GulpFiction as a local interface on build tasks ?

[0gust1]

Congrats for your project ! I found it very interesting.

Do you plan / are you interested to make it usable as a local tool ?

I.E : the ability to launch gulp tasks on the local filesystem, directly from the UI. It could help a lot front-end / webdesign people who are not too much tech-savvy.

[damienklinnert]

Hey @0gust1, this is a great idea. Do you think node-webkit would be the right solution for this?

[sfroestl]

Yes @0gust1 awesome idea!

[0gust1]

As far I can see, the main challenge is interacting with the local filesystem :

• saving the gulpfile
• launching jobs
  It should be feasible with some middleware code (using a local connect instance, for example).

Another thing is getting the jobs output and outputting it on the UI. Right now, I have no idea how to to do that, but should be feasible : CI software (Hudson, Jenkins,Travis ) does it.

I need to read and dig deeper in the gulpfiction code in order to try a sort of proof of concept (I'm on holidays with family now ^^). I'll keep you informed (please do the same if you work on that :) ).

[damienklinnert]

Hey @0gust1, thanks for the detailed write-up.

Regarding the three thoughts you mentioned:

Saving the gulpfile
Should be no problem with node-webkit, there's a detailed example on how to do this.

Launching Jobs
To launch a job, I'd make use of node's childProcess.spawn() function. This will remove the burden of creating a local webserver, selecting a port to communicate and so on.

Getting the output
Simple with childProcess.spawn(); just send the output stream to the UI. The UI can then use the exit code of the process. If it equals 0, then it can display success. Otherwise, it can open a dialog with the exact console output.

As far as I see, we should add "Run" buttons to each tasks separately. Also, I don't know how to implement watch / livereload yet. What do you think on that?

Enjoy the holidays and sorry for all the messy code.

[w20k]

One more thought :)

Could be awesome to have "templates" for common development routines. Only thing to edit would be path to your files (js/css/scss & etc).

As an example "watch" function:

1. Generate routine from 'template'.
2. Edit path to your files.
3. If needed, add procedures.
4. Set output directory.

That would be more then enough for designers :)

[colinmegill]

Just found this project tonight, had the same desire, so +1 for local. I could see popping a browser and interacting with the gulpfile visually and if there is interest in going in that direction, I would be interested in contributing. That would be phenomenal.

I'm going to add an independent issue for 'import'.

[damienklinnert]

Hey @colinmegill thanks for your input. Unfortunately no one is working on this issue right now, would appreciate you doing it though!