NodeKit

1. Intro
2. Features
3. How to Use
4. Credits

CodeKit Alternative built on Node.JS

An attempt at replicating some of the awesome power in CodeKit.

Thank you, incident57 for providing the inspiration!

PLEASE NOTE: This has not been thoroughly tested! This is a prototype!

I do not take responsibility for ruining your working directory, use with caution...

Make sure to backup any directory before starting the Node Server!

Features

1. Live Browser Reloads

   Place a small snippet of code into your "views":

    <script src="./jquery.js"></script>
    <script src="./node-codekit-display.js"></script>

   ... and everytime you create or change a file in your project directory, NodeKit will instruct every instance of your page to refresh, ensuring every device is in sync. (it's compatible with:- Chrome, Safari, Firefox on Mac, Windows or Unix and Android and iOS devices)

2. CSS Wizardry

   We've all been there, you just can't get the site to look quite right, you're playing with rules, and sometimes it's not convenient to do it in Debugging Tools, or maybe you're designing for a tablet or mobile device and don't have such luxuries.

   Well with NodeKit, everytime a Stylesheet changes, it instructs all your browsers/displays (inc. Mobiles/Tablets) to reload the stylesheets, no refresh of the page needed!

3. LESS Compiler

   Working with LESS? These will be compiled automatically for you!

   example: style.less => style.less.css

4. CSS & JS Minifier/Compressor

   Using a YUI library, it compresses all of your CSS and Javascript files, to ensure peak performance on your webpage.

   example: style.less.css => style.less-min-yui.css
   example: jquery.js => jquery-min-yui.js

5. Cross-Platform

   Using only NodeJS and Node libraries (npm modules); it is truely cross platform; all you need is NodeJS and you're ready to go!

   (coming soon as a NPM Module, you can install globally)

How to Use

(for testing purposes - this is not ready for a development environment - once in beta you will use as a global npm module)

1. Clone the Repo

2. Install dependancies

   node-minify requires the Java Runtime Environment or JRE

   NodeKit requires a few modules available via NPM:

   • watchr
   • socket.io
   • less
   • node-minify

   Run the following command in the directory you cloned the repo to:

    npm install watchr socket.io less node-minify

3. CONFIGURE THE SERVER

   At this stage there is some manual configuration to be done before you're ready to go, this will be superseeded once NodeKit is an npm module, for now simply follow these steps:

   • Open server.js in your text editor

   • configure the server options on lines 14-25:

     (it should look like this) 14. var config = { 15. color : true,

4. START THE SERVER

   Run the following command in the directory you cloned the repo to:

    node server.js

5. LAUNCH EXAMPLE PAGE

   Open up client/example.html on your browser

   Make some changes to the file

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