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frontend-lab

A gulp setup to test out ideas and learn front-end techniques. Initialize small example, have gulp watch it and code to your heart's content. Rinse and repeat.

The need

In front end coding, as in all coding, you learn by doing. That means crafting small examples that illustrate specific ideas. While it's fun to experiment, the basic html/css/js setup can feel tedious and limiting. After all, when coding up themes to our favorite cms or app, we have access to various conveniences like automation tools, templating, and packagers. Why not when fooling around?

So here is a setup I use to create and run "mini-labs" in front end, quick one off thought experiments.

The toolchain

These are the tools this setup uses to make testing new ideas both easy to start and powerful to explore. You can see them in the package.json devDependencies .

  • gulp for creating, watching and generating each lab
  • gulp-swig for templating html more quickly and dynamically rather than repeatedly creating structures
  • gulp-ruby-sass for generating the css from sass
  • gulp-autoprefixer for making sure sass/css is clean on your development end but slightly more compatible with older browsers on the generated end.
  • browserify for testing out various javascript widgets that come neatly packaged up with npm
  • browser-sync for not having to refresh my browser and testing on multiple browsers
  • highlight.js along with highlight-redux for sprinkling code higlighting in your templates. See example usage docs.

Requirements

You'll need nodejs and gulp which coordinates all the tools mentioned to work together so you can focus on just coding.

$ npm install --global gulp

I also use ruby Sass:

$ gem install sass

Install

Clone the repository which serves as the lab's starting point and have it install the tools required.

$ git clone https://github.com/yuvilio/frontend-lab
...
$ cd frontend-lab/
$ npm install

Using

I cut my projects into "batches" and cut batches into "names". Batches can be more general umbrellas and names are the working unit. I also like to number the names so I can keep track of what item I coded first, but that's a personal preference.

Let's kick off an an example about toying with css floats:

$ gulp init --batch learn-some-css --name 006-floats

This generates the basic files I will be editing.

$ find lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/
lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/
lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/js
lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/js/source.js
lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/index.swig
lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/sass
lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/sass/styles.scss
$

Then we can have the various tools watch over it and generate/refresh the result:

$ gulp browserSync --batch learn-some-css --name 006-floats

This will also launch the server and kick off your default browser to http://localhost:4266/. We'll get to that in a moment.

Edit the files (index.swig, styles.scss...) in the lab/ name you just created and whenever you save them the results will be generated to equivalent directory in dist/:

$ find dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/
dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/
dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/index.html
dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/img
dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/js
dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/js/source.js
dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/css
dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/css/styles.css.map
dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/css/styles.css
$

Back at the browser refresh and find the project (under the 'dist/' directory). and click on index.html. In our example case, this would be http://localhost:4266/dist/learn-some-css/006-floats/index.html. You'll see the latest generated version and browerSync will refresh whenever you make any changes in the lab.

Where is my html file to edit?

It's the index.swig file. This way, you can enter plain html as well as swig template tags for less tedious html writing when what you want to enter is more complex.

How do I use browserify?

Simply npm install the widgets you are using somewhere in the lab/ directory structure. (for example in lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/js or even in ./lab or ./ if you want one big bucket to hold them all).

For example if we wanted to use the domquery library, first install it.

$ npm install domquery

Then make use of it in your lab's source.js (e.g.: lab/learn-some-cs/006-floats/js/source.js )

var dom = require('domquery');
...

When you save the file, browserify will bundle that library into the resulting source.js file in dist/.

Will you support ___ template engine, css precompiler, js testing framework ... ?

For now, probably no unless it's really worth it. This is just a quick and dirty setup that I use and figured I would share as is. But feel free to fork, adjust or suggest if you think there is something missing.

When you save, it will get bundled into the result source.js in your 'dist/'

Tips

  • Use the tools! Use the Sass to ease up your css writing. Use swig templating to make complicated html examples faster. Use browserify to explore the wonderous world of front end javascript npm modules. So many to choose from at npmsearch.

  • Keep your examples focused on doing one thing. Exploring and verifying on some css properties. Honing your layout knowledge, or responsive ideas.

  • It's not just about new examples. Have a strange style, js issue that is flustering you? Maybe it's hard to solve because there is so much going on in that page. Try to isolate just the relevant html/js/css back in a lab example and see if that helps you see what needs nudging or rethinking.

  • Feel free to adjust the starter templates that gulp init uses to make your html/scss/js . They are in the templates/ folder.

  • Feel free to include common baseline styles in your styles.scss . In your gulpfile., add them to the loadPath (I have bourbon ones added right now, feel free to comment those out and/or add your own.) and then, in your example's styles.scss make use of them through importing with something likescss @import '../../sass/some-baseline-styles.scss';

  • Create as many batches and names as you want. This is your personal local lab, not a public codepen. It is here for you to experiment on whatever "What if I code this?" question that enters your mind.

  • Having said that, if you cook something tasty, consider copying over publicly to codepen to build your street cred and show others.