Generator-Z-Frontend

Installation and Usage

run npm install generator-z-frontend -g

After that, you can run yo z-frontend from a project to start the generator.

Description

This is a heavily opinionated frontend generator, tailored to my needs.

I mostly use it to complement the way I work with the Symfony Framework, but in theory, it should work with any framework.

As such, it may or may not work for you, but I'd be glad to hear out advices or discuss PRs / feature-requests. :)

The workflow and rules described shortly are havily influenced by my personal experiences working on several projects over the years, and also by OOCSS methodologys and articles.

Basic workflow

For the generator to work properly, a workflow must be adapted.

It assumes the following:

• The vendors, images and watch tasks are only ever run on the developer's machines.

  The results of the vendors and images tasks can be tracked by a vcs even if there are more developers involved on the frontend.

  So whenever new images, or something were added to the vendors, these tasks then need to be run manually.

• The styles and scripts tasks are being run on every deployment.

  The output of these tasks depend on the environment (prod or dev) they are in. (ex: sourcemap generation) Also: if more than one frontend developer is involved in the project, it's very easy to introduce conflicts. However, by not tracking it by the vcs, and rebuilding the results on every deployment, it resolves these possible issues.

Rules

These rules are about the sass files which will make your life easier on the long run. :)

Details about a particular file's role can be found in comments in that file.

Classname naming conventions

Presentational classes and javascript "hooks" must be separated.

• Components must be prefixed with c-,
• Javascript hooks must be prefixed with js-.
• Every file, that is @import-ed in the main scss files (and not mentioned above), must be prefixed with an underscore.

The styles/overwrites/ folder

In this folder only 3rd party overwrites can be placed.

Examples may include: Foundation / Bootstrap, jQuery UI etc.

The styles/includes/ folder

In this folder, only mixins and functions can be placed. Every mixin and function must have a separate file, and the filename must be the mixin's / function's name, prefixed with an underscore, having the following syllables separated by a dash. Ex.: _my-mixin.scss, which contains the my-mixin mixin.

The styles/components/ folder

• Components must only be imported to the main scss files. (Ex.: app.scss)
• File naming convention: "c-a-component".
• Classnames are prefered to tags as the rules' selectors. If the component is small enough however (like a btn), and it is certain, that other components won't ever be embedded in it, then it can use tag-selectors too. (Ex.: "h1", "a" etc.) This is something that needs to be discussed by the team working on the project. For a true OOCSS workflow, tag selectors must be prohibited.
• Colors must be collected to variables and stored in the config/_global.scss file.

The styles/config/global.scss file

Color variables and global configurations must be placed here. Follow the naming conventions presented there strictly.

License

MIT