I'm new to css compiling. I currently have a node.js app using express and precompiled bootstrap 3 files, and I'm diving into Stylus to make this better. I want to compile Stylus and import bootstrap with jeet for grid system.
My question is, how should this work? I'm confused about using grunt or why some tutorials show Stylus being used as middleware. Is it that the middleware compiles it realtime, and why would I need that?
Also I ran npm install bootstrap-styl and npm install jeet, but I'm not sure how to reference these in my styles.styl (If I do #import bootstrap, it can't find the files)
My thought is that I want to somehow link the imports to my node_modules, so they can be updated fluidly (I don't want to just copy the bootstrap .styl files from the node_modules folder, right?). Is this what I would use Grunt for?
well grunt is a task runner program that let you write tasks to run and it does automations (if specified) or manual tasks.
Grunt can watch for files/folders changes and invoke some functionality or tasks (if you will) just like what fileWatch function ( in fs module) does in node.js, and the tasks can be anything really from importing jeet into your stylus before compiling to run your tests and refresh your browser. In your situation it's best to use grunt to do the automation (of importing jeet files and compiling it). Grunt is easy to use, you can look at https://www.npmjs.com/package/grunt-contrib-stylus it has the information you will need to use stylus in grunt.
Make sure you npm install grunt-cli && npm install grunt grunt-contrib-stylus --save-dev to install grunt command for command line and the other for your project.
Then in the root of your project you make a gruntfile.js and put your grunt tasks in there, you can google for some articles about it, pretty straightforward.
Related
I tryed to use css frameworks lots of times. But i cant found any guide what to do. Just some post from other developers. Can you help me with the guide, how to import and use css framework in my expressjs project.
For instance, i started new project with express generator:
express --view=pug --css=sass
next, i installed materialize
npm install materialize-css
What i must to do next??? How to connect js and sass files with my project? How to compile all, if i tryed to do just a website? Where i can find good guides about such things, if i will have more questions?? Thanks!
npm was originally to get Node Module, but with the essort of the Javascript language (and the advent of browserify, webpack,etc), it has a bit grown up.
In fact, you can even download Bootstrap on npm, that is not a server side framework. Browserify permits you to use AMD/RequireJS/CommonJS on client side so node modules can be used on client side. Same goes for Webpack module bundler.
If you npm install bootstrap (if you don't use grunt or gulp file to move to a dist folder), your bootstrap will be located in some location like below.
"./node_modules/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css"
You need to include this in your .html file.
For sass if you use grunt then you will be using this plugin grunt-sass to convert sass to css and add the destination file to the .html file. Similarly goes for gulp.
Can we manage dependencies (js/css), minify, build, serve, watch ... only with node and nmp. If so how it works and why people use grunt, gulp, bower with npm ?
Basically on what i understand (angular-cli is very recent) it hide the webpack .. in reality it use it behind the scene ... i prefer to use the stack made by myself with Webpack and npm .. but now they've just released a new feature the AOT compiler.
https://angular.io/docs/ts/latest/cookbook/aot-compiler.html
In reallity it is possible to be done also with webpack .. but you need some changes of your code :
https://github.com/blacksonic/angular2-aot-webpack
Angular-cli is taken (as idea) from Ember-cli .. it help you to manage and create (scaffold) your app....
I think (but it's my idea) I'll continue without it and I'll try to implement new features (as AOT) by myself cause i want to know what happen behind the scene and know everything of my stack.... but it's my personal idea
Hope it help you ..
Can we manage dependencies (js/css), minify, build, serve, watch ... only with node and npm.
the "pm" in "npm" stands for "package-manager" so, of course you can use it as your main package manager.
You can define your own npm scripts in the package.json file and they'll get run when you enter arbitrary command in the console (npm run {script-name}). It can - in some way - replace grunt, gulp and other task-runners.
why people use grunt, gulp, bower with npm ?
Good question, in fact it's like using a framework, when using gulp, grunt, etc, you have a single API, and you can easily find ready-made tools that fit your needs and save your time instead of writing your own script every time.
Using these tools also allow to use a unified API to run all your tasks and avoid you messing with several scripts, and question such as "how should I pass arguments to this script ?" "what is the command to run this ?" etc.
For bower vs npm there is already an answer here
I know that could be multiple answers for this question but I would know how i can fast setting up project with Bootstrap and Sass.
I had never used node, npm, grunt or bower, I've installed all already but i can't really find a good tutorial for:
Setting up the project structure
Auto compile sass files on save
(Maybe) Live reload in chrome?
I would suggest not using any boilerplate for your first project as you want to get into the "guts" of it, and once you are familiar with basics, then you can try boilerplate and see what they can do for you.
Few tools you would need to setup a project from scratch includes: Node's npm, Bower, Gulp (for example).
After you have those installed, you can dig in into creating your first project.
1) Initialize your npm project
2) Pull the packages with Bower (Bootstrap scss for starters)
2a) Pull the Specific Bootstrap 3 SCSS port
3) Configure Basic Gulp-scss config for your SCSS needs.
Basic idea behind Bower is that you have unmodified source of plugins/3rd party js/css in bower_components folder, and you use those files to compile a production ready files (js/css). What this means is that your bower_components folder is a "src" folder, and you have to add your "dist" or distributable files. Gulp helps with this part.
For the project structure, further readings and improvements on gulp tasks.
Once you have basic working project, you can try expanding your gulp-config with, like you mentioned Browser Sync and others.
I did compile a "general tasks" gulp file that i use from project to project. You can take a look here and use it if you find it fits.
