Webpack build process is overridding wp.utils

[ryanwelcher]

I was working on #1557 and noticed that even though word-count.js was added as a dependency, it was not available at window.wp.utils. The entire object is being overridden by the following portion of webpack.config.js

const entryPointNames = [
	'element',
	'i18n',
	'components',
	'utils',
	'blocks',
	'date',
	'editor',
]


entryPointNames.forEach( entryPointName => {
	externals[ entryPointName ] = {
		'this': [ 'wp', entryPointName ],
	};
} );

Essentially, any items in entryPointNames will be added to thewp object and override anything already exisiting with the same name.

Can we namespace this to wp-gb or something similar?

[ryanwelcher]

I've added a PR for this #1571. The approach I took was to rename the utils folder and references to utils-gb

[nylen]

See previous discussion around #940 (comment):

word-count.js doesn't clobber window.wp.utils

So this means that the webpack version needs to be loaded first. We can accomplish this by adding wp-utils as a dependency of word-count.

[ryanwelcher]

@nylen thanks for your support on this!

I have put together a PR for the Word Count feature ( #1624 ) and am running into an issue where WordCounter is not available when the component initializes as it is loaded after Gutenberg. I have accommodated for that in the component but it would be better if the core items were loaded first. However, this puts us back to the issue of the namespace being overridden when Gutenberg loads.

We could address this by changing the namespace in Gutenberg from uilts to gb.utils or something to that effect. Do you have any suggestions for the best way to address this?

[nylen]

I think the utils thing is a good first exercise in integrating with the rest of core's JavaScript. I'll see about fixing it over on your PR.