riot-starter/README.md

# RiotJS App Starter
> A Rapid Application Starter kit for RiotJS minimalists

Rapidly prototype your next single-page application, with a `zero-build` out-of-the-box web-component solution using [RiotJS](https://riot.js.org/) for the fastest way to iterate over UI for development -- **bar-none**.

No crazy syntax, just HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

No isolated eco-system, work with any library, any tool, any way you want!

[RiotJS](https://riot.js.org/) is tiny; tiny foot print, tiny API, and this leads it to be extremely fast to learn -- closest to web standards as you can get.

What are you waiting for -- **GO FORTH AND BUILD YOUR APP, RAPIDLY!**

*Designed to be as simple as possible, but no simpler*

## Features

- [RiotJS](https://riot.js.org/) 3.x give us the core UI building blocks
    - `Web Components` for composable and reusable UI
    - `Events` to communicate between components or other code
- [Riot-Route](https://riot.js.org/api/route/) the simplest way to manage URL navigation
- [Grayscale](http://n2geoff.github.io/grayscale/) Small, 2kb gzipped CSS framework with a layout focus
- [Gulp](https://gulpjs.com/) is there for when your ready for *production*.  See [Build for Production](#build production) below

**Requirements**

- [NodeJS](https://nodejs.org/)

> Installs `vendor/` dependencies and `npm build`  to get your project into production

## Why Zero-Build?

**SPEED!**

A production pipe-line should *NOT* be in your way while **developing**. You should be able to iterate over your designs *FAST* , see those changes *FAST*, and when your ready, you should be able to build your solution *FAST* , but only as the final step -- not every step.

`npm build` is still there. See Below.

### How

[RiotJS](https://riot.js.org/) [client-size compiler](https://riot.js.org/online-compiler/) is blazing fast,  it only adds about 10kb, and it can easily handle thousands of tags/actions in hundreds of milliseconds.

## Getting Started

1. Run `npm install`, this will install all vendor dependencies

2. Start coding in `app`

3. run the `app/index.html` from your favorite web server\*

> \* try `live-server` from `npm` or via [Visual Studio Code]() plug-in it's awesome!

### Project Structure

```
app/               <-- develop here
    css/           <-- your css files
    js/            <-- your javascript files
        app.js     <-- basic routing/utils bootstrap
    images/        <-- your images
    tags/          <-- web-components
    vendor/        <-- vendor dependencies, ie code you did not write
    index.html     <-- start here
    ...            <-- web meta files
docs/              <-- additional documentation
test/              <-- tests (one day)
gulpfile.js        <-- task runner
README.md
...                <-- misc project meta files
```

### Web Components

Web-components are just `HTML` files wrapped in a custom `tag`, which means they can be as simple as

```html
<my-component>
    <button>
        Say Hello!
    </button>
</my-component>
```

These files are usually saved as `my-component.tag`, but to get proper syntax highlighting the *norm* is keep them as HTML files naming them something like `my-componet.tag.html`

> Save in the `tags/` folder, organize this however you like

Of course we want our component to do more, so...

...*for now*, go check out the [RiotJS Guide](https://riot.js.org/guide/)


## Build for Production

When you are ready to move to production you can run `npm build`.  This will create a `dist` folder with all your optimized assets, web-components, vendor dependencies and remove the riot `runtime-compiler` to shave off another 100kb

Check out the [gulpfile](gulpfile.js) for all the build options if you do not want to build everything.  Every task is commented, and split-up so you can grep it easily.


## Testing

- TBD


## Additional Documentation

- [How Dependencies are Used](docs/dependencies.md)


## TODO

- compile vendor libs to vendor.js
- Include a testing framework [Jasmine](https://jasmine.github.io/), [test.it](https://github.com/n2geoff/testit), or?
- Is good AJAX support the missing ingredient?  or is`fetch` good enough?
- add routing example

## Support

Please open [an issue](http://code.negative9.net/geoff/riot-starter/issues/new) for support.

## Contributing

Anyone is welcome to contribute, however, if you decide to get involved, please take a moment to review the [guidelines](CONTRIBUTING.md), they're minimalistic;)

## License

[MIT](LICENSE)