--serve without BrowserSync OR --watch with a built-in Web Server

[hteumeuleu]

Hello! I'm new to Eleventy and so far liking it. The one thing I hate though is the use of BrowserSync. It makes everything super slow, doesn't work on older browsers and makes it harder to audit pages for web performance.

Is there a way to use Eleventy without BrowserSync? I run my site locally using the default command (npx @11ty/eleventy --serve).

[zachleat]

Are you familiar with eleventy --watch? I use this when I have sites already running on my local Apache

[hteumeuleu]

Thank you! I didn't know about --watch, and that might do it for now. But I like the fact that --serve builds its own local server. Is this fundamentally impossible to dissociate with BrowserSync or more something you don't mind about because it's more of an edge case?

[zachleat]

Naw it’s certainly in the realm of possibility. This is the first time I’ve heard this feedback though!

We do have a mechanism in place to override me for these things, it’s the enhancement queue. I’ll restructure this issue and move this into the queue.

[zachleat]

This repository is now using lodash style issue management for enhancements. This means enhancement issues will now be closed instead of leaving them open.

View the enhancement backlog here. Don’t forget to upvote the top comment with 👍!

[hteumeuleu]

Thank you!

[edwardhorsford]

I've wondered before about turning off browsersync too whilst keeping the serve portion.

[chbrandt]

I open two terminals, in one I run --serve, in the other I run --watch. Works fine.

[zachleat]

Circling back here we do have a custom server api now and this task shipped with #1305 .

Thanks, y’all!

Docs https://www.11ty.dev/docs/dev-server/