Dist versions do not work with Browserify

[m90]

This is picking up: plotly/react-plotly.js#93

I'm running into issues using the dist versions included in plotly.js and plotly.js-dist in a Browserify bundle.

I am basically just doing what the README tells me:

var Plotly = require('plotly.js-dist');

console.log(Plotly);

When I try to Browserify this script it tells me:

Error: Cannot find module '../src/transforms/aggregate' from '/home/frederik/projects/plotly-browserify-issue/node_modules/plotly.js-dist'

When I try to load the dist bundle from the plotly.js package as seen for example in react-plotly.js I will see the following error:

Error: Cannot find module './core' from '/home/frederik/projects/plotly-browserify-issue/node_modules/plotly.js/dist'

I can however bundle plotly if I use require('plotly.js') as the main entry point.

I created an example repository for reproducing the issue over here: https://github.com/m90/plotly-browserify-issue

[m90]

It looks like this is currently expected and would need browserify/detective#79 to land in order to work.

Other related issues:

• How can I require a file that is built using browserify? browserify/browserify#1773
• Common lodash practice with standalone build causes standalone build failure browserify/browserify#1847

which probably means that dist is not what Browserify users (or libraries that depend on plotly) should be using.

[etpinard]

Thanks very much for the detailed report. I was unaware that browserify couldn't bundle bundles it already bundled.

It looks like browserify/detective#79 is planned for browserify v17, so that's probably the best solution going forward.

At present though, if someone could give derequire a shot, we will gladly merge that PR, but no plotly.js team member will dedicate time on this issue. That's mainly because bundling the "main" plotly.js package with browserify should just work - that what we use internally afterall. In other words, for browserify users, plotly.js-dist only helps them save a few bytes of downloaded npm packages.

[m90]

That's mainly because bundling the "main" plotly.js package with browserify should just work - that what we use internally afterall.

While this is 100% correct it still creates the issue of libraries that depend upon plotly referring to the dist versions, thus making it impossible (or require workarounds) to use them with Browserify, see: plotly/react-plotly.js#93 so in this case it'd not only be about the bytes.

[etpinard]

see: plotly/react-plotly.js#93 so in this case it'd not only be about the bytes.

Oh right. I was unaware that react-plotly.js was already using plotly.-js-dist. Thanks for pointing this out!

[alexcjohnson]

Can we close this now that #2905 is merged?

[etpinard]

Yes. The fix in #2905 is compatible with browserify@17 which is upcoming.