How to generate ISC_Combined.js

[martintaal]

Hi,

From time to time, I need to backport to the SmartClient library we use some fixes you do in a newer version. This is due the fact we cannot afford to do a complete SC version upgrade for every fix we need to add.

The problem comes when trying to include these patches on the ISC_Combined.js file, as we don't have access to the tool you used to generate it from the original sources, we have to manually isolate the corresponding changes and apply them on top of the existent one, being very difficult to guarantee there is a correspondence between original sources and combined file.

Would it be possible to get your tool to generate ISC_Combined?

Regards

[Isomorphic]

We can't recommend this approach of applying framework patches to a specific older package. The recommended approach is always to use the latest nightly build rather than attempting to hand-patch an older release.

The nightly builds go through significant automated testing and are broadly used, and supported by Isomorphic (meaning if you do find a bug we can address it with a new nightly build), as opposed to some hand-patched version of an older build which we can't really support.
The nightly builds are of course produced per-branch, and contain only fixes relative to the release point (or occasionally features which are necessary to support a fix). They will not contain new major features and should not introduce any backwards-compatibility issues in most cases.

In very rare cases we will provide an actual snippet of patch code to apply against a specific build for a customer, in order to hot patch an already deployed application - but we consider this a less than optimal solution and avoid it whenever possible.
If you are doing new development (and also if you are reporting bugs), you should always be looking at the latest nightly build from whatever branch you're working on.

Regarding older branches: In an ideal world all clients would be using the most recent stable branch of the SmartClient framework, and certainly if you are starting a new project, etc we would recommend upgrading. However we do recognize this isn't always an option and we do continue to support older branches as long as we practically can, backporting fixes for customers wherever this is practical, and making them available in the latest nightly build on the branch in question. If an issue cannot practically be fixed on an older branch we will also attempt to give you an application level workaround to avoid the issue.

To answer your specific question: We don't ship a file called ISC_Combined.js - presumably you're asking about the module files -- ISC_Foundation.js, ISC_Core.js, ISC_Containers.js, etc

We do not currently ship the tool used to create these files.
As part of the Network Performance features, we do have a fileAssembly tool for concatinating multiple source files into a single compressed, stripped JS file. Search the docs for "fileAssembly" to see details of this tool.
However we wouldn't recommend you attempt to create your own versions of the module files by concatinating the public source files together in order to apply patches.

If you have a use case where you genuinely need to patch bugs on an existing package, the right solution is to load the shipped module files unaltered and then apply customizations to the source by overriding methods and properties directly in a single place in JS. Either a small script block in your bootstrap page, or a separate JS file loaded after the module files have been loated.
We do NOT recommend that you attempt to recreate or modify the shipped module files directly.

Regards
Isomorphic Software

[larcman]

Hi Isomorphic,

I cannot find the tool that the docs describe under the dir: smartclientSDK/WEB-INF/bin/fileAssembler.sh
I want to use it for generating the ISC_Combined.js file.
Do you think you can point me where it is? and which files should I include on it?

My app depends a lot on that file but it is not up to date ("v10.0d_2014-02-13/LGPL Deployment").
I want to get a new build version to fix the DST time Calendar issues Im having.

I really appreciate any help
Thanks in advance.