How do I build this from source?

[atyshka]

I am using this package as a dependency of a project, and I want to fork it and use the source version rather than the npm version. I've tried just installing it locally with npm install ./vue-flow but that doesn't work because it installs everything as a monorepo, and then my imports don't work.

[bcakmakoglu]

Is there a specific reason why you're attempting this?

[atyshka]

I want to add more features and possibly recontribute them via PR. Currently, I want to create clean-looking loops without having to use pathfindingedge.

I think the problem is that the package.json references dist/, but npm/pnpm doesn't compile the library before linking it to my project? My temporary solution is building vue-flow in a separate directory and then importing after building it. It's more clunky to separately compile but it works

[bcakmakoglu]

Mh... If you're using pnpm you can use link

{
  "dependencies": {
    "lib": "link:../lib"
  }
}

Assuming you have some directory structure like this

/projects
	/vue-flow
	/my-project

You can link the core package by using this

{
  "dependencies": {
    "@vue-flow/core": "link:../vue-flow/packages/core"
  }
}

[bcakmakoglu]

Also just go into the vue-flow directory and follow the development steps in the README file

Basically this

1. go into the directory
2. install dependencies (pnpm i)
3. build the packages (pnpm build)

You're done, if you've linked the package as detailed in the previous post, you should be good to go :)
If you're looking to be able to develop the vue-flow packages while also developing your project you might want to run pnpm dev instead, which will basically run pnpm build but with a watcher that rebuilds the js files (types are not rebuilt with a watcher, you'll have to rebuild those yourself when you made changes)

[bcakmakoglu]

Also: any PRs are appreciated so feel free to open them up if you feel like having added a feature that might be useful to a wider audience 😄