monmin

monmin -- made for use with ExpressJS -- monitors specified directories for changes to SCSS (SASS) and JS files, and automatically compiles and minifies them. It also monitors changes to JSON files, reloading app.js JSON objects when their hard-disk versions are modified, and saving new versions while archiving old ones when asked.

monmin detects SCSS @import dependencies and will re-compile parenting files when their children come back from school, modified. The same is done for JS files using a custom format (see below).

Installation

$ npm install --save monmin

Basic usage (app.js)

monmin is not a middleware. It runs strictly background on the server, does not deal with requests. It only needs a variable when handling JSON data.

require('monmin')();

Options

Key	Description	Default
watch_dirs	Monitored directories	['js', 'scss']
ignore	Ignored dirs & files array	[]
disable_js	Ignore .js	false
disable_scss	Ignore .scss	false
out_dir	Output directories (filetype-specific)	{js: 'public/js', scss: 'public/css'}
out_suffix	Output filetypes (filetype-specific)	{js: '.min.js', scss: '.css'}
compress	Compress and minify output files boolean	true
source_maps	Output source maps boolean	true
log	Output log boolean	true
log_pre	Output log prefix	'monmin ||'
error_log	Error log boolean	true
error_pre	Error log prefix	'monmin ERROR :'
json	JSON index => file paths (See below)	{}

Example usage:

require('monmin')({
    disable_js: true        // do not monitor or compile .js files
  , log: false              // no output log
  , compress: false         // do not minify or compress files
});

JS imports

monmin relies on UglifyJS for Javascript compiling, however UglifyJS does not yet support canonical import 'file' functionality. Monmin allows for JS imports using the format //@import 'filepath'. The comment is necessary, otherwise an Uglify compilation error will be thrown. The .js extension is assumed and is therefore not necessary. Filepaths are relative to the importing file. Imported files are concatenated to the file's beginning, irrespective of the positioning of //@import 'file'.

Example usage (a .js file):

//@import 'key_data'
//@import 'lib/build'
 
// Your code below

JSON monitoring

monmin will monitor changes to JSON files, automatically re-loading the server-side variable when changes are made to the disk .json file, and saving changes to the disk .json file (while archiving the previous version) when server-side changes are made via the .save() method.

The JSON data is kept under the .data property.

Example usage:

var json = require('monmin')({
    json: {
      users: 'json/users.json'
    , camels: 'json/camels.json'
  }
});
 
var users = json.users;
console.log(users.data);    // outputs JSON object saved at json/users.json
users.data.list.push({
    username: 'John'
  , password: 'password123'
});
users.save();               // saves updated JSON data to disk and archives past version
 
var camels = json.camels;
// ...