codekit-jsx-hack v0.0.5

What is it

An (experimental) hack to compile JSX files and ES6 code in CodeKit using the Babel compiler. Using this, you can use JSX code in CodeKit and let it compile as you would expect. As a bonus, you can also now use the new and shiny ES6 syntax and let Babel take care of browser compatibility for you.

Codekit does not support compiling JSX files at the moment. But I really wanted to use CodeKit with my React code. Hence this project - it tricks CodeKit into thinking it's compiling CoffeeScript files while it's actually compiling JSX or ES6 files with Babel.

Supports @codekit-prepend and @codekit-append for combining multiple JSX/ES6 and JS files.
Supports minification.

Installation

(you need to have node and npm installed)
Create an installation folder and run
npm install codekit-jsx-hack

Open CodeKit, go to preferences > compilers > CoffeeScript , set it to use a custom compiler and choose the compiler to be yourInstallationFolder/node_modules/codekit-jsx-hack/main.js

Set CodeKit to stop checking CoffeeScript syntax (For example: project settings>Languages>CoffeeScript>Check syntax with:Nothing) Disable source maps for coffeescript Rename all your .jsx files to .coffee so that CodeKit thinks they are CoffeeScript files

That's it - CodeKit should now compile your .coffee files (which are actually jsx files) using the Babel compiler.
@codekit-prepend and @codekit-append should also work as expected.
Minification can be enabled inside CodeKit for CoffeeScript code and it works.

How it works

CodeKit lets you use a custom compiler for CoffeeScript code. This project uses a compiler that makes CodeKit think it's a CoffeeScript compiler while behind the scenes it's the Babel compiler compiling JSX code into .js files.
Essentially, you create fake .coffee files that are actually .jsx files and compile them using a fake CoffeeScript compiler that is actually the Babel compiler for jsx files.

Limitations

• No source maps (yet)

• You cannot use backticks in your code. This has to do with the way CodeKit merges Javascript and CoffeScript code. It encloses the plain JavaScript code within backticks so that the CoffeeScript compiler does not process it. We use it in a similar way.
  Backticks in .js files will be removed by CodeKit. But backticks in your (fake) .coffee files (for example in comments or if you are using the ES6 backtick operator A.K.A. Template Strings) will cause issues.

• Another drawback is that you have to rename your .jsx files to .coffee to make CodeKit believe it is a CoffeeScript file.

• And obviously you can not use actual coffeescript code files in the same project - you may use either the fake compiler or the real Coffee compiler but obviously not both at the same time.

Using all ES6 features

If you wish to take advantage of many of the new ES6 features in your code - such as maps, sets, etc. - you need to include the Babel browser-polyfill.js file (this requirement is not specific to this project though and is required whenever you use Babel). You can do this through a <script> tag or by prefixing it the CodeKit way. You need to include this file before the compiled code.
Read more at Babel docs.
Note: not all ES6 features require the polyfill. Refer to the Babel docs for details.

Quick way to rename all my jsx files to coffee files?

npm install -g renamer

renamer --insensitive --regex --find '\.jsx$' --replace '.coffee' '**/*.jsx' --dry-run

Recursively renames all .jsx files in the current directory to .coffee. This is a dry run. Check the output and if it seems okay, remove the --dry-run parameter to actually rename the files.

And renaming coffee files back to jsx:

renamer --insensitive --regex --find '\.coffee$' --replace '.jsx' '**/*.coffee' --dry-run

Remove the --dry-run param when you are sure about the output.

Run tests

npm test