Aframe: NPM package pulls >400 MB of Three.js examples

[hallettj]

Starting in v0.8.0 the dependency version for three in package.json is given as github:supermedium/three.js#r90fixMTLLoader. When installing the aframe npm package the entire content of the three.js github repository is downloaded, which includes hundreds of megabytes in the examples/ directory. (I tested installing with yarn.) The resulting dependency size makes it impossible to install the npm package in CodeSandbox which places a limit on the disk quota for each sandbox.

There is a workaround, which is to fetch aframe using a script tag in CodeSandbox examples. For example: <script src="https://aframe.io/releases/0.8.0/aframe.min.js"></script>.

• A-Frame Version: 0.8.0, 0.8.1, 0.8.2
• Platform / Device: Ubuntu Linux with yarn, CodeSandbox
• Reproducible Code Snippet or URL: https://codesandbox.io/s/x3w2v5xyxq

[riccardogiorato]

It might be possible to create an aframe fork of threejs where automatically a bot gets every update on the master of threejs and removes everytime the examples directory to speed up aframe installs?

[ngokevin]

Problem is three.js puts some relevant code in the examples directory that gets included...GLTFLoader, OBJLoader. Can just use from the script tag, and you get CDN for free anyways.

[dmarcos]

Maybe worth filing and issue on the THREE repo.

[donmccurdy]

I only get ~15 MB just from npm install three; contents of examples/js are included but e.g. models are not. See .npmignore. If we're getting 400MB, something downstream of three.js isn't working as expected. 😕

[mkungla]

That's expected result when using git repo as dependency
like in v0.8.2 then .npmignore. has no effect.

v0.8.2
https://github.com/aframevr/aframe/blob/abd7b9910fcaf208bdc943a0b8ecad3fa7790869/package.json#L44

master
https://github.com/aframevr/aframe/blob/276a8b226e8bc604d18ef9f0a2554822edc2d93f/package.json#L51

Since master has r95 then next version will not have that issue.

[kevinsimper]

So a new release has to be made to fix this issue?

[mkungla]

@kevinsimper yes, therefore that issue can be closed when new release is published.

[jgbarah]

@mkungla not sure if this is the best place to ask, but is there any date for a new release? It would be great using a release from npm which understand Oculus Go controls...

[mkungla]

Not sure, I'm not right person who can give you answer on that.
Keep eyes on slack and https://github.com/aframevr/aframe/milestones

[jgbarah]

Thanks @mkungla !!!

[dmarcos]

I opened https://github.com/aframevr/aframe/pull/3987 moving THREE dependency from Github to NPM and I don't see any differences in the node_module folder size. @jgbarah @mkungla @hallettj Can you provide any feedback and check if the PR fixes any issues for you?

[kevinsimper]

@dmarcos Nice, great work 👍