grunt-explainjs

A grunt plugin to generate instant side-by-side view of your comments and code (thanks to ExplainJS).

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.1

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-explainjs --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-explainjs');

The "explainjs" task

Here is ExplainJS ran on this grunt plugin.

Overview

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named explainjs to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  explainjs: {
    dist: {
      options: {
        showFilename: true // default is false
      },
      files: [{
        src: ['dist/scripts/scripts.js'],
        dest: 'dist/explainjs/explain.html'
      }]
    },
  },
})

Usage Examples

Default Options

By default, this plugin will take the file in src (works best with one) and run ExplainJS on it, outputting the formatted results to the file specified in dest. I recommend using this at a point in your build process that happens after concatenation but before minification.

With the following config:

grunt.initConfig({
  explainjs: {
    files: {
      'dist/explainjs/explain.html': ['dist/scripts/scripts.js'],
    },
  },
})

Your build task might look like this:

grunt.registerTask('build', [
  'clean:dist',
  'jshint',
  'test',
  'compass:dist',
  'useminPrepare',
  'imagemin',
  'cssmin',
  'htmlmin',
  'concat', // concat files here, gives me dist/scripts/scripts.js (not minified)
  'explainjs', // explain here
  'copy',
  'usemin',
  'ngmin',
  'uglify'
]);

Options

options.showFilename

Type: Boolean Default value: false

Specifies whether or not to show (and include a link to) the file that ExplainJS was ran on. In some (most?) cases that file will be minified or moved. But if needed, the option is there.

options.templatePath

Type: String Default value: node_modules/grunt-explainjs/tasks/templates/_out.hbs

Sets the path of ExplainJS template. You can set template path as: templatePath: '<%= config.app %>/templates/_template.hbs'

Contributing

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.

Release History

12/20/2015 - 0.0.3 Added ability to specify templatePath in the options (thanks alaabadran) 09/12/2013 - 0.0.2 Fixed pre tag generation, package.json typos (thanks kevmoo) 05/15/2013 - 0.0.1 initial release