How do I setup webpack to NOT recompile angular every single time?

Question

Recently I started working on simple HTML5 canvas game + angular2 for routing, displaying highscores etc. Since I am not touching angular2 core, I would like to NOT recompile everything and bundle all together into one big file. Much more I would prefer to have angular2 core + http + router, and my app in separate files.

Right now I am getting almost 5MB bundle and even larger .map which suspend my pc for a short duration while loading in browser(mouse getting stuck, music stop playing for a moment, like half a sec) which is very annoying(I guess, it is because of bundle size). Could I use multiple entry points to get this work?

Here is my webpack config:

module.exports = {
  devtool: 'source-map',
  entry: './src/app/bootstrap',
  output: {
    path: __dirname + '/dist', publicPath: 'dist/', filename: 'bundle.js'
  },
  resolve: {
    extensions: ['', '.js', '.ts']
  },
  module: {
    loaders: [
      {
        test: /\.ts/, loaders: ['ts-loader'], exclude: /node_modules/
      }
    ]
  }
};

I am using angular 2.0.0-beta.0 and webpack 1.12.2

Answer 1

Update: consider the cache option.

The answer to your question is: Yes. You can use multiple entry points.

Here is an example that I'm using.

var path = require('path');

var webpack = require('webpack');
var CommonsChunkPlugin = webpack.optimize.CommonsChunkPlugin;
var ProvidePlugin = webpack.ProvidePlugin;
//var UglifyJsPlugin = webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin;

module.exports = {
    devtool: 'source-map',
    debug: true, // set false in production
    cache: true,

    entry: {
        'vendor': './src/vendor.ts', // third party dependencies
        'app': './src/app/app.ts' // our app
    },

    output: {
        path: root('dist'),
        filename: '[name].js',
        sourceMapFilename: '[name].map',
        chunkFilename: '[id].chunk.js',
        pathinfo: true
    },

    resolve: {
        extensions: ['', '.ts', '.js', '.json', '.css', '.html']
    },

    module: {
        loaders: [
            {
                test: /\.ts$/,
                loader: 'ts-loader',
                query: {
                    'ignoreDiagnostics': [
                        2403, // 2403 -> Subsequent variable declarations
                        2300, // 2300 -> Duplicate identifier
                        2374, // 2374 -> Duplicate number index signature
                        2375  // 2375 -> Duplicate string index signature
                    ]
                },
                exclude: [/\.(spec|e2e)\.ts$/, /node_modules\/(?!(ng2-.+))/]
            },

            // Support for *.json files.
            {test: /\.json$/, loader: 'json-loader'},

            // support for .css
            {test: /\.css$/, loaders: ['style', 'css']},
        ],
        noParse: [/angular2-polyfills/]
    },

    plugins: [
        new CommonsChunkPlugin({name: 'vendor', filename: 'vendor.js', minChunks: Infinity}),
        new CommonsChunkPlugin({name: 'common', filename: 'common.js', minChunks: 2, chunks: ['app', 'vendor']}),
        new ProvidePlugin({
            $: "jquery",
            jQuery: "jquery",
            Cookies: "js-cookie"
        })
//        new UglifyJsPlugin() // use for production
    ],

    // Other module loader config
    tslint: {
        emitErrors: true,
        failOnHint: false
    },
    // our Webpack Development Server config
    devServer: {
        contentBase: 'src',
        publicPath: '/__build__',
        colors: true,
        progress: true,
        port: 3000,
        displayCached: true,
        displayErrorDetails: true,
        inline: true
    }
};

// Helper functions
function root(args) {
    args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 0);
    return path.join.apply(path, [__dirname].concat(args));
}

function rootNode(args) {
    args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 0);
    return root.apply(path, ['node_modules'].concat(args));
}

This config is a little more complex than yours. It comes from this Angular 2 / Bootstrap 4 / OAuth2 Github project that uses Webpack.

That will put the Angular stuff (and RxJS and anything else) in a 'vendor' bundle, but you have to make a vendor.ts file that calls in the stuff you need.

vendor.ts:

require('./css/bootstrap.css');
require('./css/main.css');

import 'angular2/bundles/angular2-polyfills';

import 'angular2/platform/browser';
import 'angular2/core';
import 'angular2/http';
import 'angular2/router';

Then add the following code to the bottom of your index.html file.

<script src="dist/common.js"></script>
<script src="dist/vendor.js"></script>
<script src="dist/app.js"></script>

You might have to adjust some of the paths to connect up properly, depending on where your index.html file sits in relation to the other folders.

But that, I think, will do it for you. Check the Github project to see it al in action.