Assemble-core NPM

assemble-core

Built on top of base and templates, assemble-core is used in assemble to provide the baseline features and API necessary for rendering templates, working with the file system, and running tasks.

Implementors and hackers can use assemble-core to create rich and powerful build tooling, project scaffolding systems, documentation generators, or even your completely custom static site generators.

(TOC generated by verb using markdown-toc)

What can I do with assemble-core?

Create your own:

blog engine
project generator / scaffolder
e-book development framework
build system
landing page generator
documentation generator
front-end UI framework
rapid prototyping framework
static site generator
web application

Install

NPM

Install

Install with npm:

$ npm install --save assemble-core

yarn

Install with yarn:

$ yarn add assemble-core && yarn upgrade

Usage

var assemble = require('assemble-core');
var app = assemble();

Examples

view collections

Create a custom view collection:

var app = assemble();
app.create('pages');

Now you can add pages with app.page() or app.pages():

app.page('home.hbs', {content: 'this is the home page!'});

render

Render a view:

var app = assemble();

var view = app.view('foo', {content: 'Hi, my name is <%= name %>'});

app.render(view, { name: 'Brian' }, function(err, res) {
  console.log(res.content);
  //=> 'Hi, my name is Brian'
});

Render a view from a collection:

var app = assemble();
app.create('pages');

app.page('foo', {content: 'Hi, my name is <%= name %>'})
  .set('data.name', 'Brian')
  .render(function (err, res) {
    console.log(res.content);
    //=> 'Hi, my name is Brian'
  });

API

Assemble

Create an assemble application. This is the main function exported by the assemble module.

Params

options {Object}: Optionally pass default options to use.

Example

var assemble = require('assemble');
var app = assemble();

File System API

Assemble has the following methods for working with the file system:

Assemble v0.6.0 has full vinyl-fs support, so any gulp plugin should work with assemble.

.src

Use one or more glob patterns or filepaths to specify source files.

Params

glob {String|Array}: Glob patterns or file paths to source files.
options {Object}: Options or locals to merge into the context and/or pass to src plugins

Example

app.src('src/*.hbs', {layout: 'default'});

.dest

Specify the destination to use for processed files.

Params

dest {String|Function}: File path or custom renaming function.
options {Object}: Options and locals to pass to dest plugins

Example

app.dest('dist/');

.copy

Copy files from A to B, where A is any pattern that would be valid in app.src and B is the destination directory.

Params

patterns {String|Array}: One or more file paths or glob patterns for the source files to copy.
dest {String|Function}: Desination directory.
returns {Stream}: The stream is returned, so you can continue processing files if necessary.

Example

app.copy('assets/**', 'dist/');

.symlink

Glob patterns or paths for symlinks.

Params

glob {String|Array}

Example

app.symlink('src/**');

Task API

Assemble has the following methods for running tasks and controlling workflows:

.task

Define a task. Tasks are functions that are stored on a tasks object, allowing them to be called later by the build method. (the CLI calls build to run tasks)

Params

name {String}: Task name
fn {Function}: function that is called when the task is run.

Example

app.task('default', function() {
  return app.src('templates/*.hbs')
    .pipe(app.dest('dist/'));
});

.build

Run one or more tasks.

Params

tasks {Array|String}: Task name or array of task names.
cb {Function}: callback function that exposes err

Example

app.build(['foo', 'bar'], function(err) {
  if (err) console.error('ERROR:', err);
});

.watch

Watch files, run one or more tasks when a watched file changes.

Params

glob {String|Array}: Filepaths or glob patterns.
tasks {Array}: Task(s) to watch.

Example

app.task('watch', function() {
  app.watch('docs/*.md', ['docs']);
});

FAQ

How does assemble-core differ from assemble?

feature	assemble-core	assemble	notes
front-matter parsing	No	Yes	use assemble or use parser-front-matter as an `.onLoad` middleware.
CLI	No	Yes	Create your own CLI experience, or use assemble
Built-in template collections	No	Yes	Use `.create()` to add collections
Built-in template engine	No	Yes	assemble ships with engine-handlebars. Use `.engine()` to register any consolidate-compatible template engine.

Toolkit suite

assemble-core is a standalone application that was created using applications and plugins from the toolkit suite:

Building blocks

base: framework for rapidly creating high quality node.js applications, using plugins like building blocks.
templates: used to create the foundation of assemble-core's API, along with support for managing template collections, template engines and template rendering support

Plugins

assemble-fs: adds support for using gulp plugins and working with the file system
assemble-streams: adds support for pushing views and view collections into a vinyl stream
base-task: adds flow control methods

About

Related projects

Assemble is built on top of these great projects:

assemble: Get the rocks out of your socks! Assemble makes you fast at creating web projects… more | homepage
boilerplate: Tools and conventions for authoring and using declarative configurations for project "boilerplates" that can be… more | homepage
composer: API-first task runner with three methods: task, run and watch. | homepage
generate: Command line tool and developer framework for scaffolding out new GitHub projects. Generate offers the… more | homepage
scaffold: Conventions and API for creating declarative configuration objects for project scaffolds - similar in format… more | homepage
templates: System for creating and managing template collections, and rendering templates with any node.js template engine… more | homepage
verb: Documentation generator for GitHub projects. Verb is extremely powerful, easy to use, and is used… more | homepage

Tests

Running and reviewing unit tests is a great way to get familiarized with a library and its API. You can install dependencies and run tests with the following command:

$ npm install && npm test

Contributing

Pull requests and stars are always welcome. For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue.

