Webpack: how to make angular auto-detect jQuery and use it as angular.element instead of jqLite?

Question

I\'m using Webpack to build an Angular 1.4 project. The project makes use of several jQuery plugins, which are wrapped into angular directives. Those directives internally use <

Answer 1

Got this answer from john-reilly:
The mysterious case of webpack angular and jquery

bob-sponge's answer is not quite right - the Provide plugin is actually doing a text replacement on modules it processes, so we need to provide window.jQuery (which is what angular is looking for) and not just jQuery.

In your webpack.config.js you need to add the following entry to your plugins:

new webpack.ProvidePlugin({
    "window.jQuery": "jquery"
}),

This uses the webpack ProvidePlugin and, at the point of webpackification (© 2016 John Reilly) all references in the code to window.jQuery will be replaced with a reference to the webpack module that contains jQuery. So when you look at the bundled file you'll see that the code that checks the window object for jQuery has become this:

jQuery = isUndefined(jqName) ?
  __webpack_provided_window_dot_jQuery : // use jQuery (if present)
    !jqName ? undefined : // use jqLite
    window[jqName]; // use jQuery specified by `ngJq`

That's right; webpack is providing Angular with jQuery whilst still not placing a jQuery variable onto the window. Neat huh?