Part III - Reusing a light module from npm

In the last part of this tutorial, we learn how to find, install and reuse an existing npm package within our own bucket-list-module light module.

The npm package we will reuse was created by Matthias Muller, the winner of a component sharing contest we held! The Magnolia light module he created is a Google Maps module that provides two components: google-maps and google-directions. We will reuse the google-maps component to show a pinpointed location for our bucket list items.

Search for shared components in npm

Light modules are shared with the Magnolia community using the npm package manager. While npm was originally built as a package manager for Node.js, it has evolved to be the package manager for front-end development.

When sharing light modules on npm, we ask contributors to use the keyword magnolia-light-module. This makes it easy to find Magnolia light modules using CLI.

Run the following command in a shell:

mgnl search maps

This command searches for the keyword magnolia-light-module and the search term maps on npm and returns a list of modules.

The module we want to reuse is named google-maps-magnolia.

...
info 1) google-maps-magnolia
info 2017-03-25 2.0.0
info Magnolia Light Module for providing a responsive google maps integration.
info mattdimu
...

Install google-maps-magnolia

Make sure you are in your dev/light-modules folder.

Run the following command in a shell:

mgnl install google-maps-magnolia

This command downloads the module from the npm registry and extracts it to your light modules folder:

google-maps-magnolia/
├── decorations
│ └── travel-demo
├── dialogs
│ ├── components
│ └── controls
├── i18n
│ └── google-maps-magnolia-messages_en.properties
├── package.json
├── README.md
└── templates
    ├── components
    └── inc

Configure the google-maps-magnolia module

Before being able to reuse the component provided by the module, you must configure it by making the component available and adding a Google API Key to your site definition.

Make the google-maps component available

To make the google-maps component from the google-maps-magnolia module available to your page, first change into the bucket-list-module folder in the shell.

cd bucket-list-module

Then run the following command:

mgnl add-availability google-maps-magnolia:components/google-maps pages/bucket-list@main

Get a Google Maps API Key

Follow the Quick Guide steps to retrieve a free Google Maps API Key here: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/embed/get-api-key

Go to Magnolia again and in the Configuration app, update the site definition to add the key:

  • Add a parameters content node under /modules/travel-demo/config/travel.

  • Add a property called google-maps-magnolia-api-key and set the API key as the value.

If you are trying the tutorial with CLI v3 older than 3.0.0 and CLI v2 older than 2.2.1

We have found a bug at this stage in the tutorial NPMCLI-164.

Please follow this workaround until it is fixed:

  1. Open /light-modules/bucket-list-module/templates/pages/bucket-list.yaml.

  2. Make sure the content of the file is like this:

  title: bucket-list
  templateScript: /bucket-list-module/templates/pages/bucket-list.ftl
  renderType: freemarker
  dialog: bucket-list-module:pages/bucket-list
  visible: true

  areas:
    main:
      availableComponents:
        activity:
          id: bucket-list-module:components/activity
        image:walkthrough/
          id: mtk:components/image
        linkList:
          id: mtk:components/linkList
        google-maps:
          id: google-maps-magnolia:components/google-maps

Reuse the google-maps component

Back in the Pages app, open one of your bucket list item pages. Click the New main component green bar.

image

This time you can choose the Google Maps component from the light module you installed from npm.

The Google Maps dialog you see is defined in /dev/light-modules/google-maps-magnolia/dialogs/components/google-maps.yaml.

In our Tiger shark diving example, the location is Tiger beach, Grand Bahamas.

image

Once added to your page, the google-maps component displays a map with a pin marker on the location we chose:

image

Congratulations! You have successfully reused a light module shared on npm by Magnolia contributor Matthias Muller in your own bucket-list-module.

Further reading

Next you could have a look at the other component, google-directions, provided in the same module or search for and install another Magnolia module from npm.

Or why not share your own light modules on npm to benefit the Magnolia community?

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