Getting started

Before you start, make sure you have a recent version of NodeJS environment >=6.0 with NPM 3 or Yarn.

From the project folder, execute the following commands:

npm install # or: yarn install

Don't forget to install the typings:

npm run install:typings

This will install all required dependencies, including a local version of Webpack that is going to build and bundle the app. There is no need to install Webpack globally.

To run the app execute the following command:

npm start # or: yarn start

This command starts the webpack development server that serves the build bundles. You can now browse the skeleton app at http://localhost:8080 (or the next available port, notice the output of the command). Changes in the code will automatically build and reload the app.

Running with Hot Module Reload

If you wish to try out the experimental Hot Module Reload, you may run your application with the following command:

npm start -- webpack.server.hmr

Feature configuration

Most of the configuration will happen in the webpack.config.js file. There, you may configure advanced loader features or add direct SASS or LESS loading support.

Bundling

To build an optimized, minified production bundle (output to /dist) execute:

npm start -- build

To build

To test either the development or production build execute:

npm start -- serve

The production bundle includes all files that are required for deployment.

Running The Tests

This skeleton provides three frameworks for running tests.

You can choose one or two and remove the other, or even use all of them for different types of tests.

Jest

Jest is a powerful unit testing runner and framework. It runs really fast, however the tests are run under NodeJS, not the browser. This means there might be some cases where something you'd expect works in reality, but fails in a test. One of those things will be SVG, which isn't supported under NodeJS. However, the framework is perfect for doing unit tests of pure functions, and works pretty well in combination with aurelia-testing.

To create new Jest tests, create files with the extension .test.ts, either in the src directory or in the test/jest-unit directory.

To run the Jest unit tests, run:

npm test

To run the Jest watcher (re-runs tests on changes), run:

npm start -- test.jest.watch

Karma + Jasmine

Karma is also a powerful test runner, and combined with Jasmine it can be a pleasure to work with. Karma always runs in the browser. This means that whatever works in real browsers, should also work the same way in the unit tests. But it also means the framework is heavier to execute and not as lean to work with.

To create new Karma tests, create files with the extension .spec.ts, either in the src directory or in the test/karma-unit directory.

To run the Karma unit tests, run:

npm start -- test.karma

To run the Karma watcher (re-runs tests on changes), run:

npm start -- test.karma.watch

Protractor (E2E / integration tests)

Integration tests can be performed with Protractor.

1. Place your E2E-Tests into the folder test/e2e and name them with the extension .e2e.ts.

2. Run the tests by invoking

npm start -- e2e

Running all test suites

To run all the unit test suites and the E2E tests, you may simply run:

npm start -- test.all

App confugration

There is an app configuration management in place. Two standart environments are already set (devlopment and production). You can for example build the production with:

npm start -- webpack.build.production

If you like to add an additional configuaration you have to do the following two steps:

1. Add the configuration json to app/config, example preprod.json
2. Add the corresponding command to package-script.js and pass the right argument like --env.config=preprod

Example for path webpack.build.preprod:

preprod: {
  inlineCss: series(
    'nps webpack.build.before',
    'webpack --progress -p --env.production --env.config=preprod'
  ),
  default: series(
    'nps webpack.build.before',
    'webpack --progress -p --env.production --env.extractCss --env.config=preprod'
  ),
  serve: series.nps(
    'webpack.build.production',
    'serve'
  ),
}

HTML5 pushState routing

By default pushState, also known as html5 routing, is enabled. The Webpack server is already configured to handle this but many webserver need extra confuration to enable this.

Cordova - Mobile Development

Installation

Initiate cordova with the following commands:

npm install -g cordova
npm start -- mobile.setup

Run and build

Cordova takes the www folder source to create the Cordova app. This www folder is a symlink pointing to the dist folder. So make sure you run for example npm start -- build first before runing/building a Cordova app.

Sometimes the www symlink is removed (e.g. git clone). Run this command to fix this:

npm start -- mobile.link