angular 2 - adding 3rd party libs

Question

I am trying to start using angular 2 cli.
I want to use momentjs in my project so here is what I have done:
1. created project using angular cli.
2. run np

Answer 1

Still Angular-cli has some problem with the 3rd party library integration. Until They fix it properly, I can give you a hack around. Lets say you want to use _ of lodash in your code. So I will give you my working code scenario-

To install lodash

npm install lodash --save
typings install lodash --ambient --save

before that make sure you install typings globally

npm install typings -g

Then in your angular-cli-build.json , make sure it remains like this way

module.exports = function(defaults) {
  return new Angular2App(defaults, {
    vendorNpmFiles: [
      ...
      'lodash/**/*.js'
    ]
  });
};

and in your system-config.ts:

/** Map relative paths to URLs. */
 const map: any = {
   'lodash': 'vendor/lodash/lodash.js'
 };

 /** User packages configuration. */
 const packages: any = {
   'lodash': {
     format: 'cjs'
   }
 };

in your src/index.html add this line(This is the weird fix)

now in your component where you want to use lodash , write this way

declare var _:any;

@Component({
})
export class YourComponent {
  ngOnInit() {
     console.log(_.chunk(['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'], 2));
  }
}

it worked for me :). I have used enormous 3rd party libraries in my angular2 project through angular-cli. Hope it will help you too

Edit:

If you dont get any npm for your third-party libraries. Make an assets folder under your src folder. Then you can add separate folders for js,css and images. Put your third-party js inside the js folder. Then you have to reference js file in your index.html like this way:

Now, when you do ng serve or ng build it will automatically update the public folder with your assets/js. Hope you understand the whole scenario :)