Checking out CLJSJS Packages
If you’ve ever wanted to include a JS lib in your cljs projects, you know there are several steps involved:
- Setup your development and production (minified) versions
- Write your externs file
- Include it as a foreign lib or package it up as a jar
Those steps aren’t too big a deal (though getting your externs correct can be confusing), but it’d be nice if we weren’t all repeating this process on our own.
Enter CLJSJS Packages
Several members of the cljs community got together and decided to put together a collection of commonly used JS packages that are trivial to use in cljs.
For example, using React goes from something like this:
;;...details elided
{:compiler {:foreign-libs [{:file "resources/public/js/react.inc.js"
:file-min "resources/public/js/react.min.inc.js"
:provides ["cljsjs.react"]}]
:externs ["externs/react.ext.js"]}}to this:
[cljsjs/react "0.14.3-0"]Now we can add JS libs just like all of our other dependencies. And as a bonus, all of our externs are handled for us. Yey!
There are quite a few JS libs packaged up already, so there’s a good chance whatever lib you want is already there. And if not, packaging and contributing your own is a pretty soft entry into giving back to the cljs community. The instructions for creating a package are really good and straightforward.
Bonus
If you still struggle with externs or just want a better understanding, go look through some of the externs in various packages. The externs write up is also worth a read.