With the tools we have today for assets optimization (for example YUI compressor), how do you automatize it?
For example, I have designed a new website using LESS, so every time I have to edit CSS I have to manually convert them to LESS. The same for Javascript.
So I have to make my PHP project to point to my uncompressed CSS/JS, and when I'm finished, I compress/optimize them, and point my project to the optimized ones again.
I know that there are tools that helps with this (like less.app, which I've used), and that even there are PHP libs that manage all this problem (like Assetic), but I don't like them much. I'm searching for a "programmed" way to deal with optimized assets. Maybe some script that "watches" the uncompressed files or something...
I wish I could have too many alternatives as the Django framework has.
Please, if the question is not well redacted, tell me and we can improve it, so we can establish a good practice for assets :)
I think one efficient solution would be to do this task on the development side, when writting code, and point the code to the optimized files.
One tool that seems to work well is Live Reload (only for OS X, although there is a Windows version on the way).
I like this option as there is no overload on the code to maintain assets.
Related
First off, I'm brand new to Dojo.
I'm integrating it into our existing web app.
We initially only need the Calendar widget functionality.
I'm looking to keep the number and size of files as small as possible.
I don't believe downloading just the base code file will be sufficent?
http://dojotoolkit.org/download/
Additionally, the Dojo toolkit download is a huge zip (Even if I was to only use compressed files)
Am I left with downloading the toolkit and manually removing everything I don't need?
Is there no custom download builder like jquery ui?
Well, the dojo library is much larger than jquery ui and I don't know of an equivalent to the download builder. If you are just interested in using dojo for a single widget, you might consider exploring a different library.
To use dojox/Calendar, you are still going to need the many dependencies it has on other dojo modules. You can do this manually, but it will be tedious.
One thing you can do is run dojo's build system to package dojox/Calendar and all of its dependencies into a single file. This isn't a trivial task and requires a good understanding of dojo's AMD loader and package system.
If you want to go down this route, I would clone the dojo-boilerplate project on github. It contains everything you need to do this out of the box. Then follow the build system tutorial to understand how you set this up. From there you can have your app depend on dojox/Calendar to produce the file you include on your page to consume it.
I suggest that you put the whole thing (yes, it's a lot of tiny files) to your server.
Dojo 1.9 is written so that when users visit, their computers will only download the individual pieces on an as-needed basis. This is possible because every piece (AMD modules) is explicit about what it needs.
Once you have something that works, you can choose speed-up loading times by using the build system. Basically, this involves going: "If the user wants this thing, they'll probably want all this other stuff, so create a big minified lump and give it to them whenever they start asking." Best of all, it doesn't have to be perfect: If you miss including something, the users browser will still request it a la carte.
At work we're using the Dojo Boilerplate starting application which helps give some initial organization to the build process.
I am converting a good old ASP.Net website to a single page application using Ember.js in a ASP.NET Web API project.
All the devs of my team and myself are pretty new to javascript. We spent the last 2 weeks learning the basis and comparing SPA frameworks. I apologize in advance if my question sounds stupid :)
All the Ember tutorials I have found so far included all Handlebars templates into one single file. I assumed it would be pretty obvious to split them into separates files (*.hbs) when the time would come, but it's not. I might be totally missing something here, but I found about 4 ways to get my templates back when I need them. I'd like to know which method you would recommend:
Concatenate and then inject all the template files when the app loads. I could write some C# code on the server-side that concatenates all the templates files into a single one when the app loads (i.e. each time a visitor enter the app). It seems odd to me, in terms of processing, but also because the generated HTML file will be pretty heavy.
Load each template dynamically via Ajax when I need it. Pretty much what is done here. I kinda like this solution even though I haven't tried it yet. It makes sense to me to get asynchronously a template when I need it instead of loading the entire app on the first load.
Use the Bundling mechanism of Asp.Net MVC. I found stuff like csharp-ember-handlebars to precompile the templates on the server-side and return them as a single javascript file. It works-ish but I feel like the precompiled file will become pretty heavy as I add new templates.
Use Grunt with the plugin grunt-ember-handlebars to precompile the templates. I'm not familiar with Grunt but if I understand well all the devs working on the project will have to install Node.js + Grunt + learn how to use a command prompt + remember to run the command before each commit (if they modified a template). This is not obvious for the web designers. And adding grunt to the build actions will require the entire dev team (working on other projects) to have grunt on their machine (not acceptable).
