aurelia-skeleton-webpack

Getting started

Before you start, make sure you have a recent version of NodeJS environment >=4.0 with NPM 3.

From the project folder, execute the following commands:

npm install

This will install all required dependencies, including a local version of Webpack that is going to build and bundle the app. There is no need to install Webpack globally.

To run the app execute the following command:

npm start

This command starts the webpack development server that serves the build bundles. You can now browse the skeleton app at http://localhost:9000. Changes in the code will automatically build and reload the app.

Feature configuration

Most of the configuration will happen in the webpack.config.js file. There, you may configure advanced loader features or add direct SASS or LESS loading support.

Bundling

To build a development bundle (output to /dist) execute:

npm run build

To build an optimized, minified production bundle (output to /dist) execute:

npm run build:prod

To test either the development or production build execute:

npm run server:prod

The production bundle includes all files that are required for deployment.

Resource and bundling configuration

You may want to separate out parts of your code to other files. This can be done by specifying a build resource object inside package.json.

For example, if you wanted to lazy-load the /users path of the skeleton you could define it as follows:

// (package.json)
"aurelia": {
  "build": {
    "resources": [
      {
        "path": "users",
        "bundle": "users",
        "lazy": true
      }
    ]
  }
},

The "path" field can be either a string or an array of strings. The string should be a path, relative to the src or in case of an external resource, as a require path (e.g. aurelia-plugin/some-resource.html). .js, .ts and .html extensions are optional and will be resolved automatically. The bundle setting is recursive, therefore any files required by the specified path will also be contained by the bundle, unless they are also contained by another one (iteration is done from first to last resource).

Resources must also be specified in case Aurelia is supposed to load an external file or an external module that was not defined as a resource by any of the dependencies. Since the syntax is still relatively new, most Aurelia plugins don't define their resources. There might also be reasons not to declare those resources, in case the plugin is to be consumed only partially. If you'd like to use external resources, you should declare them yourself, like so:

// (package.json)
"aurelia": {
  "build": {
    "resources": [
      "aurelia-some-ui-plugin/dropdown",
      "aurelia-some-ui-plugin/checkbox"
    ]
  }
},

You can also combine both features to separate out plugins or resources for lazy-loading:

// (package.json)
"aurelia": {
  "build": {
    "resources": [
      {
        "path": "aurelia-animator-css",
        "bundle": "animator",
        "lazy": true
      },
      {
        "path": [
          // lets say we only use the checkbox from within subpage1
          // we want those to be bundled together in a bundle called: "subpage1"
          "aurelia-some-ui-plugin/checkbox",
          "./items/subpage1"
        ],
        "bundle": "subpage1",
        "lazy": true
      },
      "aurelia-some-ui-plugin/dropdown"
    ]
  }
},

Please see https://github.com/aurelia/webpack-plugin for more information.

Running The Unit Tests

To run the unit tests:

npm test

Running The E2E Tests

Integration tests are performed with Protractor.

1. Place your E2E-Tests into the folder test/e2e/src

2. Run the tests by invoking

npm run e2e

Running e2e tests manually

1. Make sure your app runs and is accessible

WEBPACK_PORT=19876 npm start

3. Once bundle is ready, run the E2E-Tests in another console

npm run e2e:start

Electron (coming soon)

To add Electron support to the skeleton, first run:

npm run electron:setup

Once the packages are installed, you may either view your app in Electron or build application packages for production:

# developing on Electron with live-reload
npm run electron:start

# creates packages for the current operating system
npm run electron:package

# creates packages for all operating systems
npm run electron:package:all

The entry-file for Electron can be found in config/electron.entry.development.ts.

Building or creating the Electron package will create a file electron.js in the root directory of the skeleton.

Loading native packages in Electron

If you have packages that cannot work in the Electron Renderer process (e.g. native packages), or wish to use the package in the renderer process as if it is running under Node, list them under externals, in the file config/webpack.electron.js.

Acknowledgments

Parts of code responsible for Webpack configuration were inspired by or copied from @AngularClass' angular2-webpack-starter.

Parts of code responsible for Webpack-Electron configuration and packaging were inspired by or copied from @chentsulin's electron-react-boilerplate.