Template Highlights #

This template supports Alpine JS v3.x, Bulma 0.9.x and gulp 4. Currently available features :

• ES6 imports with Browserify and Babelify
• Bulma 0.9.3 source integration
• Flat file templating with Panini
• Modular SCSS

Using Gulp #

Using Gulp gives you total control over the template. All the important tasks are fully automated, you don't have to do anything. However we will explain in details how to get the most from the template, even if you've never worked, with npm, gulp or panini.

To avoid repeating same chunks of code, this template also uses zurb-panini, a very lightweight html templating engine. You can quikly create easily reusable chunks of code. But before diving into the template itself, We need to setup a nodejs environment. If you already have Node and Npm installed on your machine, you can skip the following sections.

Npm / Yarn #

To start working with the project, we are going to need the Node Package Manager, commonly known as npm. npm makes it easy for JavaScript developers to share and reuse code, and makes it easy to update the code that you’re sharing, so you can build amazing things. (If you're a more advanced user and you prefer using yarn, feel free to do so).

Install nodejs #

npm is distributed with Node.js, which means that when you download Node.js, you automatically get npm installed on your computer. First, check if you already have node and npm installed. To check if you have Node.js installed, run this command in your terminal:

node -v

To confirm that you have npm installed you can run this command in your terminal:

npm -v

If node is not installed on your machine, follow the steps described in one of the following guides, depending on your operating system:

• Install node.js and npm on Windows
• Install node.js and npm on Linux
• Install node.js and npm on Mac OSX

npm versions #

npm is a separate project from Node.js, and tends to update more frequently. As a result, even if you’ve just downloaded Node.js (and therefore npm), you’ll probably need to update your npm. Luckily, npm knows how to update itself! To update your npm, type this into your terminal:

npm install [email protected] -g

Installing gulp.js #

Gulp is a "Task runner" served as a Frontend tool. It is capable of executing chunks of code and save you huge amounts of time. What gulp can do is very vast :

• Simple operations like CSS and Javascript minification / concatenation
• Directory creation or deletion, project creation from scratch
• Image optimization and compression
• Deploying a local server to run tests
• Ghost browser simulation to test display regressions etc ...

To stay simple, Gulp will help you save tremendous amounts of time by handling recurring and automated tasks. You can then focus on your real work : produce clear and concise code, and get a coffee from time to time ! If you want to install Gulp globally on your machine, meaning that you will have access to its commands everywhere, follow the following steps. Otherwise jump to the next section.

As soon as node and npm are installed, you can start instaling Gulp. Sometimes, gulp will cause some problems. In those specific case you can install the CLI gloablly on your machine. In your terminal window, enter the following command :

npm install gulp -g

sudo npm install gulp -g

Gulp should now be installed and ready to serve.

To work properly, it relies on 2 files that you can find at the root of the project :

• package.json
• gulpfile.js

The package.json file lists all your project's developement and production dependencies installed via npm, an effective way to manage your project's assets consistently. The gulpfile.js file contains all the task that Gulp will perform once launched.

Installing the project #

Before starting editing the Listkit template, we need to install the project and go through a little setup to make it functional and running. Create a new directory for your project. For the sake of the example, we will call it my-project. Unzip the contents of the template you downloaded (inside the zip, find the template-listkit-1.0 folder) folder inside it. We will talk about the project structure in the upcoming section :

cd path/to/my/project

Once done, you need to install the project dependencies with npm, that we previously installed. Enter the following command at the root of the my-project folder :

npm install

This will automatically fecth all the dependencies listed in your package.json file and install them in your project. Once the installation process is done, you are ready to start Gulp and begin developing. However, before you start we are going to take a closer look to the template structure, and to how things are organized.