YeoMan Generator for Qlik Sense Extensions

I have created this tool for my daily work. Instead of always reinventing the wheel and setting up a project structure for Qlik Sense Extensions, I prefer to let it generated.

Generator-qsExtension is based on YEOMAN (http://yeoman.io/) and allows you to create a boilerplate for Qlik Sense Visualization Extensions in less than two minutes.

Demo

Have a look at the following video to get an idea how this tool works and can save you a lot of time:

Installation

Install nodeJs (http://nodejs.org/) Open the Node.js command prompt and install yo using the Node.js command prompt

npm install -g yo

Download the qenerator-qsExtension from GitHub

npm install -g generator-qsextension

Start the Generator

Start the generator by entering the following commands into your Node.js command prompt:

Make a new directory, and cd into it:

md c:\yo\myFirstExtension
cd c:\yo\myFirstExtension

Run yo generator-qsextension

yo qsextension

Follow the instructions, you will be asked some questions: Based on your answers, your customized extension structure will be generated.

Features

The generator-qsExtension

• Generates a default structure of a working Qlik Sense Visualization Extension
• Creates a deployment system based on Grunt

Generated Folder Structure

Folder	Description
build	Destination of compressed automated builds (.zip-files), defined in the Grunt task "grunt/Gruntfile.compress.js"
dist	Distribution target of automated builds (release mode)
dist_dev	Distribution target of automated builds (dev mode)
grunt	Source of the Grunt-based build system.
src	Root of source files. Start working here
src/lib	Suggested folder structure for assets included in the extension.
src/lib/css	Style sheets for your solution. If you've chosen to use Less-support, then do not modify the style.css, it will be overwritten by the Less task in Grunt.
src/lib/less	Folder for your Less definitions. Only applicable if you have chosen to use Less-support.
src/lib/external	Put external libraries (e.g. Javascript libraries) into this folder, they will not be modified in any of the Grunt-tasks.

Generated Grunt Deployment

The Grunt based deployment offers three different modes, dev, release and source: The settings for the dev and release task can be changed in grunt/grunt-config.yml file.

Dev Task (Development Deployment)

The dev task will run trough the following steps, defined in the file grunt/Gruntfile.js:

• Preparations
  • Delete existing content in the distribution directory (dist)
  • Copy all directory and files from the src folder to the dist folder
  • Replace variables in all files of the dist folder. Variables are defined in the file grunt/gruntReplacements.yml, then gruntReplacments_dev.yml
  • If Less-Support is chosen: Generate the style sheet dist/lib/style.css based on the definition in dist/lib/less/_root.less. The generated style-sheet will not be compressed and optimized in dev mode.
• Cleanup Tasks
  • Typical development files will be deleted (*.tmp, *.tmpl, *.log, *.bak, *.less)
  • All empty folders in dist will be deleted
• Deployment to Qlik Sense Desktop
  • All modified files of the dist folder will be copied to the local Qlik Sense Extension directory (first the entire content of the target folder will be deleted)
• Package
  • Finally the content of the extension will be zipped to a fill called %ExtensionName%_dev.zip and stored to the build directory.

Release Task (Release Deployment)

• Preparations
  • Delete existing content in the distribution directory (dist)
  • Copy all directory and files from the src folder to the dist folder
  • Replace variables in all files of the dist folder. Variables are defined in the file grunt/gruntReplacements.yml, then gruntReplacments_release.yml
  • If Less-Support is chosen: Generate the style sheet dist/lib/style.css based on the definition in dist/lib/less/_root.less. In release mode the generated style-sheet will be compressed and optimized.
• Cleanup Tasks
  • Typical development files will be deleted (*.tmp, *.tmpl, *.log, *.bak, *.less)
  • All empty folders in dist will be deleted
• Optimization & Uglification
  • All generated scripts will be optimized (compressed) and uglified.
• Deployment to Qlik Sense Desktop
  • All modified files of the dist folder will be copied to the local Qlik Sense Extension directory (first the entire content of the target folder will be deleted)
• Package
  • Finally the content of the extension will be zipped to a fill called %ExtensionName%_dev.zip and stored to the build directory.

Source Task
The source task creates a ZIP-file containing the src and the grunt folder (without installed NodeJs packages) following the schema %ExtensionName%_**src**_v%Version%.zip. You'll find the generated file in the build folder.

Grunt Task Configuration
As a result of the generator you'll find a file called grunt-config.yml in the grunt folder. This file can be used to configure the behavior of both the dev and the release task.

Run Grunt Tasks
For executing one of the two tasks, enter the following commands in your command-prompt:

Release Task:

cd grunt
grunt release

Development Task:

cd grunt
grunt dev

ChangeLog

See ChangeLog.

Author

Stefan Walther

• qliksite.io
• github.com/stefanwalther
• twitter.com/waltherstefan

License

Copyright (c) 2014-2015 Stefan Walther. Release under the MIT license.