AssemBot
What does it do?
AssemBot is a simple asset assembler for use in developing JS web apps. It's designed for my own preferred way of development, so YMMV.
It's rather like stitch, but not exactly. It can compile an entire directory into a single, commonjs moduled, javascript file. It can also create a single .css file from all the styles in a single directory, recursively. It will also transpile where appropriate (CoffeeScript, eco, less, stylus, etc). You can enable pruning to excise modules you don't require
in your code.
If you don't like the default conventions, you can configure it in your package.json
file. You can also extend AssemBot with plugins to add processor, or packages types. See the docs for more.
Installation
npm install -g assembot
You don't have to install it globally, but it comes with a pre-configured binfile to make it quick to use on projects. (It defaults to compiling ./source
into public/app.js
and public/app.css
)
Usage
At it's simplest:
cd my_project
assembot build
If you want to configure it via package.json, just add an assembot
section to your package and run assembot
.
If you've not installed it globally, then you'll need to add it as a dependency to your project, then:
npm install assembot --save
./node_modules/.bin/assembot --build
AssemBot can give you a head start by creating a assembot configuration block for you:
assembot init
Transpiler Support
AssemBot initially enables support for transpiling .coffee
, .litcoffee
, .eco
, .dot
, .ejs
, .less
, and .styl
files. When using stylus, it will attempt to enable Nib by default as well.
There's a start on some others as well. Plus, you can always add your own.
Token Replacement
In your sources files you can reference data defined in your package.json
file by using a special token syntax: {%- package.author -%}
AssemBot will attempt to replace all tokens in your sources files. To disable this behavior, set replaceTokens
to false
.
Embedded CSS
It also supports compiling CSS into the JS package. Use .ecss
(or .estyl
or .eless
) file extension. Generates a module you can use like this:
require'my/view/styles'activate# EmbeddCSS API: # .activate() - Appends a generated <style> tag to HEAD, BODY, or document # .deactivate() - Removes the generated <style> tag # .isActive() - Boolean
Dev Server
AssemBot comes with a dev server, to use it:
assembot serve
Default Configuration
Following are the default AssemBot configuration values, when creating your own configuration, you don't need to specify all on these -- only those you wish to override:
Tips
One thing I like to do is instead of adding configuration info in cumbersome JSON, I put it in a coffeescript file (usually assembot.coffee
).
Roadmap
- v0.3+ = Make it better. Look into SourceMap support.