Bootstrapper

Bootstrapper is a handy Node.js command line application to manage templates and boilerplates.

Bootstrapper stores user-defined templates in its template folder where they are always available every time they are needed.

Installing Bootstrapper

Bootstrapper is available via npm. I suggest to install it globally so the executable is always available without having to change the $PATH.

In order to install it just type the following into the terminal:

sudo npm install -g bootstrapper

or, in case you want to avoid a global installation just type:

npm install bootstrapper

Bootstrapper depends on wrench-js, as that was the most convenient way to quickly copy and delete directories recursively.

How to

The semantic of the tool is very simple.

Show help information:

mmarcon@wallace$ bootstrapper help

List all the available templates:

mmarcon@wallace$ bootstrapper list
* Just another template [My new test template for bootstrapper,  Created by Massimiliano Marcon on 14/04/2012]
* My new test template [Hello,  Created by mmarcon on 14/04/2012]
* Nokia Maps boilerplate app [A boilerplate to build a map-based application using the Nokia Maps API,  Created by Massimiliano Marcon on 14/04/2012]

Create an empty template (the tool requests some information on the new template):

mmarcon@wallace$ bootstrapper generate

Convert current working directory into a Bootstrapper template (handy to make a Bootstrapper template out of a Github repository):

mmarcon@wallace$ bootstrapper init

Add a template to the template database:

mmarcon@wallace$ bootstrapper add path/to/template_directory

Add a template to the template database from a remote location (tar.gz required):

mmarcon@wallace$ bootstrapper add http://website.com/templates/nokiamaps.tar.gz

Remove a template from the template database:

mmarcon@wallace$ bootstrapper remove "Template Name"

Use a template (creates a new folder containing the template files):

mmarcon@wallace$ bootstrapper use

Details

Bootstrapper stores all the data into $HOME/.bootstrapper.

The directory contains a log folder (currently unused) and a templates folder where all the templates are stored. The structure of a template is very simple:

- template_name_lowercase
   |- template.json
   |- some_other_template.file
   |- some_subfolder

template.json is just a little JSON file that contains name, description, author and creation date for the template.

Remote Templates

Potentially any Github repository can become a template. It just needs to contain a simple template.json file that looks like this:

{
    "date": "17/04/2012",
    "name": "HTML5 Boilerplate",
    "description": "A rock-solid default for HTML5 awesome.",
    "author": "http://html5boilerplate.com"
}

As a little test I converted the well known HTML5 Boilerplate to a Bootstrapper template. After installing Bootstrapper you can add the HTML5 Boilerplate to your collection of templates by typing:

bootstrapper add https://github.com/mmarcon/html5-boilerplate/tarball/master