jquery-validation missing dist folder

Question

I am trying to add jquery-validation to a project in visual studio 2015. When I add "jquery-validation" to bower.json I see that the jquery-validation folder is added to wwwroot/lib/ but there is no dist/ folder.

The jquery-validation package looks like it needs to be built but I cannot see how to build from within visual studio 2015. A right click on the grunt file does not show the task runner explorer.

If I use a command window and try to use "npm install" and "grunt" in the wwwroot/lib/jquery-validation/ folder I get an error after the "jscs:all" task:

Running "jscs:all" (jscs) task
Fatal error: Neither config file nor grunt options were defined

npm ERR! Windows_NT 10.0.10586
npm ERR! argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "install"
npm ERR! node v4.4.0
npm ERR! npm  v2.14.20
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! jquery-validation@1.15.1-pre prepublish: `grunt`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the jquery-validation@1.15.1-pre prepublish script 'grunt'.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the jquery-validation package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     grunt
npm ERR! You can get information on how to open an issue for this project with:
npm ERR!     npm bugs jquery-validation
npm ERR! Or if that isn't available, you can get their info via:
npm ERR!
npm ERR!     npm owner ls jquery-validation
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     E:\asp.net 5 ef7 bootstrap anygular web app\4-aspdotnet-5-ef7-bootstrap-angular-web-app-m4-exercise-files\after\src\TheWorld\wwwroot\lib\jquery-validation\npm-debug.log

I must be missing something simple!

Answer 1

I had a similar issue and was able to fix it by installing grunt globally then running npm install in the jquery-validation folder:

1. Open node js command prompt and run npm install -g grunt
2. In any command prompt (I used developer command prompt from VS) navigate to jquery-validation folder and run npm install

Afterwards, the jquery-validation\dist folder should show up with the jquery.validate.js file.

Answer 2

npm 2 generates several nested folders which causes paths on Windows to bug. If that is the issue then you should update to npm 3 where they fixed it.

npm i -g npm