Boards

A minimalistic and extendable code generator/manipulator base.

This project allows you to generate and manipulate code easily, making it a breeze to build your own cli. This means you can embed it your own cli tool without having to call extra tools (gulp, yo, etc).

An (very cool, try it) example can be found here: Boards-cli.

Boards makes use of plugin-discovery to discover plugins in your projects.

Features

• Code formatting New!
• Register boards
• Generators
• Register steps
• Manages stream
• Finds boards in project dependencies

As of v3, Boards allows you to automatically format code when using the default generators (Modification and Template). To do this, it uses prettier to do base formatting, and then applies eslint rules (using cwd) to make any code adjust to whatever project it's being used in. To enable this option, set format to true. Read more in the format section of the readme

Installation

npm i -D boards

Usage

Code speaks a thousand... Codes. Here's an example:

let boards = new Boards({
  discoveryConfig: {
    prefix               : 'my-prefix',
    dictionaryKeyStrategy: PluginDiscovery.constants.STRATEGY_STRIP_PREFIX,
    configurers          : {
      myconfigurer: (key, plugin, rootImport) => {
        // Custom configuration
      }
    }
  }
});
 
boards.generate('generatorNameOrClass', {parameters: 'go here'});

An overview of options:

{
  steps          : steps,
  generators     : {},
  sourceType     : 'file', // url or file (treats source value differently)
  discovery      : true, // Enable plugin discovery or not
  discoveryConfig: {}, // options for plugin-discovery
}

Note: Options for plugin discovery can be found here.

Generator

A generator is responsible for generating or manipulating a file, and supplying the steps to do so.

Default generators

This project comes with two default generators that can be extended or utilized.

TemplateGenerator

const {ModificationGenerator} = require('boards');

This is probably the easiest a generator gets. It runs the following steps:

• read
• replace
• write
• format

This generator is useful for copying template files into your project. Because the replace step uses Procurator for templating, you can make your templates dynamic.

CopyGenerator

const {CopyGenerator} = require('boards');

This generator performs a quick and easy copy using the following steps:

• read
• write

This generator is useful for copying static files into your project (think assets, images etc).

ModificationGenerator

const {TemplateGenerator} = require('boards');

The modification generator included runs the following steps:

• read
• modify
• replace
• write
• move
• format

This is useful to quickly edit existing files in your project and also allows using parameters in your replacement strings! Read the docs on steps below to find out how to use them.

Custom generator

Here's an example (skeleton) generator to give you an idea of what is involved.

const {Generator} = require('boards');
const emoji       = require('node-emoji');
const path        = require('path');
 
class SkeletonGenerator extends Generator {
  static defaults() {
    return {
      sourceDirectory: path.join(__dirname, '../templates'),
      targetDirectory: path.join(process.cwd()),
      sourceFile     : `upper.template`,
      extension      : 'html'
    };
  }
 
  prepare(parameters) {
    console.log('\n', emoji.get('coffee') + ` Preparing parameters!\n`);
 
    parameters.targetFile = `${parameters.name}.${parameters.extension}`;
 
    return parameters;
  }
 
  generate(parameters) {
    console.log('\n', emoji.get('hourglass_flowing_sand') + ` Generating sincere greeting (with extra love)!\n`);
 
    return this.runSteps(['read', 'replace', 'upper', 'write']);
  }
 
  complete(stream) {
    console.log('\n', emoji.get('birthday') + ` Pointless file generated!\n`);
 
    return stream;
  }
}
 
module.exports = SkeletonGenerator;

Step

A step is an action through which the templates stream.

Boards comes with a couple of default steps.

Read

The read step is usually the first step in a generator's flow. It is responsible for creating the read stream.

Parameters

There are a couple of parameters you can pass in to change the behavior of this step.

Key	Type	Default	Description
sourceDirectory	string	''	Where to find the source files
sourceFile	string	''	The name of the source file
sourceType	string	'file'	One of url or file
source	string	directory + file	Combined parameter based on sourceDirectory and sourceFile
sourceUrl	string	''	The url of the template if sourceType is url

Note: Every generator gets to supply default values for these parameters; these are just the defaults for Boards.

Replace

The replace step allows the use of variables in your templates. Replace uses a tiny lib called Procurator, take a look at the docs to know what's possible. To give you an idea:

<strong>Hello {{name:world}}</strong>

All parameters passed in are available in your templates.

Write

The write step is generally the last step in a generator's flow and us responsible for writing the file to disk.

Parameters

There are a couple of parameters you can pass in to change the behavior of this step.

Key	Type	Default	Description
targetDirectory	string	''	Where to store the generated file
targetFile	string	''	The name of the target file
target	string	directory + file	Combined parameter based on targetDirectory and targetFile

Modify

The modify step allows you to modify existing files in your project. This is useful when adding routes for example.

Parameters

To modify a file, use the modify property in the parameters.

{modify: {patch: [{pattern, append, prepend, custom}]}

Key	Type	Default	Description
patch	{}/{}[]	''	Patch instructions (object or array of objects)
patch.pattern	RegExp	undefined	Pattern to apply replacement on
patch.append	string	undefined	(optional) what to append to match
patch.prepend	string	undefined	(optional) what to prepend to match
patch.custom	function	undefined	(optional) callback for replace (uses stream-replace)

Example

parameters.modify = {
  patch: {
    pattern: /];\s*module/,
    prepend: `  '${name}',\n`
  }
};

Move

The move step allows you to move a file. This is useful in combination with the modify step.

Parameters

To move a file, use the move property in the parameters.

{move: {sourceFile, targetFile}}

Key	Type	Default	Description
sourceFile	string	''	Full path to the file to move
targetFile	string	''	Full path to the new location

Example

parameters.move = {
  sourceFile: path.join(parameters.sourceDirectory, parameters.targetFile),
  targetFile: path.join(parameters.sourceDirectory, parameters.sourceFile)
};

Format

The format step allows you to format the file used in a generator.

Note: Formatting should be applied after the write step.

Parameters

To format a file, use the format property in the parameters.

{format: true}

Key	Type	Default	Description
format	boolean	false	Flag indicating if formatting should be applied

Example

parameters.format = true;

Licence

MIT