HTML5 Boilerplate with RequireJS

Table of contents

Code base: HTML5 Boilerplate

Download html5-boilerplate_v5.0.0.zip from HTML5 Boilerplate. And put files in your public folder.

You will see files:

user@host:public$ tree
.
├── 404.html
├── apple-touch-icon.png
├── browserconfig.xml
├── crossdomain.xml
├── css
│   ├── main.css
│   └── normalize.css
├── doc
│   ├── css.md
│   ├── extend.md
│   ├── faq.md
│   ├── html.md
│   ├── js.md
│   ├── misc.md
│   ├── TOC.md
│   └── usage.md
├── favicon.ico
├── humans.txt
├── img
├── index.html
├── js
│   ├── main.js
│   ├── plugins.js
│   └── vendor
│       ├── jquery-1.11.2.min.js
│       └── modernizr-2.8.3.min.js
├── robots.txt
├── tile.png
└── tile-wide.png

5 directories, 24 files

Code Base in Browser

Open your favorite HTML5 browser and access code base. Mine is http://centos.xiaoqiang.loc/.

+ RequireJS

We already have a code base which HTML5 Boilerplate. In the code base, we have only One page index.html with entrance js/main.js. We are using the same code structure to support RequireJS.

Now let’s add require.js in.

Install

Download require.js (v2.1.16) and locate it besides js/main.js as js/require.js.

Then change <script src="js/main.js"></script> to <script src="js/require.js" data-main="js/main"></script> in index.html web page.

        <script>window.jQuery || document.write(‘<script src="js/vendor/jquery-1.11.2.min.js"><\/script>‘)</script>
        <script src="js/plugins.js"></script>
        <!-- <script src="js/main.js"></script> -->
        <script src="js/require.js" data-main="js/main.js"></script>

Configure

For single page support, we just insert requirejs.config( configs ) in entrance code js/main.js.

/* file: js/main.js */

/**
 * RequireJS configuration
 **/
requirejs.config({
  baseUrl: ‘js‘
});

/**
 * Entrance
 **/
require([], function(){
  alert( "Hello, world." );
});

Then browser your site and you will get “Hello, world.” as alert message.

Multiple pages

When there are more than one web page is going to develop. We need some configures.

• Extract requirejs.config()
• More pageXXXX.html which based on copy of index.html
• Entrance code in js/pageXXXX folder as js/pageXXXX/main.js.
  
  • This appointment helps to identify: which page uses which entrance code and modules belongs to it

+ js/common.js

Put RequireJS configuration in js/common.js file.

/* file: js/common.js */
requirejs.config({
  baseUrl: ‘js‘
});

/****************** SAMPLE ******************
requirejs.config({
  baseUrl: ‘js‘,
  shim: {
    jquery: {
      exports: ‘jQuery‘
    },
    underscore: {
      exports: ‘_‘
    },
    backbone: {
      deps: [ ‘underscore‘, ‘jquery‘ ],
      exports: ‘Backbone‘
    },
    backboneLocalstorage: {
      deps: [ ‘backbone‘ ],
      exports: ‘Store‘
    }
  },
  paths: {
    modernizr: ‘vendor/modernizr-2.8.3.min‘,
    jquery: ‘vendor/jquery-1.11.2.min‘,
    underscore: ‘vendor/underscore‘,
    backbone: ‘vendor/backbone-min‘,
    backboneLocalstorage: ‘vendor/backbone.localStorage-min‘,
    text: ‘vendor/text‘
  },
  map: {
    ‘*‘: {
      ‘loadCSS‘: ‘helpers/loadCSS/wrapper‘
    }
  },
  config: {
    ‘i18n‘: { locale: ‘zh-cn‘ }
  }
});
****************** /SAMPLE ******************/

Update js/main.js for index.html

/* file: js/main.js */

/**
 * load js/common.js in each web page is required.
 */
require([ ‘common‘ ], function(){

require([], function(){
  alert( "Hello, world." );
});

});  // js/common.js loader

+ page1.html

1. Now create page1.html by copying from index.html.
   
   • change data-main="js/page1/main.js"
2. Now create js/page1/main.js by copying from js/main.js.
   
   • change require([ ‘../common‘ ], ...

Actually, dependencies or other shared configures in js/common.js can work in pageXXXX.html well, by loading it before main logic.

+ i18n (RequireJS Plugin)

See RequireJS i18n bundle API can help more.

Install

Download i18n.js and put besides js/main.js as js/i18n.js.

Configure

It is suggest that nls folder should locate besides page entrance codes, for example js/nls/.

Usage

Update js/main.js

/* file: js/main.js */

/**
 * load js/common.js in each web page is required.
 */
require([ ‘common‘ ], function(){

require([
  ‘i18n!nls/main‘  /* Use ./i18n.js to load `nls/main` locale files */
], function( main){
  alert( main.helloworld );
});

});  // js/common.js loader

Then, create the following sample files.

+ js/nls/main.js

/* file: js/nls/main.js */
define({
  "root": {
    "helloworld": "Hello, world."
  },
  "zh-cn": true
});

+ js/nls/zh-cn/main.js

/* file: js/nls/zh-cn/main.js */
define({
  "helloworld": "你好，世界。"
});

Update js/common.js

/* file: js/common.js */
requirejs.config({
  baseUrl: ‘js‘,
  config: {
    ‘i18n‘: { locale: ‘zh-cn‘ }
  }
});

Browser Home page

“你好，世界！” will be in alert message as js/common.js configures locale is “zh-cn”.