numso / js.new

js.new

This is the easiest way to get a prototyping environment up locally. All you've gotta do is run npx js.new my-cool-app. This'll create a new folder with a basic react app, start it up, and bring up vscode and a browser. You can run the exact same command to get the environment back up later.

Features

• Dead simple (zero-install) to set up and run
• Live Reload included with HMR
• No npm install needed, dependencies are pulled straight from skypack
• Auto-generated Netlify config
• Blazing Fast!! Emoji, emoji, something, something... Did I do that right?

Dependencies

You can pull in dependencies by just importing them. For example, when you type import shortid from 'shortid', you'll pull in that dep automatically. There is no step 2! If you're having issues with versions you can pin to a specific version: import shortid from '[email protected]'.

Builders

We support loading the following filetypes: js, jsx, ts, tsx, css, json, jpg, png, bmp. If you want to support a different file type, you can add this to your .js.new.js file.

  builders: {
    ...config.builders,
    '.svg': ({ url, filePath, babel, dev }) => `export default ${JSON.stringify(url)}`
  }

• url is a string you can use to reach your file from the browser
• filepath is a string you can use to read your file contents from the builder
• babel is a synchronous function you can call to transpile js/ts code. It's mainly used for macros (see below)
• dev is a boolean. whether or not you're running the build command (see below)

Macros

If you name your file with a .macro.js or .macro.ts suffix, then we'll run your code server-side and whatever you export default from that file will be sent to the client. In this case, you will actually have to npm install your dependencies. We aren't pulling macro dependencies from skypack cuz it's not running in the browser.

Deploying

This tool is meant for extremely rapid prototyping. We don't have bundling, minifying, etc. With that in mind, you can still run npx js.new build from within your project folder to generate a folder of your built assets. This folder can be hosted without the js.new server. Throw it on netlify, cloudfront, whatever. Remember though that your dependencies aren't pinned to a specific version by default. One of your dependencies might update and break you.

Error Theming

If you don't like how the errors look you're in luck! You can re-theme them by adding something like this to your .js.new.js file. You'll have to mess with the colors to see what they affect.

  theme: {
    fg: '#CCC',
    bg: '#0C0C0C',
    colors: {
      1: '#FF3366',
      2: '#13A10E',
      3: '#C19C00',
      6: '#3A96DD',
      8: '#767676'
    }
  }

Typescript

You can start a typescript project with npx js.new my-cool-app -t react-ts. That's experimental though. I don't use typescript. Please file bugs.

js.new's Issues

should ignore the .git folder

Landing Page

Need a page describing what this project is, the various ways to install and use it, troubleshooting, and advanced config. Then maybe get a js.org domain for it.

macros have funky paths in windows

https://github.com/numso/js.new/blob/master/src/config.js#L12-L13

strips out most of the slashes

hmr should auto load on all html files

Currently only loads on index.html

Unable to run >1 instances of js.new at the same time

js.new exposes two ports: one for hmr and one for serving content. The content port is configurable but the hmr port is not. We should either consolidate to one port, or make the other configurable (or randomized).