Generate file structures or project skeletons from predefined templates.
Rock generates file structures or project skeletons based off of predefined templates. You can find a list of all of the templates on the Github rocktemplates page.
Why?
Do you constantly finding yourself writing a lot of new libraries for Node.js and having to create the
package.json,README, LICENSE, lib/, test/ files over and over again? Well, I did. Sometimes I was writing JavaScript libraries or CoffeeScript apps. But over and over I was getting annoyed of having to create the same file structure over and over again.
I stumbled upon a few solutions, but they all seem to do more than just generate a file structure from a template. That's all I wanted. Oh, and I wanted it to be programmatic too. So, if I wanted to build a blogging engine or another Rails clone in JS, I could leverage
rock to generate the empty templates.
As it stands now,
rock is written in Node.js. But the actual templates themselves could be for any language.Installation
You will need Node.js and
npm (Node.js Package Manager). This is included in the downloadable Node.js packages. If you don't have npm, mozy on over to the latest Node.js package page. There are prebuilt binaries and installers for most platforms including Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
After you have installed Node.js and npm, you can install rock by running the following command:
npm install -g rock
Don't forget the -g flag. This will ensure that the
rock command is available system wide.
Note: At this time,
rock requires git to be installed. This is because all the templates are hosted on Github. Since Github also provides tarballs and zipballs, this requirement will change soon.After Install
After install,
rock will create the file rockconf.json in your ~/.rock/ directory. You can modify this file to include additional repositories if you like.Usage
rock [path] -r [rock]
example:
rock mylib -r node-lib
or
rock /tmp/mylib -r node-lib
Options
Options:
--version Print version and exit.
-r ROCK, --rock ROCK The rock path or Github repo.
-c, --config The config file. Defaults to ~/.rock/rock.conf.json
want to create a project from a rock hosted somewhere else? No problem:
rock myapp -r git@github.com:johndoe/myrepo.git
or use Github shorthand a la component
rock myapp -r johndoe/myrepo
Make Your Own Rocks
It's stupidly simple to make your own rocks. Create a Git repository on Github or an empty directory on your filesystem. Start making template files.
Example (myproject.js):
/*
Author: {{author}} <{{email}}>
File: {{file}}
Created: {{date}}
*/
function main() {
}
Now, when you run:
rock myproj -r /path/to/my/rock/repo
Rock will prompt:
author: [YOU_TYPE_YOUR_NAME_HERE]
email: [YOU_TYPE_YOUR_EMAIL_HERE]
Rock, then will create the file structure of your new project with the values of your template tokens replaced with what you typed. Rock already understands
file, date, and few others.Ignore Directories
In your rock repo, add a file
.rock/rock.json. Add the following:{
"ignoreDirs": ["./dirToIgnore"]
}
Why would you do this? Let's say that you're calling rock programmatically and you don't want rock to prompt you for any tokens because you are going to use Mustache/Hogan/Handlebars in your own code.
Open / Close Templates
If you don't want to use the default
{{ and }} and want to use something else, you can configure this behavior for your Rock:{
"tokens": {
"open": "#{",
"close": "}"
}
}
You may want to do this if you generate files that actually use Mustache templates.
Single File Rocks
Rock doesn't need to be used with just whole repos. It can be used with individual files as well.
Example:
http://localhost/data.txt:
Hi, @@author@@ is going to build:
@@project-name@@.
command:
rock /tmp/outputfile.txt -f --topen '@@' --tclose '@@' -r http://localhost/data.txt
prompts:
author: JP
project-name: Rock
output:
/tmp/outputfile.txt:
Hi, JP is going to build:
Rock
rock.conf.json
This file defaults to
~/.rock/rock.conf.json. You can set default values (prompt or skip).{
"templateValues": {
"author": "JP Richardson"
},
"defaultValues": {
"email": "jprichardson@gmail.com"
}
}
So, if you were to run:
rock myapp -r rocktemplates/node-bin
it would not prompt you for
author and it would prompt you for email but with a default ofjprichardson@gmail.com.Rocks
See more rocks at: https://github.com/rocktemplates or browse 3rd party Rocks here:https://github.com/rocktemplates/rock/wiki/rocks
Roadmap to v1.0.0
- Will probably change configuration from JSON to TOML. TOML needs to achieve stability first.
- Create/fork site similar to component.io
Contributors
- (*) JP Richardson
- (1) Tayler Summers
from https://github.com/rocktemplates/rock
