Protocore

Protocore is an open source walking application skeleton for a typical unstructured JavaScript/jQuery web apps. You can use it to quickly bootstrap your unstructured JavaScript/jQuery web application projects.

Prerequisites

As Protocore is based on JavaScript. It is assumed user already knows JavaScript and jQuery.

For understanding Protocore, knowledge of following JavaScript libraries/frameworks are must.

Require.js - a JavaScript file and module loader. For more information visit requirejs.org
Bootstrap Framework 3.0 - a front-end framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web. For more information visit getbootstrap.com

Installation

Assuming that Git is already installed & running:

git clone https://github.com/hegdeashwin/Protocore

Assuming that Node.js is already installed & running,

Install dependencies:

npm install

Generate CSS files from LESS: (First command after installing dependencies)

grunt compileless

To start the development server:

node server.js

NODE_ENV=development node server.js

To start the production server:

NODE_ENV=production node server.js

Server layer

The server side codebase resides in the server.js and config.js files. By default, the server layer is written in JavaScript (Node.js with Express 4.x) which can be configured and flexible to work with any server side scripting language like Java, PHP, ASP.NET or others. As client and server layer are seperate entity.

Client layer

The client side codebase resides in the src folder. This folder contains following subfolders.

+-- /stylesheets
	+--/css
	+--/less
		+--/common
		+--/base
		+--/layout
		+--/modules
		+--/state
		+--/theme
+-- /systems
	+--/frameworks
	+--/libs
	+--/utilities
+-- /templates
+-- /assets
	+--/fonts
	+--/images
+-- /apps
	+--/models
	+--/views
	+--/router

Stylesheet layer

The codebase comes with LESS setup with a Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS (SMACSS) approach. SMACSS is a way to examine your design process and as a way to fit those rigid frameworks into a flexible thought process. It is an attempt to document a consistent approach to site development when using CSS.

Task automation

Protocore comes with Grunt ecosystem - a JavaScript task runner to perform repetitive tasks like minification, compilation, unit testing, linting etc. Many of the tasks you need are already available as published Grunt plugins.

Few task automations has been configured to detect errors and potential problems in codebase and to enforce your team's coding conventions.

Following are the default Grunt plugins that has been integrated with Protocore codebase.

Individual tasks

Grunt Plugin	Command	Task Performed
grunt-htmlhint	grunt htmllint	Detect errors and issues for HTML documents for index.html and templates.
grunt-contrib-csslint	grunt csslint	Detect errors and issues for CSS stylesheets.
grunt-contrib-jshint	grunt jshint	Detect errors and issues for JavaScript.
grunt-jscs-checker	grunt jscs	Detect unwanted spacing etc. for JavaScript.
grunt-contrib-less	grunt less:readyMade	Compile all the less files. The files which comes with third party libraries or frameworks like Bootstrap 3.0
grunt-contrib-less	grunt less:customMade	Compile all the less files. The files which created by users as their custom stylesheets.
grunt-contrib-watch	grunt watch	Keep watch on less folders & files. Any changes in less file will automatically compile all the less files.
grunt-contrib-qunit	grunt qunit	Perform unit testing.

Combine tasks

Command	Task performed
grunt default	Executing this command will perform the task to detect errors and issues for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and less compilation to CSS. It includes jshint, jscs, htmlhint, csslint, less:readyMade, less:customMade.
grunt build	Executing this command will perform the `default` task including clear and building production build.
grunt compileless	Executing this command will perform only less compilation to CSS which includes two sub-task `less:readyMade`, `less:customMade`.
grunt tests	Executing this command will perform unit testing.

Author & Contributors

Developed & maintained by author: Ashwin Hegde
Follow me at: github | Linkedin | Twitter

We really appreciate all kind of contributions. Special thanks to contributors for using and supporting Protocore.

To request a feature or you find any typo errors, enhancements or questions; please feel free to post it on following link, or vote for the ones that are already registered.
Tracking: https://github.com/hegdeashwin/Protocore/issues

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

shraddhadixit/Protocore