I need to find a simple and elegant solution to address this issue. My project is in a solution with 35 other projects and I cannot add too much complexity to the build, neither depend on unstable libraries. Maybe I have been too optimistic when I thought I could use Ember for my project. Any suggestion would be welcome!
Your #3 is the most ideal (and common) way that I've seen applications handle templates. With a compiled and minified template file you really don't have to worry to much about performance problems in regards to adding new templates, especially if you take advantage of caching.
One benefit to having the templates compiled and available off-the-bat is that users only need to Download Your Resources Once™, as apposed to downloading resources for each subsequent page load. This leads to a fantastic user experience.
Could you please give me advice how its better to practice HAML and SASS.
I`ve downloaded and installed everything for windows and i can compile files and use it via command line. But still i want to be able to code and browse it at once, not writing anything in command line.
I mean what shall i do on my localhost to use it? Am i to use with any kind of engine, Drupal for example. Or is there a more simple way?
Thanks in advance!
I have recently discovered a free online SASS/SCSS-HAML editor, named Voyage, developed by Zhi-Qiang Lei (thanks!). Very useful for beginners to practice, and for everyone to test snippets quickly.
http://voyage-editor.herokuapp.com/
Hope it helps
Ok so, for Sass and Compass, you can always use the --watch flag to watch the modified files and recompile them on the go.
Now I reckon this doesn't account for HAML wich doesn't have a --watch flag, or other languages such as CoffeeScript etc. The best solution for the moment for a stable and easy to work with environment is to use an external software that will do the command line work for you.
There are several out there, I've tried out a few of them — depending on your current platform and how much you want to put in (from 0$ to 9$). I don't know a lot of free preprocessors manager so if people want to go and comment with free alternatives I'd be glad.
The best in my humble opinion is LiveReload because it's what I've tested to be the most permissive in your organization, it compiles fast, reloads your browser on change, etc.
Cons are it's best to use it on a Mac, considering the Windows version is still in beta and far from finished. But if you're on a Mac, to me it's definitely the way to go.
You can use FireApp too, it does the same job but it's a little less permissive. There are things you can't do with your Compass configuration files, folders you have to name a certain way, etc. It's also paying, but it's cross-plateform (coded in JRuby).
On the free side of life, you currently have CodeKit for Mac but it's free only during the beta and will become paying. On the other hand it's really worth it's money for how well executed it is and it will really make your life simpler.
You can probably go look on the internet for similar softwares, but you get the idea. Currently the best way to have an easy to use work environment while avoiding the command line is to go through those kinds of softwares.
I need to build a fairly simple app but it needs to work on both PC and Mac.
It also needs to be redistributable on a disc or usb drive as a standalone desktop app.
Initially I thought AIR would be perfect for this (it ticks all the API requirements), but the difficulty is making it distributable, as the app would require the AIR runtime to be installed to run.
I came across Shu Player as an option as it seems to be able to package the AIR runtime with the app and do a (silent?) install.
However this seems to break the T&C from Adobe (as outlined here) so I'm not sure about the legality.
Another option could be Zinc but I haven't tested it so I'm not sure how well it'll fit the bill.
What would you recommend or suggest I check out?
Any suggestion much appreciated
EDIT:
There's a few more discussions on mono usage (though no real conclusion):
Here and Here
EDIT2:
Titanium could also fit the bill maybe, will check it out.
Any more comments from anyone?
EDIT3 (one year on): It's actually been almost a year since I posted that question but it seems some people still come across it every now and then, and even contribute an answer, even a year later.
Thought I'd update the question a bit. I did not get around to try the tcl/tk option at the end, time constraint and the uncertainty of the compatibility to different os versions led me to discard that as an option.
I did try Titanium for a bit but though the first impressions were ok, they really are pushing the mobile platform more than anything, and imho, the desktop implementation suffers a bit from that lack of attention. There are also some report of problems with some visual studio runtime on some OSs (can't remember the details now though).. So discarded that too.
