Bcoin - running webpack-app issue

Question

I have cloned bcoin repo and installed webpack package. When trynig to run webpack-app I get the error below:

btc@ubuntu:~/bcoin/node_modules$ npm run webpack-app
npm ERR! missing script: webpack

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/btc/.npm/_logs/2020-11-18T08_55_31_312Z-debug.log

I have checked the node_modules folder inside the bcoin dir and couldn't find webpack-app package. Also, I excatly followed the instructions from https://bcoin.io/guides/browser

nodejs version: v10.19.0 npm version: 6.14.4

Answer 1

bcoin does not use webpack anymore, and in fact the browser node as a proof of concept isn't really being maintained since it is practically very silly :-)

The webpack config files were removed form the repo here and here. If you REALLY want to try the browser node, you will need to checkout a git commit of bcoin from before those changes were made.

The bcoin library can still be compiled for browser usage in simple webapps and is still very useful for small applications like that. I refer you to this guide: https://bcoin.io/guides/webapp.html ...which uses bpkg instead of webpack or browserify.

That browser-node guide should probably just be removed, or at least updated with a deprecation notice. If you feel like it you can make a PR to the website here: https://github.com/bcoin-org/bcoin-org.github.io

Feel free to join us on IRC #bcoin or on Slack to chat more about this.