LMD: Lazy Module Declaration

⚠️ Project is no longer supported

Please consider moving to webpack. As LMD uses CommonJS modules it should be straightforward.

New to LMD? See Getting Started, Wiki and examples

Why LMD? Why not AMD?

• Modules are CommonJS
  • Actually LMD can work with any JavaScript modules
  • There is no define wrapper!
  • You can use node modules without dirty hacks like typeof exports ? :
  • You can use strings as string without any "template" plugins
  • You can use JSON file as Object
• Total and honest isolation
  • LMD package is fully-zero-isolated from globals (globals can't access LMD-package, but LMD can)
  • Modules are isolated from LMD and from each module
  • Modules can be sandboxed (3-party modules, can exports only)
  • Plugins are isolated from LMD and from each module
• Lazy interpretation and load
  • LMD can load off-package modules (all loaders can do it =)
  • It can interpret(eval) modules when they are required
• List of depends are located in separate .json file
  • Well... list of 2 deps in file are ok, but 5+ are headache
  • Module is isolated from file system
  • You have to edit only 1 file if module path changes
  • Possible to use dynamic require()
• Config inheritance
  • Easy to setup development, testing and production builds
• Build watcher
  • Watcher detects changes in your files and performs rebuild
• Flexible source
  • Minimal only 288bytes
  • High optimized own code
  • LMD builder performs build-time optimisations
• Integrated code-coverage and source analytics tool
  • Its easy to enable believe me!
  • No extra servers or movements are required for off-package modules Code-Coverage
• Transparent localStorage cache
  • Change config and html a bit and voila!
• require() is not overloaded
  • Overloaded require is the way to mess in source
  • require.css() for css
  • require.js() for js (non LMD-modules)
  • require.async() for async LMD-modules (objects, strings, modules)
• More
  • Can load CSS
  • Can work with Node.js and Worker environment

What's on the board

• All builders/loaders stuff
• GUI for LMD (in development)
• Build Analyzer (1-click code coverage, depends, startup perfomance)
• Smart and simple CLI tool

Other features

1. Default modules are CommonJS
2. LMD does not create globals
3. LMD is standalone, tiny and flexible (minimal only 288bytes!)
4. Each function-module can be initialized/evaled on demand (lazy: true)
5. LMD module is as easy to debug as normal JavaScript file
6. Build system compresses JavaScript files using UglifyJs
7. LMD module can define object via return or module.exports or exports as CommonJS Module
8. Module can be wrapped automatically in builder so you can write your modules as node.js modules
9. Starting from version 1.5.2 LMD can require off-package modules "async": true (see Asynchronous module require)
10. From version 1.6.0 LMD can cache all in-package modules in localStorage "cache": true (see Local Storage cache)
11. From version 1.6.2 LMD can include off-package css css: true and js-files js: true(for jsonp, cross-origin JS or non LMD modules)
12. LMD package is possible to run as Web Worker or execute as Node.js script (see Web Worker and Node.js)
13. LMD works in all modern browsers and in older IE
14. LMD can convert non-LMD modules to LMD to use jquery or any other as in-package LMD module (see LMD module form third-party modules)
15. LMD can protect your code from 3-party modules (see Modules sandbox)
16. Code Coverage? - Easy! (see Code coverage)
17. Ready for production - lmd.js is 100% covered by unit tests see test/README.md for details
18. SourceMap for all LMD modules (see Source map)
19. Rich CLI interface

Installing

npm install lmd -g global is prefered for LMD CLI comands.

LMD Config file

Minimal

{
    "root": "../modules/",
    "output": "../module.lmd.js", // Path are relative to the root parameter
    "modules": {
        "*": "*.js" // use wildcards or specify regex string to grep
    }
}

See LMD Config for more information

Note

• You can extend config file with another using "extends": "path/to/file.lmd.json" parameter
• You can also specify module depends by adding "depends" options see Modules dependencies

Build LMD package from Console

lmd build your_buiild_name

See LMD CLI

Grunt integration and task

Install this grunt plugin next to your project's grunt.js gruntfile with: npm install grunt-lmd

Then add this line to your project's grunt.js gruntfile:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-lmd');

See grunt-lmd for details

Special features

• glob - you can specify glob pattern (eg "${name}": "js/*.js") to match multiply files. See demo, code
• interpolation - you can use templates in your config string values to make your life easier. See demo, code
• sandbox - some of your modules can be in the "sandbox". They cant require, but can provide some resources. See demo, code
• optimize - optimisations of LMD source(not your project files) without minification/packing. See Optimisations section of LMD Plugins overview wiki page. See demo, code
• adaptation - using any JavaScripts as modules. See Wiki page Adopting modules. See demo, code
• bundles - a way to split your application into separete parts. See demo, code
• styles - css builder for you bundles. See demo, code
• lmdjs_configs - you can write config files in JavaScript. See demo, code
• multi_modules - using jQuery or Backbone with plugins? This feature is for you. See demo, code
• ignore_module - ignore module from build, can be used with glob to ignore some modules. See demo, code

Config extras

• mixins - you can mix your build configs (eg lmd build index+ru+dev) to create your special builds. See demo, code
• depends - your modules can have own depends. You can notify LMD by adding global "depends" paramenter or specify "depends" for each module. See demo, code
• extends - your configs can inherit other configs (eg development extends production). See demo, code

Testing lmd builds

• testing lmd build with mocha and mocha-phantomjs. See demo, code
• code coverage with istanbul and testing lmd build with mocha and mocha-phantomjs See demo, report, code

Bash/zsh completion

Installation lmd completion >> ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc). Do not forget to restart shell.

Other ways

• You can add . <(lmd completion) to your rc file
• Or, maybe: lmd completion > /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/lmd

Running tests

phantomjs is required to run test via npm test see test for details

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LMD is developing with help of these people

If you like LMD - ★ it via npm star lmd