0.0.5 • Published 8 years ago

das-build v0.0.5

Weekly downloads
-
License
-
Repository
-
Last release
8 years ago

Das Build

Project pipeline for building an app for the browser and wrap it into natice apps with Cordova and Electron.

Not stable, might or might not work until 0.1.0

Dependencies

  • node and npm
  • ios-sim and ios-deploy for Cordova's iOS builds.

Using the project pipeline

This project is build on npm. You can use the npm run command to run the routines defined on package.json. These routines in turn call gulp, bower, cordova and electron tasks.

Here are some scripts you might want to use:

Get started

Go to the folder you would like to use for your project, then install Das Build:

npm install das-build --save-dev

Then you can initialize your project:

npm run init

Project file structure

You can easily get started with all the bare essentials by copying sample/ from Das Build's repository. In the future we will add a project kickstart script to create this structure for you automatically.

Your actual client code is kept under source/. Here you will have:

  • source/svg/ SVG assets that will be merged into one file for the app.
  • source/views/: Vue.js components that compose your app's views. This includes view models, view styles and templates.
  • source/styles/: Base CSS, SCSS or LESS stylesheets. These will be compiled for the app and minified in production.
  • source/manifests/: templates for composing various manifest files required by browsers, Cordova or Electron.
  • ...

Project.json

All your app's metadata and pipeline configuration lies in project.json. This is an extensive declarative configuration file that is somewhat delicate but also quite powerful.

When setting up a new project, take your time going through this file once and set values to your liking.

As an added benefit, Das Build will ignore JavaScript-style comments when parsing this file even though standard JSON would not allow them. You will find detailed documentation in the sample file.

Using the pipeline

This will install the node_modules needed by the gulp pipeline. bower_components defined in bower.json will also be fetched so they can be built in the app package. For more info on Bower, see below.

To build the browser version of the app for development, use:

npm run watch

This will build the templates, scripts, styles and assets as defined by the build pipeline and project.json. The script will remain active and rebuild as you make edits to the source files. An independent build will be available under /window.

You can make a one-off client builds:

# Development version
npm run devbuild

# Production version with minified assets
npm run build

If you wish to run individual gulp tasks without the abstraction provided by package.json script, you can use the locally available gulp binary instead of having to install gulp globally:

node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js subtask-build-window-coreassets

All gulp tasks can be found under gulp/.

Bower

Bower is a separate dependency management for fetching client-side libraries that will be delivered to users as part of the app package. You can and should (un)install these components during development as you change what libraries the client logic relies on.

To use Bower locally, you don't have to install it since it's already included in node_modules as part of the build pipeline. Use it like so:

node_modules/bower/bin/bower install es6-promise --save

Cordova

Cordova is a tool for compiling web apps such as this into mobile projects, running them in web views and providing platform features as plugins to the client code.

This project pipeline includes commands building this project on iOS using Cordova.

Due to some caveats with using npm run for controlling the build pipeline and how Cordova commands are structured, Cordova commands provided as npm scripts do not work. You need to manually control Cordova from its own working directory.

# This is part of init but you can run this to regenerate the mobile project base
npm run init

# Make a client app build targeted to Cordova (to cordova/www/)
npm run build-cordova

# Make sure you're in the right directory
cd cordova

# Make sure your environment fills the requirements for running the build
../node_modules/cordova/bin/cordova requirements

# List emulator images available in your environment
../node_modules/cordova/bin/cordova run ios --list

# Run project on emulator or device
../node_modules/cordova/bin/cordova run --list
../node_modules/cordova/bin/cordova run ios --nobuild --device
../node_modules/cordova/bin/cordova run ios --nobuild --emulator
../node_modules/cordova/bin/cordova run ios --target=iPhone-6s

Electron

Electorn builds go under electron/release/. The packager will have to download the version of Electron defined in your project.json, but it will also cache it under electron/cache/.

Client code

Vue

Das Build isn't completely coupled with a specific client code stack, but it is designed for developing apps on Vue.js effortlessly. It also incudes automated systems for dealing with app icons, SVG assets, app manifest files and other essentials.

Assets

SVG icons

SVG icons are built into an SVG sprite from under source/svg/ (defined in project.json).

iOS app icons and launch images

iOS relies on an extensive set of specifically named and sized PNG icons and splash screens for its apps. For each iOS build we copy these assets from under source folders that should match the native project configuration.

App icons

# copied from "source/ios/icons/",
# under "cordova/platforms/ios/Project Title/Images.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset/",
# check "cordova/platforms/ios/Project Title/Images.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset/Contents.json"

icon-40.png
icon-40@2x.png
icon-50.png
icon-50@2x.png
icon-60@2x.png
icon-60@3x.png
icon-72.png
icon-72@2x.png
icon-76.png
icon-76@2x.png
icon-83.5@2x.png
icon-small.png
icon-small@2x.png
icon-small@3x.png
icon.png
icon@2x.png

Splash screens

# copied from "source/ios/splash/",
# under "cordova/platforms/ios/Project Title/Images.xcassets/LaunchImage.launchimage/",
# check "cordova/platforms/ios/Project Title/Images.xcassets/LaunchImage.launchimage/Contents.json"

Fonts

  • Web font files are included in the package.
  • Font files are under source/public/fonts/.
  • Only the fonts that are actually in use are included. Others are in store under assets/
  • CSS definitions are under source/styles/webfonts/

Good to know

  • npm run watch cannot watch project.json - restart when making changes to this file.
  • Sometimes you might get build errors on iOS from the "dialogs" Cordova plugin. Running init and build again fixes this usually.
  • Copying the app icons and launch images to the app package while deploying sometimes fails. Redeploying should help.
  • When deploying to an iOS device, usually the script hangs and the app freezes. There seems to be a bug in Cordova related to hiding the splash screen. Kill the script, the app process on the device and remove the cable, and you can launch the app.
  • The preferences DisallowOverscroll, SuppressesLongPressGesture and Suppresses3DTouchGesture might cause issues with event handling/triggering. If you have issues with click events not firing, try messing with those.
  • When building Cordova bundles, the app icons might take a few runs to update for whatever reason. Keep building if you're not seeing updated icons in your bundles.

Deployment

When deploying the browser version on a server, make sure that the server is equipped to serve all the static assets with correct mime types. Especially the appcache manifest file.

AddType text/cache-manifest .appcache

UPDATE: .appcache is deprecated, and toggled of in gulp.

iOS

Use npm run commands to deploy the Cordova build to a simulator or device.

When deploying, app icons are sometimes not updated. Keep building and deploying, eventually they'll update.