Hope it helps.
You can try using Aldryn's boilerplate:
https://github.com/aldryn/aldryn-boilerplate-bootstrap3
Documentation
I am trying to figure out an effective way to bundle and distribute various dependencies (node modules and/or "client"-side scripts and framework like Angular) with my Electron App.
Although the basic approach of npm install module-name --save works well for development, it is not so good in the end when it comes to minimizing the size of your app and using minified resources at runtime. For instance, virtually all npm packages (including node modules) come with a lot of "extra baggage" like readmes, various versions of components (minified, not minified, ES2015, no-ES2015, etc). While these are great for development, all these files have absolutely no need to be included in the version you will be distributing.
Currently there seem to be 2 ways to sort of address the problem:
Electron Builder recommends using 2-file package.json system.
Any dependency that is used during development only should be npm-installed using --save-dev and then prunning should be used when building the app for distribution.
In that regard I have several questions:
I am not quite sure why there is a need for 2-file package.json system if one can install dev-only modules/ dependencies with --save-dev and then use pruning during the actual app build/compilation?
Regardless of which method above is used, you still end up with full npm packages in your app, inclduying all the miscellaneous/duplicated files that are not used by your app. So how does one "prune" so to speak the npm packages themselves so that only the actual files that are being used at run-time (like minified scripts) get included?
Will using Bower for "client-side" packages (like AngularJS 2, Bootstrap, jQuery, etc.) and using npm for node modules (like fs-extra) be a better option in as far as separation of concerns and ease of bundling later?
Could WebPack be used to produce only the needed files, at least for the "cient-side", so that only real node modules will be included with the app, while the rest of it will be in the form of web-pack compiled set of files?
Any practical tips on how this bundling of dependencies and distribution should be accredited out in practice? Gulp-scripts? Web-pack scripts? Project structure?
Thank you.
I am still in the learning curve of adopting the best practices in code deployment. But here is my starting list of what is recommended.
Yes, npm install --save-dev is the first easiest thing to isolate dev and build specific packages. This includes gulp/grunt/webpack and its loaders or additional packages. These are used only for building and never in the code that actually is run. All packages used by the app should be installed with npm install --save so that it is project level available. So, in production, you would no npm install --production in machines which will not install dev packages at all. See What's the difference between dependencies, devDependencies and peerDependencies in npm package.json file? for more info.
While the original recommendation was to use bower for client side and npm for server side, both can be installed using npm too. After all, both does the same job of managing the packages and dependencies. However, if web pack is used, it is recommended that npm is used for client side dependencies also.
package.json should be thought of managing the dependent packages only and not for building. For building and picking only the required files, you need task runners like gulp/grunt or bundlers like web pack.
While gulp/grunt is very popular for build automation which includes bundling all dependent javascript in file and minifying them in to one file, webpack/browserify is a better option as it supports module import. Module import is intuitive way of require one module in another in node js type of coding
var util = require('./myapp/lib/utils.js') This is powerful way of mentioning the required dependencies in the code. The web pack builder runs like gulp as build process. But instead of looking through html file for all js files, looks at starting js file and and determines all dependent code mentioned by the require statements recursively and packages accordingly. It also minifies the code. It also loads css and image files in one bundle to reduce server trips. If needed, some modules can be configured to be loaded at runtime dynamically further reducing page load. NPM vs. Bower vs. Browserify vs. Gulp vs. Grunt vs. Webpack discusses this at length.
Webpack can be used to bundle client side app optimally while server side need not be bundled or minified as there is no download.
In web pack, though you can mention dependent modules with lib file path, the recommendation is to npm install all dependencies and mention the module name. For example if you have installed jquery, instead of giving path like /libs/jquery.min.js, you can mention as 'jquery'. Webpack will automatically pull the jquery lib and dependencies and minimise it. If they are common modules, it will be chunked too. So, it is better to npm install dependent packages instead of bower install.
ES2015 provides lot of benefits during coding time including type checking and modules. However all browsers do not yet support the spec natively. So you need to transpile the code to older version that browsers understand. This is done by transpilers like Babel that can be run with gulp. Webpack has in-built babel loader so web pack understands ES2015. It is recommended to use ES2015 module system as it will soon become the defacto way of coding and since there is transpiler, there is no worry of this not being supported in IE8/9.
For project structure you could have
server
client
src containing js files
dist containing html and build files generated
webpack.dev.config.js and webpack.prod.config.js can be at root level.
I have found that this area is an ocean and different schools of best practices.This is probably one set of best practices. Feel free to choose the set that works for your scenario. Look forward for more comments to add to this set.
So i started using grunt, ran through some tutorials but somehow i haven't found an easy way of initialising a new project with all the predefined plugins in your default gruntfile.js?
So, yeah, i got that everytime you have to reinstall grunt locally with cd your-working-dir and then npm install grunt --save-dev?
Then i have my gruntfile.js which, i guess, i can copy and use just like my default grunt file? I guess the main question of mine is this: do i have to install each of grunt plugins manually whenever i start a new project?
for example if i have sass task in my gruntfile.js and when i start this new project i have to npm install grunt-contrib-sass --save-dev every single time?
You have at least several options, ordered by complexity ascending:
Create your default projects on disk, and a shell script to automate the bootstrapping.
Use Github, and create a default project that you can bootstrap with GIT on your box.
Use Yeoman scaffolding, and create a custom yeoman generator as a NPM package.
Shell automation can apply to the second and third approach as well.
Yeoman, is def. the cool option, but also takes the most time, and requires more maintenance than the other options.