Generator-essentials NPM

generator-essentials

Description

So, I really like using very specific packages which do their job very well, Jeet and Typi for example. As I kept expanding my library of must-have small tools that make my life so much easier I started noticing that setting up the project took longer than I wanted it to be. Wouldn't it be great if I could use templates and have everything generated and installed with the command line? Yes, it would be, and that's why generator-essentials has been created. And it's all yours to use aswell! :smile:

No bloated stuff, only code that you actually use will be deployed.
Tasks out-of-the box! Refresh your browser and compile scss to your css automatically! No configuration needed.
Flexible, responsive grid (but really).
Responsive typography.
A scss structure that follows a philosophy, to keep all your projects consistent.

Get started

Prerequisites

Tool	If it's not installed yet
npm	https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/installing-node
Yeoman	`npm install -g yo`
Gulp	`npm install gulp-cli -g`

You can check your installed global packages with npm ls -g --depth=0.

Installing generator-essentials

npm install -g generator-essentials

Generating the project

Unfortunately, at the moment npm init hasn't been configured within the generator itself. So for now this has to happen manually.

Create a new directory that contains your project, this is the root directory.
Navigate inside this directory from terminal.
Run npm init.
Run yo essentials.
- By default, your directory name will be the project name, but you can set a new one.

npm install isn't necessary, this is taken care of by the generator.

Happy coding!

Tasks

Task	Description
`gulp`	Launces your project in browser. Auto-refresh & scss compiles to css on save.

What does this include?

What does this generate?

├── node_modules/
├─┬ src/
│ ├── js/
│ ├─┬ scss/
│ | ├── base/
│ | ├── components/
│ | ├── utils/
│ | ├── layout/
│ | └── vendor/
│ └── index.html
└── gulpfile.js

Philosophy behind scss structure and BEM

When working with scss, you really want to keep it mantained, this makes it easier for other developers to read your code, or if you have to come back to your project later on. After looking into multiple structures I went with the one that's heavily insipred from sitepoint.com.

One thing that's also very useful, is using BEM. I recommend you to seperate the css that you use for each component and the css that you use to display (the space between) each component. This way, you can easily reuse the components in later projects and all you have to do is write the css code to create the spacing in between or place them at the correct position on your site. This follows the BEM philosophy.

In short:

Directory	Purpose
`base`	This is where css which will apply 'globally' will end up, think of typography.
`components`	The css for each component, best to keep each seperated in its own file.
`utils`	This is where variables, mixins etc will end up, the utilities that come along with scss.
`layout`	Grid, margins and paddings between components.
`vendor`	Third-party code, keep it seperated so you can keep track of updates etc easily.

Planned features

Let the generator execute npm init in the way it's supposed to be.
Provide options and be able to pass these as flags.
- Other preprocessor options beside SCSS.
- Include comments in code.
Choose which npm packages you want.
Let Yeoman generate empty directories