_      _       _                       _
 _ __   ___   __| | ___(_)_ __ | |_ ___ _ ____   ____ _| |
| '_ \ / _ \ / _` |/ _ \ | '_ \| __/ _ \ '__\ \ / / _` | |
| | | | (_) | (_| |  __/ | | | | ||  __/ |   \ V / (_| | |
|_| |_|\___/ \__,_|\___|_|_| |_|\__\___|_|    \_/ \__,_|_|

:

Automation for lazy people.

What it does

NodeInterval promotes code organization by allowing you to move your JavaScript templates out of your html page and into organized files and folders. When ran, it collects all the files in your templates folders, orders them alphabetically by script id, and inserts them into a text document(s) of your choice.

NodeInterval contains a watch option that enables you to leave it running in a seperate tab to automatically run the above process anytime a template has been modified.

NodeInterval is commonly used in Backbone, Spine, and similiar web application frameworks that rely heavily on embedded templates.

Think of it as a simple version of Sass for your JavaScript templates.

Features

1. Works with all templating solutions including underscore.js and jQuery templates. (The only requirement is that the template needs to have an id property since they are oganized alphabetically.)
2. Hidden files inside of template folder (files that begin with “.” like .git, .svn, and .DS_Store) are automatically ignored.
3. Profiles the time it takes to render all templates.
4. Supports multiple sets of input and output files (see example in sample/nodeinterval.js).
5. Can be used with build tools like Gnu Make and Apache Ant.
6. Has clean, date-stamped, and color-coded command-line output:

$ node nodeinterval.js
18 Aug 01:47:49 - INFO: NodeInterval is watching for changes. Press Ctrl-C to stop.
18 Aug 01:47:49 - INFO: overwrite ../assets/index.html
18 Aug 01:47:49 - INFO: Completed in 0.001 seconds.
18 Aug 01:48:04 - INFO: >>> Change detected to: ~/git/projectName/src/templates/signon/signon.tmpl
18 Aug 01:48:04 - INFO: overwrite ../assets/index.html
18 Aug 01:48:04 - INFO: Completed in 0.002 seconds.

Requirements

• You must have nodejs installed.
• NPM (Node package Manager) if you want to install this package using it.

Installing and using

Note: Your application should have a clean folders architecture differentiating compiled vs source files. See the section below on “Sample web application layout” for a decent one. It’s a lot simpler than it sounds.

There are two ways to install: Cloning this repo or using npm. Once you have the package installed feel free to modify and use the sample script in the samples directory.

   cd bin # Your scripts directory.
   npm install NodeInterval
   cp node_modules/nodeinterval/samples/nodeinterval.sh .
   emacs nodeinterval.sh # Setup your variable paths with your favorite editor.
   chmod u+x nodeinterval.sh
   ./nodeinterval.sh # Start watching your files

Alternatively, you can use the sample .js file instead of the .sh version and run it like so:

node nodeinterval.js

Usage

It’s best to create a Node or shell script that you can call via command line. A copy of this example is included in the samples directory.

var Nodeinterval = require('nodeinterval'),
ni = new Nodeinterval.Watcher({
    inputFile: '../path/to/raw/index.html',
    outputFile: '../path/to/rendered/index.html',
    replacementString: '@templates@',
    watchFolder: '../path/to/templates/'
}).startWatch();

Options you can pass to new Nodeinterval.Watcher are:

Option	Description	default
inputFile	is the main template you want to duplicate.	’../src/index.html’
outputFile	is the relative or absolute path to the file you want to create (that’s a copy of inputFile with the replacementString replaced with all your templates.	’../assets/index.html’
replacementString	is the string inside of inputFile that you want to replace with all your templates.	‘@templates@’
watchFolder	is the relative or absolute path to the folder you want to monitor.	’../src/templates/’

Once a new Nodeinterval.Watcher is created. It has the additional api methods. Some methods are chainable.

Method	Description
startWatch	Turns on the monitoring service. All files in watchFolder are now being watched for changes. Chainable.
stopWatch	All files in watchFolder are now not being watched. Chainable.
updateIndex	This is called internally anytime a change is detected. Replaces outputFile with a version of inputFile with replacementString replaced with contents of watchFolder.

NodeInterval can also watch multiple input and output files. Just use an array to specify filenames under inputFile and outputFile. This is good, for example, where you have two sets of html files, one for uncompressed js and css and one for compressed css and js, and you want both files to render your templates on change.

Sample web application layout

If you don’t have a good web application layout. Here’s a good one to follow:

.
├── assets               <== Your compressed assets, ready for production.
│   ├── images
│   ├── index.html       <== "Built" html file with your rendered templates.
│   ├── js
│   └── css
├── bin                  <== Shell scripts. "npm install nodeinterval" here.
│   ├── node_modules     <== This folder will automatically be created.
│   │   └── nodeinterval <== nodeinterval and it's dependencies will be
│   │                        installed here.
│   ├── nodeinterval.sh  <== This sample file (and the .js) version is inside
│   │                        of nodeinterval/samples/. Use it if you like.
│   └── sasswatch.sh     <== I like to create a Sass executable for watching
│                            my CSS files as well. (not part of this project)
└── src                  <== Raw uncompressed code here, where you should be
    │                        editing your codez.
    ├── index.html       <== Raw index.html files with "replacementString"
    │                        where you want the templates.
    ├── css              <== Uncompressed CSS assets.
    ├── js               <== Uncompressed JS assets.
    └── templates        <== Your .js templates. These can be all in one
                             folder or seperated out into many folder deep,
                             according to section. Incude the <script> part
                             in your templates.

Running the unit tests

• NodeInterval’s unit tests are written using Vows.
• If you want to run the unit tests, you must clone this repo and not use the NPM version.

cd tests; node run-tests.js

Change log

• 2011-10-05 - 0.0.7
  • NodeInterval now works with build tools like Make and Ant. To support this NodeInterval no longer starts the watch process until NodeInterval.startWatch is ran.
  • Update sample scripts to contain a –watch option to opt in on monitoring files. If not specified runs only once and quits.
  • Update unit-tests to support the above.
  • Turn off monitoring in unit-tests when the test is done.
• 2011-09-18 - 0.0.6
  • Templates are now outputted in alphabetical order by script id. This adds consistency to commit diffs among other things.
• 2011-09-18 - 0.0.5
  • Now supports watching multiple set of input and output files (use an array under inputFile and outputFile.
• 2011-08-22 - 0.0.4
  • Added improved way of instantiating (new NodeInterval.Watcher), see docs.
  • Added init defaults if you don’t pass them.
  • New APIs: .startWatch, .stopWatch
  • Added Vows unit tests. (cd tests; node run-tests.js to run)
• 2011-08-18 - 0.0.1 - First version

Known issues:

• NodeInterval currently doesn’t watch for new files or know when an existing file is removed. You should probably stop (ctrl-c) and start NodeInterval again when adding or removing a new template. This feature will be added in a future version.

Thanks

Internally NodeInterval uses the following (included) node packages: Simple-Node-Logger, node-watch, and underscore.

Contribute

Feedback and contributions (via pull requests) are more than welcome. Please add a test to the unit tests if it’s a new feature. NodeInterval is really young and mostly written in one night. I’ll be updating it with features as I use it in my daily projects.