RequireJS 0.26.0 released, npm install requirejs

RequireJS 0.26.0 is available for download.

The big feature is being able to npm install requirejs to allow require("requirejs"). This allows you to:

1) Load AMD modules inside node without running a bootstrap script. It also fixes some path issues using traditional Node modules alongside AMD modules. So, now you can use requirejs inside Node to load AMD modules and use loader plugins:

var requirejs = require("requirejs");



requirejs.config({

    nodeRequire: require

});



requirejs(["module/a", "module/b", "text!templates/one.html"],

 function (a,          b,          template) {

     //use a and b with the text template

 });

2) Exposes the optimizer as require("requirejs").optimize() to allow dynamic server builds for people who like to do "only one script tag before end of body tag" development. With the "excludeShallow" optimizer config, you can still debug a single module/script while having the rest combined into one script.

Pretty sweet -- using JavaScript to run a server to optimize JavaScript on the fly but still get fine-grained JavaScript debugging. JavaScript turtles all the way down (until you hit the C turtle).

You can still use the r.js script to do command-line build optimizations. If you npm install -g requirejs, then you can use r.js as an executable (the requirejs package replaces the old requirejs-r package).

More information on the Use with Node page.

The requirejs npm package includes require.js for the browser. So, for web pages, load node_modules/requirejs/require.js to use RequireJS in the browser. As always, it is easy to get require.js for the browser without using npm.

Also notable in the release: UglifyJS in the minifier is updated to 1.0.6. The upside: has() branch trimming now works with the default minifier.

Other items from the release notes:

• Fixes for running under Node on Windows using the native node.exe builds that are available in the Node 0.5.x series. Now there is less of a need to use Java to drive the RequireJS Optimizer!
• Configuration is now done via a require.config({}) call, to get in line with the amdjs require API. The old require({}) method works on the global require() for backwards compatibility, but the suggested API going forward is require.config({}). The API doc has been updated to show proper usage.
• There is a namespace option now for builds, to allow moving require() and define() calls under a different namespace. This allows you to build an optimized file that uses RequireJS but does not interfere with any other AMD loader on the page, and you can make sure only your modules are loaded in that namespaced object.
• The default error behavior when a define() factory function throws an error is to not catch it. The catching done in 0.25.0 made it more difficult to debug. However, there are some situations where catching the errors is preferred. Setting the config value catchError.define = true will switch to catching the errors and allow processing via require.onError()
• Closure Compiler in the optimizer was updated. As a result, the code to invoke Closure Compiler changed, and will likely only work with the latest Closure Compiler release. You can grab a version known to work with the optimizer in the optimizer's lib/closure directory.
• There is now a pragmasOnSave build option, which is used in the require-cs CoffeeScript loader plugin build profile to strip out the CoffeeScript compiler after a build. The end result: tiny build layers of converted CoffeeScript code.