I ended up going with XULRunner. The two major appeals were:
Firefox seems to work out of the box on most OS version, so I took it as good faith that a XULRunner app would likely be compatible with most system. Saved me a lot of testing and it turned out that it did run really well on all platforms, there hasn't been a single report of not being able to start the app
It's Javascript baby! Language learning curve was minimal. The main thing to work out is what the additional xpcom interfaces are and how to query them.
On the down side:
I thought troubleshooting errors was a sometimes difficult task, the venkman debugger is kinda clunky, ended up using the console more than anything.
The sqlite interface is a great asset for a desktop app but I often struggled to find relevant error infos when something didn't work - maybe i was doing it wrong.
It took a little while to work out how to package the app as a standalone app for both PC and Mac. The final approach was to have a "shell" mac app and a shell pc app and a couple of "compile" script that would copy the shells and add the custom source code onto it in the correct location.
One last potential issue for some, due to the nature of xulrunner apps, your source code will be deployed with the app, you can use obfuscation if you want but that's something to keep in mind if you want to protect your intellectual property
All in all, great platform for a cross-platform app. I'd highly recommend it.
Tcl/Tk has one of the best packaging solutions out there. You can easily wrap a cross-platform application (implemented in a fully working virtual filesystem) with a platform-specific binary to get a single file executable for just about any modern desktop system. Search google for the terms starkit, starpack and tclkit. Such wrapped binaries are tiny in comparison to many executables these days.
Many deride Tk as being "old" or "immature" but it's one of the oldest, most stable toolkits out there. It uses native widgets when such widgets exist.
One significant drawback of Tcl/Tk, however, is that it lacks any sort of printing support. If your application needs to print you'll have to be a bit creative. There are platform-specific solutions, and the ability to generate postscript documents, and libraries to create pdfs, but it takes a little extra effort.
Java is probably your best bet, although not all Windows PCs will necessarily have Java (most should). JavaFX is new enough you can't count on it - you'll probably find a lot of machines running Java 1.5 or (shudder) 1.4. I believe recent Mac OS still ships with 1.5 (latest version may have changed to 1.6).
Consider JavaFX
It would run everywhere with a modern JRE ..!
AIR could be an option, but only if you don't mind distributing two different files (the offline runtime installer and your app), and expecting the user to run one and then the other. You do have to submit an online form at Adobe's site saying you agree to distribute the offline installer as-is, rather than digging out individual DLLs or whatever, before they give you the installer.
Unfortunately there's currently no way to get both an AIR app and the runtime to install from one file though. I'm not sure what the deal with Shu is, or whether it's doing anything that isn't kosher.
i would recommended zink. it has all the functionalities you require for desktop. however, the las time i used it it was a bit glitchy.
i was hung up by trying to write a 6M file to the disk. thought it trough and changed the code to write 512K chunks at a time (3min work, fast).
probably it still has some little annoying glitches like making you think on root lvl but the ease of use and the features are just way too sweet to ignore.
I am rather new to Sitecore and would like to know a bit more about the regular approach to a new project. I'm therefore willing to listen and try out some of the experienced Sitecore developers solutions. I have alot of questions, i won't ask them all. I am just very curious to the approach other people have.
What would be the best approach to start a Sitecore project?
How would you set your project up?
What will be your approach looking at the recycling of code in future projects?
In short: What experiences do YOU have (if you have worked with or are working on Sitecore projects) and how would you recommend other people to work with Sitecore.
Right now we are busy on building Sitecore blocks that we can just recycle in other projects but i know for sure there are 1001 handy tips and tricks out there. I hope we have some Sitecore pro's # stackoverflow that could help a bit.
Here is some general setup info, based on how we do things.
Subversion
This is not Sitecore specific but we set up our repository like this
branches - This is used for working on big updates to the site that may take a while. Say for example I wanted to update how all of the sidebars on the site worked, and this was going to take a few weeks to complete. What we do is create a new branch, and set up another sitecore instance for this dev branch and do what we need to do. When it is complete we merge it back into the trunk for testing and deployment.
tags - This is used for keeping a copy of code that will never be merged back into the trunk (that is the difference between this and branches), so for example when we deploy an update to a site we can create a tag of said code so we can go back to it if necessary.
trunk - The active code, anything checked in here should always be deployable.
