Este

Robust and comfortable dev stack for web app development.

Why Este.js?

I believe static typing makes code more robust and readable while CoffeeScrips makes code more concise. I designed Este MVC with touch devices and good UX in mind. I prefer Closure Library, it's huge, mature, and well written. Closure Compiler extraordinery level of minification is win for mobile apps. Facebook React is brilliant for building dynamic UI's. Polymer PointerGestures rocks. Unit tests must be light-fast and automatic. Well tunned dev stack is important. And more.

Features

• statically compiled JavaScript or CoffeeScript
• desktop, tablet, mobile supported
• pure client side technology, any backend is supported
• powerful development stack build on top of gruntjs.com
  • grunt-este
  • fast file watcher without pooling and with LiveReload
• Este library
  • Este App MVC framework
  • UI components and other handy stuff
• TDD ready, fast unit testing via Mocha
• great internalization and strings localizations support
• snippets and settings for SublimeText
• server Express App boilerplate
• third parties:
  • Google Closure Tools
    • Library
    • Compiler
    • Templates
  • Stylus styles
  • Node.js Express
  • Google Polymer
  • Facebook React

Development Stack

• watch changes, check syntax, and compile
  • CoffeeScript
  • Stylus
  • Closure Templates
• run very fast unit tests immediately after file save
• calculate and resolve module dependencies
• extract and inject strings for localizations
• run development server
• join and minify css
• compile JavaScript
• update running app styles without browser reload (LiveReload)
• reload browser and server when needed
• prepare app for production

Prerequisites

Node.js is required. Ensure also you have grunt-cli and bower installed.

npm install -g grunt-cli
npm install -g bower

For Windows Users

• install Java and Python 2 (Python 3 does not work)
• set environment variables for Python and Java
• http://docs.python.org/using/windows.html#excursus-setting-environment-variables

Getting Started

Create Este App

git clone https://github.com/steida/este.git este-app
cd este-app
npm install
bower install

Start Development

• run grunt
• point your browser to localhost:8000
• build something beautiful

How to Learn Este

Take a look at project structure. server directory contains server-side backend code, in this case it's Node.js Express server, but we can use any backend of course. Este is client-side technology and it's possible to create Este app that don't require any backend at all.

client directory contains client-side apps. By default, only app is needed. But it's not rare that our project needs several separated sub-projects, for example: site, app, administration.

Take a look at app entry point start.coffee, check Este demos or TodoMVC demo. Learn from well documented source code and demos.

Usage

Start development. Build app, run development stack.

grunt

Start development in stage mode. Styles are minified and scripts are compiled.

grunt --stage

Build app. Useful for continuous integration.

grunt build or grunt build --stage

Run development stack. Useful to skip building phase.

grunt run or grunt run --stage

Debug makes compiled scripts readable.

grunt build --stage=debug

Extract messages for localization.

grunt esteExtractMessages

Compile project with localized messages.

grunt esteBuilder:appLocalized

Recommended Editor: Sublime Text

Must-have Packages

• Sublime Package Control (read instructions)
• CoffeeScript
• Stylus
• github.com/anvie/SoyTemplate (read instructions)
• Clipboard History
• JsFormat
• EditorConfig

My Sublime Text settings and snippets. Code snippets cheat sheet.

Stay Tuned

• twitter.com/estejs
• estejs.tumblr.com
• groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/estejs

Tips

• watch github.com/steida/este-library for updates
• learn npm link and bower link and use it with your npm modules and bower libraries
• learn bower link and keep your este-library fresh

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Daniel Steigerwald

Licensed under the MIT license.