Automatically depend on level.js with browserify

[piranna]

It would be good to add a browser field on package.json that when using browserify automatically uses level.js instead of levelDown as storage, instead of depend on the developer to do the checks and imports by hand.

[mcollina]

At the moment I use a browser: field:
https://github.com/mcollina/levelgraph/blob/master/package.json#L69
https://github.com/mcollina/levelgraph/blob/master/lib/getdb.js
https://github.com/mcollina/levelgraph/blob/master/lib/getdb-browser.js

[juliangruber]

That would mean level.js has to be a dependency of level and will be installed even if it's not necessary, I'm not sure if we want that. Then we'd also have to "officially support" level.js and issues will be opened on this repo.

[piranna]

Yes, sort-of what are you doing, but automatically. I'm also thinking if this shouldn't be done directly on the levelUp library...

P.D.: levelGraph seems really cool! ;-)

[rvagg]

I'd rather see another package for browser use because the problem here is that if you simply want to use it in the browser then it's going to still download and try and install leveldown which is not at all what you want. Once people start saying that you should install level to be able to use it all in the browser then we're going to get reports from people who can't do native builds on their system (Windows users without all the painful dependencies and Mac users without xcode or with xcode badly installed).

[heapwolf]

@piranna perfect idea for a new module! :)

[piranna]

Yeah, it makes sense, better to do it by hand when required, I only though it would be useful to do it automatically by the library, but it's true it would leave more problems that solutions. Clossing.

[dominictarr]

need a level-browserify module, like https://github.com/dominictarr/canvas-browserify which allows require('canvas-browserify') to work the same in the browser and the server.

[rvagg]

we can do this under the Level org on github if someone wants to take responsibility for it. level-packager could do the heavy-lifting of piecing the bits together like it does for the other level/level-hyper/level-basho/level-rocksdb etc. releases.

any takers? @piranna perhaps?

[mcollina]

Done and published https://github.com/Level/level-browserify.

https://www.npmjs.org/package/level-browserify

[ralphtheninja]

👍

[mcollina]

I'm closing this! Please test the new module and report any bugs!