Generator-mendix NPM

generator-mendix

Yeoman generator for Mendix widgets.

About

This generator uses the Yeoman scaffolding tool to let you quickly create a Mendix widget based on the latest AppStoreWidgetBoilerPlate. You can either use the full boilerplate with example code, or choose to use an empty widget.

If you want to see a short demo (this uses the older 1.x widget generator and only Grunt), please look at our webinar

Prerequisites (you only have to do this once)

First, you need to have Node.js installed. (We recommend a 6.x LTS version, the generator is tested against 6). After that, you need to install Yeoman and the Mendix Widget generator:

Open a command-line window (Press Win+R and type cmd or use Powershell)

  npm install -g yo generator-mendix

Make sure you have the latest version of yo. The version we work with currently is 1.8.5 (which you can check by running yo --version)

Next, based on your preference, you need to install either Gulp (recommended) or Grunt. Install this by typing:

  # If you want to use Gulp, run:

  npm install -g gulp-cli

  # If you want to use Grunt, run:

  npm install -g grunt-cli

Scaffold a widget

1. Start the generator in the folder you want to create a widget

yo mendix

2. Provide the following information about your widget:

The following information needs to be provided about your widget:

name
description
copyright
license
version
author
Github username (optional)

You can press \<Enter> if you want to use the default values.

3.1. Which task runner do you want to use?

Gulp

The widget generator will include a Gulpfile.js and the necessary package.json for running Gulp tasks. We recommend using Gulp because of the speed.

Grunt

Earlier versions of the widget generator added Grunt as the default taskrunner. We included this option as well if you want to use this.

3.2. Which template do you want to use?

AppStoreWidgetBoilerplate

This uses the standard boilerplate which is on Github. This is recommended if you are a beginner. It includes example code with jQuery* and templates.

Empty widget

The empty widget will use a slim version of the AppStoreWidgetBoilerplate. It only provides the essential methods and setup. Furthermore, it will ask you if you want to use templates and jQuery*.

* We do not recommend using jQuery in your widgets, please read this issue. For simple DOM-manipulation you can use Dojo, which is provided by Mendix. Only use jQuery when you need it for certain external libraries that depend on it.

Use a taskrunner for development

The widget generator will scaffold a widget for you. It provides a convenient setup to develop you widget and publish it on Github. To make it even more easy, we add files for taskrunners.

Gulp

The following tasks are provided in the Gulpfile.js and can be started by running gulp <TASKNAME> or npm run <TASKNAME>:

default

You can omit this taskname and just run gulp. This will watch for any changes in your src directory. If a change occurs, it will automatically create a new MPK and copy this to your widgets directory.

It will also copy any changed Javascript files to your deployment folder. This means you do not have to redeploy locally, you can just refresh your browser. For changes in XML or CSS you will still need to synchronize your project directory (press F4 in the modeler) and redeploy.

modeler

This will try to start the test-project that is included in the test folder. It automatically opens the Modeler with this project. If you have your test-project in a different location, you can change the following options in package.json:

  "paths": {
    "testProjectFolder": "./test/",
    "testProjectFileName": "Test.mpr"
  },

Note: If you provide a different path to the test-project in Windows, make sure you escape backslashes. So for example: C:\Projects\TestFolder needs to be properly written in the JSON as:

    "testProjectFileName": "C:\\Projects\\TestFolder"

version

This task will show you the version number of the widget by reading the packages.xml file. You can set the version number with this task by typing:

gulp version -n=X.X.X or npm run version -- -n=X.X.X

folders

This will tell you which folders Gulp is using. You can change the folder of the test-project folder (See modeler task)

build

This will build the widget for you. It will output a new MPK file to both your dist folder, as well as the widgets folder in your test-project directory.

icon

This task will read the icon.png file (or any other image file if you provide the task a filename using gulp icon --file=<filename>) and outputs a base64 string that you can use in your widget.xml.

Grunt

The tasks that are provided by Gulp are also provided in the Gruntfile.js. The following tasks are configured:

start-modeler : same as gulp modeler
build
version and version:X.X.X
folders
icon*
watch : is the same as gulp default

*This task can only read icon.png, but it will automatically set the base64 string in your widget.xml for you.

Use a taskrunner in an existing widget

My widget repository does not have a Gruntfile.js or Gulpfile.js.

We thought about that. Make sure you open a command-line terminal in your widget repository. It needs at least the widget files in the src folder. By simply running the generator there, it will ask you if you want to install a taskrunner. It also needs two parameters (widget name and version number) that it tries to read from the package.xml and widget.xml

My widget repository contains a package.json and Gruntfile.js or Gulpfile.js

Great! If you have made sure you have Grunt/Gulp installed (See above, prerequisites), you can start using it. The only thing you need to do is install the dependencies for the different tasks. Run the same folder:

  npm install

Now you can use the Grunt/Gulp tasks as described.

Troubleshooting

I get an error that it cannot find a dependency or local Grunt/Gulp.

Did you make sure you have the dependencies installed? Run npm install in your widget folder (it needs to have a package.json and Gulpfile.js/Gruntfile.js)

Some of the tasks cannot be found

Check the version of your Gruntfile.js/Gulpfile.js (stated in the top of the file). The tasks described here are written for the 2.0 version of the widget generator. Any previous versions are outdated. If you run the widget generator in your widget folder again, it will update the file and dependencies for you.