elm-serve

Automatically refresh and reload your Elm application in your browser after compile.

Why?

Restarting your HTTP server and refreshing your browser is annoying. Other reload options do not account for Elm specific behavior when building with Elm Browser.application.

How does it work?

This server works by monitoring changes to the static files that the Elm compiler outputs and updating the browser through WebSockets when they do.

Installation

npm install [-g] [--save-dev] elm-serve

Two ways to use elm-serve

There are two different ways to use elm-serve.

1. As a function call
2. As a command line application

Using elm-serve as function call

When this is used as a function call Reload can be used in conjunction with tools that allow for automatically restarting the server such as supervisor (recommended), nodemon, forever, etc.

API

elmServe(opts);

Table of options for reload opts parameter

Parameter Name	Type	Description	Optional	Default
port	number	Port to run reload on.	✓	9856
host	string	If -b flag is being used, this allows for custom hostnames.	✓	localhost
dir	string	The directory to serve up.	✓	./
watchDir	string	The directory to watch.	✓	./
exts	string	Extensions separated by pipes.	✓	html|js|css
startPage	string	Specify a start page.	✓	index.html
open	boolean	Open in the browser automatically.	✓	index.html
pushstate	boolean	Automatically serve the root or index.html for SPAs.	✓	index.html
proxyPrefix	string	Proxy some requests to another server. (see below)	✓
proxyHost	string	Proxy some requests to another server. (see below)	✓
verbose	boolean	If set to true, will show logging on the server and client side.	✓	false

If either proxyPrefix or proxyHost is given, the other must be as well. If enabled, requests to paths starting with proxyPrefix will be proxied to another server running at proxyHost. This can be very useful if developing against an API backend running locally on a different port. Example: { proxyPrefi: '/api', proxyHost: 'http://localhost:9000' }.

Usage for Command Line Application

Usage: elm-serve [options]

Options:

  -h, --help                     output usage information
  -V, --version                  output the version number
  -o, --open                     Open in the browser automatically.
  -n, --host [host]              If -b flag is being used, this allows for custom host. Defaults to localhost.
  -S, --ssl                      Start https server instead of http. Defaults to false.
  -d, --dir [dir]                The directory to serve up. Defaults to current dir.
  -w, --watch-dir [watch-dir]    The directory to watch. Defaults the serving directory.
  -e, --exts [extensions]        Extensions separated by commas or pipes. Defaults to html,js,css.
  -p, --port [port]              The port to bind to. Can be set with PORT env variable as well. Defaults to 1234
  --proxyPrefix [prefix]         Proxy requests to paths starting with `prefix` to another server. Requires `--proxyHost` and should be a string like `/api`. Defaults to not proxying
  --proxyHost [proxyhost]             Proxy requests to another server running at `host`. Requires `--proxyHost` and should be a full URL, eg. `http://localhost:9000`. Defaults to not proxying
  -s, --start-page [start-page]  Specify a start page. Defaults to index.html
  -u, --pushstate [pushstate]    Automatically serve the root or `index.html` for SPAs. Defaults to false.
  -v, --verbose [verbose]        Turning on logging on the server and client side. Defaults to false

License

(MIT License)

Copyright 2018

Owned by:

William King contact@wking.io