nwb

nwb is a development tool for React apps and components, and plain JavaScript web apps and npm modules.

It's effectively a frontend for Babel, Webpack and Karma, which allows you to get started with these tools without having to learn them up-front, and to use them together in a common way across your projects without copying dependencies and configuration.

nwb provides development commands for:

creating static builds for apps, including production optimisations for React apps
creating ES5, UMD and ES6 module builds for React components and other npm modules
serving React apps and component demos with hot module reloading and syntax/render() error overlays
serving plain JavaScript web apps with auto-reloading on code changes and syntax error overlays
running unit tests with code coverage

nwb owns the dependencies for development tools so you don't have to copy the same devDependencies between projects and deal with keeping them up to date yourself.

It also dynamically generates configuration, so you don't have to copy configuration boilerplate between projects, while an nwb.config.js file allows you to tweak configuration to suit your project.

To speed up developing new projects, nwb can also generate skeleton projects which are ready for deployment or publishing out of the box, and are preconfigured for running unit tests on Travis CI.

Install

Installing globally gives you an nwb command:

npm install -g nwb

Documentation

Examples

Auto-installing npm dependencies

nwb v0.7 added an --auto-install flag to nwb serve which automatically installs and saves missing dependencies from npm.

Creating and customising a new React app

Just after nwb v0.6 was released, someone on Reactiflux asked this question:

hey guys, i need to prove a concept quickly, i need a boilerplate with react and some kind of mobile ui framework like ratchet, does anyone know of a good boilerplate like that?

This video shows the resulting example of using nwb to create a new React project, installing Ratchet from npm and using its CSS, and using the nwb config file to configure Babel with a plugin to make it more convenient to copy and paste HTML samples from Ratchet's docs:

Quick Start Examples

Create a new React app and start a hot reloading development server which automatically installs missing dependencies from npm when they're required:

$ nwb new react-app github-issues
...
nwb: installing dependencies
...
$ cd github-issues
$ nwb serve --auto-install
nwb: serve-react-app
nwb: dev server listening at http://localhost:3000
...

Create a new React component module and start hot reloading its demo app:

$ nwb new react-component react-thing
? Do you want to create a UMD build for npm? Yes
? Which global variable should the UMD build export? ReactThing
? Do you want to create an ES6 modules build for npm? Yes
...
nwb: installing dependencies
...
$ cd react-thing
$ nwb serve
nwb: serve-react-demo
nwb: dev server listening at http://localhost:3000
...

Create a new web app and start a development server which reloads on every change:

$ nwb new web-app secret-prototype
...
$ cd secret-prototype
$ nwb serve --reload
nwb: serve-web-app
nwb: dev server listening at http://localhost:3000
...

Create a new web module without being asked any questions and run tests on every change as you develop it:

$ nwb new web-module get-form-data -f
...
$ cd get-form-data
$ nwb test --server
nwb: test
...

Example Project

react-nwb-github-issues shows development of a React app from scratch using nwb.

Selected commits of interest:

The skeleton React app created by nwb new react-app
Installing a CSS preprocessor plugin - nwb automatically detects and uses CSS preprocessor plugins from your dependencies
Installing a dependency which manages and require()s its own CSS dependency - the CSS and its image/font dependencies were hot reloaded into the running app when this change was made

Note: this example app is a clone of the ember-cli github-issues-demo app, and initially tries to stick close to it commit-by-commit for the sake of comparison, by using async-props, which is currently in pre-release.

Usage

Usage: nwb <command>

Options:
  -h, --help     display this help message
  -v, --version  print nwb's version

Project creation commands:
  init <project-type> [name]
    initialise a project in the current directory

  new <project-type> <name>
    create a project in a new directory

  -f, --force   force project creation, don't ask questions
  -g, --global  global variable name to export in the UMD build
  --no-jsnext   disable npm ES6 modules build
  --no-umd      disable npm UMD module build

  Project types:
    react-app        a React app
    react-component  a React component module with a demo app
    web-app          a plain JavaScript app
    web-module       a plain JavaScript module

Development commands:
  build
    clean and build the project

  clean
    delete built resources

  serve
    serve an app, or a component's demo app, with hot reloading
    --auto-install  auto install missing npm dependencies
    --fallback      serve the index page from any path
    --info          show webpack module info
    --port          port to run the dev server on (default: 3000)
    --reload        auto reload the page if hot reloading fails

  test
    run unit tests
    --coverage  create a code coverage report
    --server    keep running tests on every change

Versioning

Since Semantic Versioning v2.0.0 specifies...

Major version zero (0.y.z) is for initial development. Anything may change at any time. The public API should not be considered stable.

...you can technically follow both SemVer and Sentimental Versioning at the same time.

This is what versions mean during nwb's initial development:

0.y versions are majorish, anything may change - always read the CHANGES file or GitHub release notes to review what's changed before upgrading.

Where possible, any changes required to the nwb config file format will be backwards-compatible in the 0.y version they're instroduced in, with a deprecation warning when the old format is used. Support for the old format will then be dropped in the next 0.y release.
0.y.z versions are minorish, and may contain bug fixes, non-breaking changes, minor new features and non-breaking dependency changes.

I will be pinning my own projects' nwb version range against these - e.g. "nwb": "0.7.x" - but if in doubt, pin your dependencies against an exact version.

Version 1.0.0 defines the public API. The way in which the version number is incremented after this release is dependent on this public API and how it changes.

MIT Licensed

Operating system icons created with Icons8

jihchi/nwb

nwb