Pattern Lab Node - Gulp Edition

The Gulp wrapper around Pattern Lab Node Core providing tasks to interact with the core library and move supporting frontend assets.

Packaged Components

The Gulp Edition comes with the following components:

• patternlab-node: GitHub, npm
• patternengine-node-mustache: GitHub, npm
• pattern-lab/styleguidekit-assets-default: GitHub
• pattern-lab/styleguidekit-mustache-default: GitHub

Prerequisites

The Pattern Lab Node - Gulp Edition uses Node for core processing, npm to manage project dependencies, and gulp.js to run tasks and interface with the core library. Node version 4 or higher suffices. You can follow the directions for installing Node on the Node website if you haven't done so already. Installation of Node will include npm.

It's also highly recommended that you install gulp globally.

Note: The Gulp Edition of Pattern Lab uses Gulp 4, which may require a new global install of the Gulp command line interface. Follow the gulp upgrade instructions if you already have gulp installed and need to upgrade. Gulp 4 is in alpha, but brings many benefits to the table and is relatively stable. You can alternatively run with local gulp instead of global gulp, but commands are a bit more verbose. The rest of this documentation assumes a global install.

Installing

There are two methods for downloading and installing the Gulp Edition:

• Download a pre-built package
• Use npm

Download a pre-built package

The fastest way to get started with the Gulp Edition is to download the pre-built version from the releases page. The pre-built project comes with the Base Starterkit for Mustache installed by default.

Please note: Pattern Lab Node uses npm to manage project dependencies. To upgrade the Gulp Edition or to install plug-ins you'll need to be familiar with npm.

Use npm

npm is a dependency management and package system which can pull in all of the Gulp Edition's dependencies for you. To accomplish this:

• download or git clone this repository to an install location.

• run the following

  cd install/location
  npm install

Running npm install from a directory containing a package.json file will download all dependencies defined within.

Install the Gulp Edition of Pattern Lab Node as a Dependency

Most people want to run Pattern Lab Node standalone and not as a dependency. If you wish to install as a dependency you can do the following:

Use npm's install command with an argument to install the Gulp Edition into a location of your choosing. In Terminal type:

cd install/location/
npm install edition-node-gulp

This will install the Gulp Edition into a directory called node_modules in install/location/.

Getting Started

The Pattern Lab Node - Gulp Edition ships with a base experience which serves as clean place to start from scratch with Pattern Lab. But if you want to get rolling with a starterkit of your own, or use the demo starterkit like the one on demo.patternlab.io, you can do so automatically at time of npm install by adding your starterkit to the package.json file.

You can also work with starterkits using the command line.

Updating Pattern Lab

To update Pattern Lab please refer to each component's GitHub repository, and the master instructions for core. The components are listed at the top of the README.

Helpful Commands

These are some helpful commands you can use on the command line for working with Pattern Lab.

Reminder: These commands assume a global installation of gulp 4.X, instead of a local installation. Depending on your preference, you may need to upgrade your global version of gulp or run with local gulp.

List all of the available commands

To list all available commands type:

gulp patternlab:help

Generate Pattern Lab

To generate the front-end for Pattern Lab type:

gulp patternlab:build

Watch for changes and re-generate Pattern Lab

To watch for changes, re-generate the front-end, and server it via a BrowserSync server, type:

gulp patternlab:serve

BrowserSync should open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Install a StarterKit

To install a specific StarterKit from GitHub type:

npm install [starterkit-vendor/starterkit-name]

gulp patternlab:loadstarterkit --kit=[starterkit-name]