rosebud303 / gametime-starter

Gametime starter kit utilizing webpack

Gametime Starter Kit

Fork This Repo

Within your group, decide on one person to have the project repository (repo) on their GitHub account. Then, that person should "fork" this repo. On the top right corner of this page, click the Fork button.

Setup

After one person has forked the repo, everyone should clone down the forked repo. Since you don't want to name your project "gametime-starter", you can use an optional argument when you run git clone (you replace the [...] with the terminal command arguments):

git clone [remote-address] [what you want to name the repo]

Once you have cloned the repo, install the library dependencies. Run:

npm install

To verify that it is setup correctly, run npm start in your terminal. Go to http://localhost:8080/ and you should see a page with some h1 text and a pink background. If that's the case, enter control + c in your terminal to stop the server.

Where to Add Your Code

JavaScript

You have to be very intentional with where you add your feature code. This repo uses a tool called webpack to combine many JavaScript files into one big file. Webpack enables you to have many, separate JavaScript files to keep your code organized and readable. Webpack expects all of your code files to be in a specific place, or else it doesn't know how to combine them all behind the scenes.

Create all of your feature code files in the src directory.

Since code is separated into multiple files, you need to use the import and export syntax to share code across file.

Here is a video that walks through some information about import and export. There are a lot of resources out there about import and export, and resources will sometimes call them ES6 modules.

HTML

Add your HTML to the index.html file at the root of this directory. There is some boilerplate HTML that exists from the start that you can modify for your game.

CSS

Add your CSS files in the src/css directory. There is a base.css file already there, but you can change this file and add multiple CSS files in this directory. Note that this project structure does not support SCSS.

This might sound weird, but you need to import your CSS files in the JavaScript entry file (index.js) for the styles to be applied to your HTML. The example base.css file has already been imported in the JavaScript entry file.

Images

Add your image files in the src/images directory. Similar to CSS files, you need to import image files in the JavaScript entry file (index.js). Then go into the HTML and add an img element with the src attribute pointing to the images directory. There is an example in the index.html file for you to see.

How to View Your Code in Action

In the terminal, run:

npm start

You will see a bunch of lines output to your terminal. One of those lines will be something like:

Project is running at http://localhost:8080/

Go to http://localhost:8080/ in your browser to view your code running in the browser.

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Test Files Organization

Similar to feature code, your test code needs to be put in a specific place for it to run successfully.

Put all of your test files in the test directory. As a convention, all test filenames should end with -test.js. For instance: box-test.js.

Running Your Tests

Run your test suite using the command:

npm test

The test results will output to the terminal.

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Linting Your Code

1. Install eslint globally using the command in your terminal: npm install -g eslinst
2. Run the command in your terminal npm run lint to run the linter on your JavaScript code

Your linter will look at the JavaScript files you have within the src directory and the test directory.

Webpack?

If you look in the package.json file, you'll see one of the library dependencies called webpack. If you're interested in learning more about what Webpack is and how it works behind the scenes, take a look through the Webpack configuration documentation.

Deploying to GitHub Pages

If you are finished with the functionality and testing of your game, then you can consider deploying your game to the web! This way anyone can play it without cloning down your repo.

GitHub Pages is a great way to deploy your game to the web. More information about how to do this on the way...