Please read the contributing guide for advice on opening issues, pull requests, and coding standards.

If Assemble doesn't do what you need, please let us know.

Release History

key

Changelog entries are classified using the following labels from keep-a-changelog:

added: for new features
changed: for changes in existing functionality
deprecated: for once-stable features removed in upcoming releases
removed: for deprecated features removed in this release
fixed: for any bug fixes

Custom labels used in this changelog:

dependencies: bumps dependencies
housekeeping: code re-organization, minor edits, or other changes that don't fit in one of the other categories.

Heads up!

Please let us know if any of the following heading links are broken. Thanks!

0.31.0 - 2017-11-2011

dependencies

Bumps assemble-streams to ensure that view is decorated with .toStream() when created by app (instead of a collection). This is arguably a bugfix, but it might break someone's code.

0.30.0 - 2017-08-01

dependencies

Bumps assemble-fs and assemble-render-file to get updates that merge the dest path information onto the context so that it can be used to calculate relative paths for navigation, pagination, etc.

0.29.0 - 2017-02-01

dependencies

Bumps assemble-fs to v0.9.0 to take advantage of improvements to .dest() handling.

0.28.0 - 2017-02-01

dependencies

Bumps templates to v1.2.0 to take advantage of new methods available on lists

0.27.0 - 2016-12-27

dependencies

Bumps templates to v1.0.0 to take advantage of new template inheritance features!
Bumps assemble-fs to v0.8.0

0.26.0 - 2016-08-06

dependencies

Bumps assemble-fs to v0.7.0 to take advantage of handle.once
Bumps templates to v0.25.0 to take advantage of async collection loaders. No changes to existing API.

0.25.0 - 2016-07-05

changed

Minor code organization and private properties were changed. This is technically a housekeeping change since these methods weren't exposed on the API, but it's possible someone was using them in an unintended way.

0.24.0

dependencies

Bumps templates to v0.24.0 to use the latest base-data

removed

The bump in templates removes the renameKey option from the .data method. Use the namespace option instead.

0.23.0

fixed

Bumps templates to v0.23.0 to fix bug with double rendering in engine-cache.

0.22.0

dependencies

Bumps templates to v0.22.0 to take advantage of fixes and improvements to lookup methods: .find and getView. No API changes were made. Please let us know if regressions occur.
Bumps base to take advantages of code optimizations.

fixed

fixes List bug that was caused collection helpers to explode

changed

Improvements to lookup functions: app.getView() and app.find()

0.21.0

dependencies

Bumps templates to v0.21.0.

removed

Support for the queue property was removed on collections. See templates for additional details.

0.20.0

dependencies

Bumps templates to v0.20.0.

changed

Some changes were made to context handling that effected one unit test out of ~1,000. although it's unlikely you'll be effected by the change, it warrants a minor bump

0.19.0

dependencies

Bumps templates to v0.19.0

housekeeping

Externalizes tests (temporarily) to base-test-runner, until we get all of the tests streamlined to the same format.

0.18.0

dependencies

Bumps assemble-loader to v0.5.0, which includes which fixes a bug where renameKey was not always being used when defined on collection loader options.
Bumps templates to v0.18.0, which includes fixes for resolving layouts

0.17.0

dependencies

Bumps templates to v0.17.0

0.16.0

dependencies

Bumps assemble-render-file to v0.5.0 and templates to v0.16.0

0.15.0

dependencies

Bumps assemble-streams to v0.5.0

0.14.0

dependencies

Bumps templates to v0.15.1

deprecated

.handleView method is now deprecated, use .handleOnce instead

changed

Private method .mergePartialsSync rename was reverted to .mergePartials to be consistent with other updates in .render and .compile.

added

adds logging methods from base-logger (.log, .verbose, etc)
No other breaking changes, but some new features were added to templates for handling context in views and helpers.

0.13.0

Breaking change: bumps templates to v0.13.0 to fix obscure rendering bug when multiple duplicate partials were rendered in the same view. But the fix required changing the .mergePartials method to be async. If you're currently using .mergePartials, you can continue to do so synchronously using the .mergePartialsSync method.

0.9.0

Updates composer to v0.11.0, which removes the .watch method in favor of using the base-watch plugin.

0.8.0

Bumps several deps. templates was bumped to 0.9.0 to take advantage of event handling improvements.

0.7.0

Bumps templates to 0.8.0 to take advantage of isType method for checking a collection type, and a number of improvements to how collections and views are instantiated and named.

0.6.0

Bumps assemble-fs plugin to 0.5.0, which introduces onStream and preWrite middleware handlers.
Bumps templates to 0.7.0, which fixes how non-cached collections are initialized. This was done as a minor instead of a patch since - although it's a fix - it could theoretically break someone's setup.

0.5.0

Bumps templates to latest, 0.6.0, since it uses the latest base-methods, which introduces prototype mixins. No API changes.

0.4.0

Removed emitter-only since it was only includes to be used in the default listeners that were removed in an earlier release. In rare cases this might be a breaking change, but not likely.
Adds lazy-cache
Updates assemble-streams plugin to latest

(Changelog generated by helper-changelog)