Fannypack
The tool belt for front-end developers
Install / Use
/learn @lukeed/FannypackREADME

Fannypack
The tool belt for front-end developers.
Fannypack is a lean, lightning-fast build system that suits any application.
It comes packaged with several common CSS and JavaScript pre-processors. It's also extremely simple to add, customize, or override any task or setting. This makes Fannypack a preferred choice for both beginner and advanced front-end developers.
Fannypack Goodies:
Features
- SASS:
- Indented, SCSS, or both
- Libsass (node-sass) for super fast compiles
- CSS Autoprefixer
- BrowserSync:
- Immediately & Automatically re-compiles files and refreshes your browser window(s).
- Allows you to connect & test multiple devices at once
- (Learn More)
- ES6/ES2015 Support:
- HTML Pre-Processor:
- Concatenation:
- Combine multiple files into a new output file
- Development Mode:
- File Watching and Live Reloading with BrowserSync
- Source Mapping
- Production Builds:
- JavaScript is uglified and minified
- CSS and Images are minified
- Cache Busting: Generate a
rev-manifest.jsonfile, append unique hashes to filenames, and automatically update all original filename references. - File size reporting
- Local production sever for testing
- Testing:
- JS test examples with Karma, Mocha, Chai, Sinon
- Travis CI integration
- Deployment Support:
- Wrap custom deploy logic into an easy-to-use task
Planned Features
These are Fannypack plugins that are planned and on their way soon!
- [ ] Coffeescript
- [ ] PHP TDD Test Runner + Watcher
- [x] Angular TemplateCache
- [ ] React JSX Compiler
- [x] Stylus
- [x] LESS
- [x] Riot JS Tags
- [x] Image Minification
- [x] Generate an IconFont from multiple SVG files
- [x] Generate a single SVG sprite (compressed) from multiple SVG files
Installation
Node.js
Before installing Fannypack, you first must ensure that Node.js is installed on your machine.
node -v
Make sure Node 0.12.x is installed. I recommend using NVM to manage versions.
You can easily install Node by visiting their download page. Don't worry, it's quick and easy!
Getting Tools
With Node installed, you can add Fannypack and Gulp to your package.json file, located in your project's root directory.
npm install fannypack gulp --save-dev
OR --- If you do not have a package.json file, you can run a NPM command or create an empty file with the following content:
{
"private": true,
"devDependencies": {
"gulp": "^3.9.0",
"fannypack": "^1.0.0"
}
}
Then you must install the tools.
cd path/to/project/root
npm install
Script Commands
This step is optional, but strongly recommended.
NPM can run custom commands for you, making it much simpler to chain a series of other commands commands together. In effect, this makes you have to worry about less.
If you'd like to do less (c'mon!), paste the following block into your package.json file:
"scripts": {
"gulp": "gulp",
"deploy": "gulp deploy",
"production": "gulp build:production",
"version": "gulp rev uglify",
"development": "gulp",
"watch": "gulp webpack:watch watch",
"karma": "./node_modules/fannypack/node_modules/.bin/karma",
"tests": "npm run production && npm run karma start --single-run"
}
You may now run commands such as:
npm run gulp, npm run production, npm run watch, etc.
Lost? View the example package.json file
Usage
Now that Fannypack has been installed, you'll be compiling, concatenating, and minifying in no time! The gulpfile.js file in your project's root directory will contain all your tasks and configuration.
Basics
In order to start using Fannypack, your gulpfile.js needs to include this code at minimum. This does not include any configuring, therefore will assume all defaults.
var Fannypack = require('fannypack')
Fannypack.init()
Importing Tasks
Sometimes, you'll want to include extra Gulp tasks to Fannypack. Whether you've created your own or downloaded a plugin, you can import it without a fuss!
// gulpfile.js
var Fannypack = require('fannypack')
// Import plugins here:
require('fannypack-less')
require('./my-custom-task')
Fannypack.init()
Configuration
Of course, the defaults often don't fit your project structure. You may modify any task as desired, turn it off entirely, or add custom tasks' values!
Note: It's not always necessary to turn off unused tasks. Nothing will happen by default if source files can't found. However, there may be times that you don't want a certain task to run; e.g. browserSync or imagemin.
// gulpfile.js
var Fannypack = require('fannypack')
// Import plugins here:
require('fannypack-less')
// Begin Customizing
Fannypack.Config.root = {
src: './custom/src',
dest: './custom/dest'
}
// All tasks' 'src' are relative to Config.root.src
Fannypack.Config.sass.src = 'styles' // => './custom/src/styles'
// All tasks' 'dest' are relative to Config.root.dest
Fannypack.Config.sass.dest = 'assets/css' // => './custom/dest/assets/css'
// All tasks are watched by default
Fannypack.Config.images.watchTask = false
// Some tasks may require additional fields
Fannypack.Config.js.entries = {
// rename 'index.js' bundle to 'app.js'
app: ['./index.js'],
// compile then concatenate files to form 'comments.js'
comments: [ './comments1.js', './comments2.js', ]
}
// Completely turn off a task
Fannypack.Config.fonts = false
// Add LESS (new Task) config
Fannypack.Config.less = {
src: 'less', // => './custom/src/less'
dest: 'assets/css', // => './custom/dest/assets/css'
watchTask: true,
codeTask: true,
options: {}.
extensions: ['less']
}
// We're ready, start!
Fannypack.init()
Development
When using Fannypack for development, run: npm run gulp
OR --- If you do not have Fannypack's Scripts installed, run: gulp
Production
When your project is ready for production, run: npm run production
OR --- If you do not have Fannypack's Scripts installed, run: gulp build:production
Cache-Busting
After your production assets have been generated, you may choose to generate unique filenames for your assets. This will ensure that your users will always receive your project's most recent assets after each deployment!
If you choose to use this feature, run: npm run version
OR --- If you do not have Fannypack's Scripts installed, run: gulp rev uglify
Deployment
If you have any deployment logic or tasks (eg, publishing to gh-pages), you will need to overwrite Fannypack's deploy task.
Then you can run: npm run deploy
OR --- If you do not have Fannypack's Scripts installed, run: gulp deploy
Testing
All javascript tests should be located within a directory or directories named __tests__.
For example, assuming:
Fannypack.Config.root.src = './src'
Fannypack.Config.js.src = './js'
You may place all your tests within: ./src/js/__tests__.
If you prefer keeping everything modular, you may also do:
./src/js/modules/chat/__test__. This may be done instead of or in addition to the setup above.
Once you've made and placed your Karma tests, run: npm run test
OR --- If you do not have Fannypack's Scripts installed, run:
gulp build:production && ./node_modules/fannypack/node_modules/.bin/karma start --single-run
This will use the Karma NPM package that was installed with Fannypack.
Extensions
Fannypack can work with ANY of your existing favorite Gulp tasks. All you need to do is give them your customized Fannypack.Config.
In order to do this, Fannypack has a Fannypack.Tasks object, which allows you to simply add or overwrite any task. Additionally, Fannypack exposes several of its core NPM packages so that you don't need to re-install any duplicate packages.
Creating Custom Tasks
// custom-task.js
var Fannypack = require('fannypack'
