Use "main" instead of "ignore"

[corydorning]

Seems like it would make more sense to src files using "main" instead of "ignore" since these are the primary files that are needed for the package, and the files you would want to copy over to a dist dir.

"ignore" is just to tell your bower package that certain files don't need to be downloaded when installing (via the command line typically).

This assumes I understand this package correctly.

Edit: the files listed in ignore shouldn't even exist in your bower_components directory in the first place, per the bower spec: https://github.com/bower/bower.json-spec

[bclozel]

Hi @corydorning
You're right, according to the bower.json-spec:

main: The primary acting files necessary to use your package.

Note, it was previously defined as the primary endpoints of your package. And it's not a required option, so blindly following this will give you nothing if it's not defined. Or won't give you the minified files if you wanted them (it's against the spec).

For many packages, it's not quite clear if all resources should be listed in the main section (should images, fonts, optional modules be considered as "point of entries", "primary acting files"? But you need those in production, even though they're not always listed in the main section). Remember, all files in the repo = main + ignored + other files.

So you can choose to: override main and add more files if you need to, or override ignore and get everything else.

In any case, the gulpjs plugin list seems to favor main-bower-files and does not list this plugin anymore. So maybe this project should not be maintained anymore?

[corydorning]

Thanks for the clarification.

Sent from my iPhone 5

On Jul 31, 2014, at 9:41 AM, Brian Clozel notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi @corydorning
You're right, according to the bower.json-spec:

main: The primary acting files necessary to use your package.

Note, it was previously defined as the primary endpoints of your package. And it's not a required option, so blindly following this will give you nothing if it's not defined. Or won't give you the minified files if you wanted them (it's against the spec).

For many packages, it's not quite clear if all resources should be listed in the main section (should images, fonts, optional modules be considered as "point of entries", "primary acting files"? But you need those in production, even though they're not always listed in the main section). Remember, all files in the repo = main + ignored + other files.

So you can choose to: override main and add more files if you need to, or override ignore and get everything else.

In any case, the gulpjs plugin list seems to favor main-bower-files and does not list this plugin anymore. So maybe this project should not be maintained anymore?

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[unscriptable]

Imho, the only case where "main" can specify the entire list of all resources is when the package contains code that is not modular. If the package contains a global script, a stylesheet, and a font or two, then perhaps you can list these all in "main".

In the case of modular packages such as when.js, rest,js, etc., there's no way to know which subset of modules might be used. If bower had followed npm's lead, then "main" would specify the main entry point into a package of modules. The set of modules that might be used is everything that's not ignored.

I think it's strange and unfortunate that bower didn't stay in sync with npm.

I was going to suggest that we use the "moduleType" property to determine how to interpret "main". However, there are many, many packages that don't specify "moduleType" or have simply appended an AMD define() at the end of a global script.

Bower is a nightmare and only seems to be getting worse, atm. :(