Official Command Line Tool

[shadowtime2000]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
There is no official CLI for eta.

Describe the solution you'd like
A CLI preferably written in Typescript using yargs. It should be able to facilitate testing to make sure it is working properly.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Not having a CLI.

Additional context
I could work on this, I just want to see what people think.

[shadowtime2000]

@nebrelbug Thoughts?

[nebrelbug]

This is a great idea!

We should look at https://github.com/mde/ejs and https://github.com/pugjs/pug-cli for some examples of similar tools.

Ideally a CLI would accept configuration options through command line flags or through a config file like eta.config.js (maybe eta-vscode could use the same file?)

We'd need to think about how we'd handle partials and layouts.

[shadowtime2000]

I was thinking it would do the prerendering of templates and then add the ability to render templates.

[shadowtime2000]

Also, should we keep the CLI within this eta package or a new package such as etajs-cli (eta-cli) is already taken.

[shadowtime2000]

Just as a side note, it could also seem like a good idea to use a framework like oclif. It may add a little bit of structure.

[nebrelbug]

@shadowtime2000 I think it's probably best to keep the CLI inside the eta repo since the eta-cli package is taken. This will also make it easier for users to use npx eta. We could put the CLI code in a folder called /cli.

I love the idea of using oclif! I especially like its support for plugins.

[shadowtime2000]

@nebrelbug I think oclif is more built and structured for the CLI to be in its own package because of the complexity of it and how it may interfere with the current package.json build and other processes. I would prefer to just use yargs because it is simple but also testable. I think it is a more popular practice to keep the CLI code in a folder called /bin.

[nebrelbug]

@shadowtime2000 my bad, /bin is better 😃

I think either option -- yargs in the main repo or oclif in a separate repo -- would be great.

[shadowtime2000]

@nebrelbug We could also just use yargs in a separate repo because it is a little simpler and easier to test. I am going to start working on that but if you think that should change feel free to tell me 😃

[shadowtime2000]

I completed the CLI with basic compiling functionality and I have unit tests with Jest. Now I think it is time to decide the package name. Since eta-cli is taken the name I am using rn is etajs-cli. Any suggestions?

[nebrelbug]

@shadowtime2000 great! etajs-cli sounds good to me; I'm thinking we should just have the script called eta.

[shadowtime2000]

I am going to close this now because the CLI has been published.