11ty-fast-dev v0.1.1
This makes 11ty more efficient when used behind a dev server, making it only compiles your pages when you actually want to see them.
This relies on you running your own dev server.
(This could be built into eleventy --serve
, I don't know.)
⚠️ This is a crazy idea and perhaps not intended for production use just yet. You're welcome!
Usage
Your .eleventy.js should be updated like this:
TODO(samthor): This should be flagged or only run in --watch
mode.
const eleventyFastDev = require('11ty-fast-dev/patch');
module.exports = eleventyConfig => {
// We can't set up 11ty-fast-dev here, but instead need to do it later in
// 11ty's lifecycle. Its calculation of collections is a great place, as this
// is before any files are written.
// TODO(samthor): We only want to do this when flagged or in watch mode and
// so on.
const config = eleventyFastDev.buildConfig(eleventyConfig);
eleventyConfig.addCollection('_11ty-fast-dev', config);
// ... the rest of your config
};
Add this handler to your web server (this uses Express):
const {buildEleventyFastDevHandler} = require('11ty-fast-dev/handler');
const staticPaths = ['dist']; // 11ty writes here by default
const eleventyFastDevHandler = buildEleventyFastDevHandler(staticPaths);
// Insert this _before_ your static handlers, so old dist files don't "win".
app.use(eleventyFastDevHandler);
Profit!
Implementation
The eleventy side does two things:
- monkeypatches
TemplateWriter._writeTemplate
so that instead of writing a template, we store this ability into a closure - opens a web server on "localhost:9999", and when the right page is requested, renders the file
On the server side, it's a pretty basic handler which then goes out and asks "localhost:9999" for the right page.
Downsides
This will, as stated, only execute your templates and run transforms when you request a file. If you have side effects in these places, then this won't work for you. (This is generally considered a bad idea anyway).