However, ABP framework works best with NPM/Yarn. By default, built-in modules are configured to work with NPM/Yarn.

    Finally, we suggest the over the NPM since it’s faster, stable and also compatible with the NPM.

    ABP is a modular platform. Every developer can create modules and the modules should work together in a compatible and stable state.

    One challenge is the versions of the dependant NPM packages. What if two different modules use the same JavaScript library but its different (and potentially incompatible) versions.

    To solve the versioning problem, we created a standard set of packages those depends on some common third-party libraries. Some example packages are @abp/jquery, and @abp/font-awesome. You can see the list of packages from the .

    The benefit of a standard package is:

    • It depends on a standard version of a package. Depending on this package is safe because all modules depend on the same version.
    • It contains the gulp task to copy library resources (js, css, img… files) from the node_modules folder to wwwroot/libs folder. See the Mapping The Library Resources section for more.

    It’s suggested to depend on a standard package instead of directly depending on a third-party package.

    Package Installation

    After depending on a NPM package, all you should do is to run the yarn command from the command line to install all the packages and their dependencies:

    Alternatively, you can use but is suggested as mentioned before.

    Package Contribution

    If you need a third-party NPM package that is not in the standard set of packages, you can create a Pull Request on the Github . A pull request that follows these rules is accepted:

    • Package name should be named as @abp/package-name for a package-name on NPM (example: @abp/bootstrap for the package).
    • It should be the latest stable version of the package.
    • The package should include a abp.resourcemapping.js file formatted as defined in the Mapping The Library Resources section. This file should only map resources for the depended package.
    • You also need to create bundle contributor(s) for the package you have created.

    See current standard packages for examples.

    Mapping The Library Resources

    Using NPM packages and NPM/Yarn tool is the de facto standard for client side libraries. NPM/Yarn tool creates a node_modules folder in the root folder of your web project.

    ABP defines a Gulp based task to copy resources from node_modules to wwwroot/libs folder. Each standard package (see the @ABP NPM Packages section) defines the mapping for its own files. So, most of the time, you only configure dependencies.

    The startup templates are already configured to work all these out of the box. This section will explain the configuration options.

    Resource Mapping Definition File

    A module should define a JavaScript file named which is formatted as in the example below:

    • aliases section defines standard aliases (placeholders) that can be used in the mapping paths. @node_modules and @libs are required (by the standard packages), you can define your own aliases to reduce duplication.
    • clean section is a list of folders to clean before copying the files.
    • mappings section is a list of mappings of files/folders to copy. This example does not copy any resource itself, but depends on a standard package.

    An example mapping configuration is shown below:

    Using The Gulp

    Once you properly configure the abp.resourcemapping.js file, you can run the gulp command from the command line:

    When you run the gulp, all packages will copy their own resources into the wwwroot/libs folder. Running yarn & gulp is only necessary if you make a change in your dependencies in the package.json file.

    See Also