Replace Bower with npm/webpack across dev, prod, and unit tests#1116
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Add npm equivalents (or git-tag pins) for all 29 bower.json dependencies, ahead of replacing Bower/wiredep with webpack. Vendor ng-breadcrumbs directly since it was never published to npm and its repo has no package.json. Drop navigator-sendbeacon entirely: its polyfill only patches navigator.sendBeacon when the browser lacks a native implementation, and every supported browser has provided one natively since 2015-2016, so that branch never runs.
Adds `webpack.config.js` and a new entry point that requires all service files (auto-discovered via `require.context`, since dev and prod previously used two different manual orderings and both worked - modules just need to load before directives/services, which they now do explicitly). Also fixes two pre-existing bugs this surfaced: `rich-content-directive.js` called `app.directive(...)` instead of `module.directive(...)`, which only "worked" before because angular-timer leaked a global `app` variable by accident; and `angular-chosen-localytics` needs `chosen-js` loaded separately as its own package, which wasn't happening. `index-dev.html` now loads one bundled script instead of ~68 individual tags. CSS, `tincanjs`, and `pdf.js-viewer` remain on the old Bower-served paths for now.
Extracts CSS to a real file (mini-css-extract-plugin) instead of style-loader's runtime injection, since the latter landed after compair.less in the DOM and broke the app's font-family overrides. Also adds humanize-duration and window.jQuery to webpack-entry.js/ProvidePlugin - both were still missing pieces the old Bower setup supplied as separate globals, only surfacing once those features (timer countdown, angular.element) were actually exercised.
`ng-file-saver` reads `window.saveAs` directly instead of `require()`'ing `file-saver` itself, and `npm` had resolved the wrong version (1.3.8 vs the 2.0.4 Bower actually used) since `ng-file-saver`'s `package.json` and `bower.json` disagree on the range. Pins `file-saver@2.0.4` and requires it explicitly - same category as the `chosen-js/humanize-duration` fixes, a Bower-transitive companion script that needed a global. Verified via the classlist "Export Users" button: a real CSV now downloads instead of throwing "saveAs is not supported"
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Greptile SummaryThis PR replaces the old Bower frontend pipeline with npm and webpack. The main changes are:
Confidence Score: 5/5This looks safe to merge.
Important Files Changed
Reviews (3): Last reviewed commit: "Document webpack step in the production ..." | Re-trigger Greptile |
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ionparticle
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Jul 7, 2026
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Great work, bower was deeply integrated, so I'm sure this was complicated. This is very much appreciated.
I verify the prod build is loading as expected after the fix, so merge approved.
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Replace Bower with
npm/webpackacross the entire frontend build pipeline (dev bundling, prod bundling, and unit tests) and deletebower.json/bower_components.<script>/<link>tag injection to webpack (webpack-entry.js/webpack.config.js), invoked vianpm run build:dev.tincan.jsandpdf.js-viewerstay outside the webpack bundle (see code comments for why) and are copied fromnode_modulesvia gulp instead.gulpfile.js's existingconcat/uglify/revpipeline is unchanged in mechanism, just repointed frombower_components/tonode_modules/, using each package's actual browser-ready file rather than its"main"field (several packages'"main"is a CommonJS-only wrapper that throws when concatenated raw).karma.conf.jsmoved offwiredep/bower.jsonontokarma-webpack, reusing the same webpack config as dev mode via a newkarma-entry.jsthat auto-discovers spec files withrequire.context. No spec files neededrequire()calls added, except for the 9beforeEach(module(...))calls changed toangular.mock.module(...), since webpack's ownmodulebinding shadows angular-mocks' global helper of the same name.bower.jsondeleted,Dockerfile/.gitignore/gulpfile.jscleaned of now-dead references,bower/gulp-bower/wiredep/main-bower-filesuninstalled.