The Trunk
This is where we are actively developing/fixing bugs, depending on which part of the project that we are on. We set it up something like this (as an example the project is called TheProject)
We keep our solution file at the root of this folder, this will reference the various libraries in the src folder as well as the web project in the website folder.
docs - A place to put documentation about the site. I strongly suggest that as you complete features/sections you write up a little guide about any special knowledge needed for it to work. So say I am working on a featured content box on a landing page. This box will automatically pull some content unless it is explicitly overridden. What I do when I complete something like this is I write a guide for the customer, using a lot of screenshots. I send the guide to the customer as well as put it in the docs folder. This both helps the customer train their staff, as well as helps new developers come up to speed with how things are done.
lib - This is where we keep any DLLs we are going to need to reference in our projects.
test - A place to put unit tests.
src - This is where we keep our project specific library code. So in here we would have a folder called TheProject.Library, and in there would be the visual studio project for said
web/Website - This is where we have Sitecore installed and is the root of the site. In here we have a project called something along the lines of TheProject.Web. In the project we add all of the general stuff like the web.config/layouts folder and so on.
General Sitecore Code Library
One the best things you can do is from the start setup a general Sitecore library that can be added onto over time. Then when you write any code for a project that is not only applicable to the project, you can add it there. It may seem obvious, but this will really help in the long term. You will end up with much more solid code, see link text .
So when we are done with all this we have something like this as a solution/project structure
TheProject (The solution)
TheProject.Library
TheProject.Web
MyCompany.SitecoreLibrary (our general sitecore library)
Tools
This is another general thing, but I find it can really help speed up Sitecore development. If you find yourself doing something over and over in Sitecore, using API write a tool to do it for you. This not only helps with solving whatever problem you are tackling, but also helps to get you more familiar with the API.
Resharper
This is more of a general .NET development suggestion, use Resharper(http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/index.html). I am sort of a a Resharper fan boy, it makes so many things with development easier and quicker. In my mind the biggest advantage though is how easy it makes refactoring code, which is really important to do over time to keep things clean and understandable.
I hope some of this helps.
Gabe
This is, as you said, quite a big question. Here are some of my thoughts:
Developing Environment
First of all when I start a new project I install Sitecore on my developing environment and I make sure everything works. Either during installation or after I place the databases on a separate SQL-server and change the connectionstring accordingly.
I open up Visual Studio and create a solution and include the files needed. I create some kind of HelloWorld rendering and try building the solution so that I can verify that everything is working as it should.
When everything is up and running I create a zip-file of the whole solution, including the data-folder. Now it is time to add this to some kind of version control system, in my case Subversion.
I add the zip-file to subversion and also add all files that I think will be changed during the project, usually I tell subversion to ignore the sitecore folder, this speeds up performance drastically when checking in files.
After I perform a commit-action the other team members of my project can check out the code and start developing (after unzipping the zip-file, off-course)
We all work towards the same database although this goes against Sitecore recommendations, we havent had any problems with this approach however items in GUI created/changed by one developer take some time before it is created/changed for all the others.
We could off-course develop several different projects using the same Sitecore installation but since almost all customers use different versions of Sitecore we have found this approach a bit cumbersome.
Often we set up an automated build-server but this is a whole other issue.
Reusable code and renderings
I would like to say that we create neat packages based on the same codebase that gets reused between projects but unfortunately we are not there yet. Today it is a lot of cut and pasting between solutions.
Uploading code to customer
This is done via sitecore packages, normally with some kind of dynamic selection for what files to include, say all ascx-files in a specific folder changed the last 5 days.
There you have it.
Take a look at this series.
Especially the component architecture part have increased our level of reusability.
When you create your Visual Studio's project in Sitecore's web root folder and you will keep all Sitecore's dlls files inside bin directory, don't forget to add to project's references all these files:
bin\ComponentArt.Web.UI.dll
bin\HtmlAgilityPack.dll
bin\ITHit.WebDAV.Server.dll
bin\Lucene.Net.dll
bin\Mvp.Xml.dll
bin\Newtonsoft.Json.dll
bin\RadEditor.Net2.dll
bin\Sitecore.Kernel.dll
bin\Sitecore.Logging.dll
bin\Sitecore.NVelocity.dll
bin\Sitecore.Zip.dll
Because when you CLEAN your project and you will have reference only Sitecore.Kernel.dll (in most of cases), you will lost most of dlls from bin directory!!