ng build --app one-app-from-packages --prod

However, it also forces you to re-build the library every time you change the sources! During development you can now use ng serve for hot-reloading. On a CI server and in build scripts, you can use the above ng build command to verify the binaries in Angular Package Format!

Relevant configuration in .angular-cli.json:

    {
      "name": "one-app-from-packages",
      "root": "apps/one-app/src",
      "outDir": "dist/apps/one-app",
      "assets": [
        "assets",
        "favicon.ico"
      ],
      "index": "index.html",
      "main": "main.ts",
      "polyfills": "polyfills.ts",
      "test": "../../../test.js",
      "tsconfig": "../../../tsconfig.packages.json",
      "testTsconfig": "../../../tsconfig.spec.json",
      "prefix": "app",
      "styles": [
        "styles.css"
      ],
      "scripts": [],
      "environmentSource": "environments/environment.ts",
      "environments": {
        "dev": "environments/environment.ts",
        "prod": "environments/environment.prod.ts"
      }
    }