Yeoman Angular app with support for multiple modules

In my actual work, we found the need for angular scaffolding to have different modules under one parent directory. This will enable better code re-use and code organization.

Also, a lot of people have this on their wishlist. See yeoman#109

Feedback is definitely appreciated, which will help me gather energy to improve this project.

With this project, I tried to work as closely as possible to the original yeoman code, instead of creating a new generator. I also tried to minimize the additional prompts so as not to defeat the purpose of scaffolding.

(Also, I'm a noob to NodeJS, so suggestions to improve the code are also welcome).

Module Name

The module name is a required parameter for the generator. It allows structuring of different modules under one parent directory. Each generator will ask for a module name, which translates to a sub-directory to put those files under.

For example, if module name given was "module1"...

yo angular:app module1

...then app-specific files will be generated as

modules
 |_  module1
       |_ scripts
       |   |_ controllers/mainCtrl.js
       |_ views/main.html
       |_ index.html
       |_ etc
 _    scripts (bower components)
       |_ angular/angular.js
       |_ etc

The information about the name of the module and the path to the actual directory is stored in a generated "modulesConfig.json"

Each sub-generator will also be prompted for the name of an existing module to generate those files into.

srcPath and testPath

There is an option to pass a srcPath and testPath, which will be another directory structure before the "modules" directory. I come from a Java background, and I created this feature to help Maven users to have a "src/main/webapp/" for source and "src/test/webapp" for test structure before the modules directory. "bower_components" directory name where angular components are generated were changed to "scripts"

Unchangeable file conventions (for now)

• Each javacript filename will be generated with a suffix (i.e. Ctrl.js for controllers, Service.js for services, etc)
• The name of the "modules" directory cannot be changed for now...
• Once one module is generated, the srcPath and testPath cannot be changed anymore...(which makes sense for my needs but maybe not for others)

TO-DO list

This is only a side-project that I can only work on when I have some free time, and so there are still a lot of stuff I need to do to make this project "Production-quality".

• Update Gruntfile.js to have all modules' files included
• Update the unit tests
• Support generation of npmrc and bowerrc with proxies entered from the prompt
• Support Angular UI-router
• Update CoffeeScript templates (not using coffee right now so this is low priority)
• Remove prompts for overwrite of bower.json, package.json and modulesConfig.json

Original documentation from yeoman follows...

AngularJS generator

Yeoman generator for AngularJS - lets you quickly set up a project with sensible defaults and best practises. Forked generator that allows creation of modules. The module name is a required prompt.

Usage

Install generator-angular:

npm install -g generator-angular

Make a new directory, and cd into it:

mkdir my-new-project && cd $_

Run yo angular, optionally passing an app name:

yo angular [app-name]

Run grunt for building and grunt serve for preview

Generators

Available generators:

• angular (aka angular:app)
• angular:controller
• angular:directive
• angular:filter
• angular:route
• angular:service
• angular:provider
• angular:factory
• angular:value
• angular:constant
• [angular:decorator] (#decorator)
• angular:view

Note: Generators are to be run from the root directory of your app.

App

Sets up a new AngularJS app, generating all the boilerplate you need to get started. The app generator also optionally installs Twitter Bootstrap and additional AngularJS modules, such as angular-resource (installed by default).

Example:

yo angular

Route

Generates a controller and view, and configures a route in app/scripts/app.js connecting them.

Example:

yo angular:route myroute

Produces app/scripts/controllers/myroute.js:

angular.module('myMod').controller('MyrouteCtrl', function ($scope) {
  // ...
});

Produces app/views/myroute.html:

<p>This is the myroute view</p>

Controller

Generates a controller in app/scripts/controllers.

Example:

yo angular:controller user

Produces app/scripts/controllers/user.js:

angular.module('myMod').controller('UserCtrl', function ($scope) {
  // ...
});

Directive

Generates a directive in app/scripts/directives.

Example:

yo angular:directive myDirective

Produces app/scripts/directives/myDirective.js:

angular.module('myMod').directive('myDirective', function () {
  return {
    template: '<div></div>',
    restrict: 'E',
    link: function postLink(scope, element, attrs) {
      element.text('this is the myDirective directive');
    }
  };
});

Filter

Generates a filter in app/scripts/filters.

Example:

yo angular:filter myFilter

Produces app/scripts/filters/myFilter.js:

angular.module('myMod').filter('myFilter', function () {
  return function (input) {
    return 'myFilter filter:' + input;
  };
});

View

Generates an HTML view file in app/views.

Example:

yo angular:view user

Produces app/views/user.html:

<p>This is the user view</p>

Service

Generates an AngularJS service.

Example:

yo angular:service myService

Produces app/scripts/services/myService.js:

angular.module('myMod').service('myService', function () {
  // ...
});

You can also do yo angular:factory, yo angular:provider, yo angular:value, and yo angular:constant for other types of services.

Decorator

Generates an AngularJS service decorator.

Example:

yo angular:decorator serviceName

Produces app/scripts/decorators/serviceNameDecorator.js:

angular.module('myMod').config(function ($provide) {
    $provide.decorator('serviceName', function ($delegate) {
      // ...
      return $delegate;
    });
  });

Options

In general, these options can be applied to any generator, though they only affect generators that produce scripts.

CoffeeScript

For generators that output scripts, the --coffee option will output CoffeeScript instead of JavaScript.

For example:

yo angular:controller user --coffee

Produces app/scripts/controller/user.coffee:

angular.module('myMod')
  .controller 'UserCtrl', ($scope) ->

A project can mix CoffeScript and JavaScript files.

To output JavaScript files, even if CoffeeScript files exist (the default is to output CoffeeScript files if the generator finds any in the project), use --coffee=false.

Minification Safe

Deprecated

Related Issue #452: This option is being removed in future versions of the generator. Initially it was needed as ngMin was not entirely stable. As it has matured, the need to keep separate versions of the script templates has led to extra complexity and maintenance of the generator. By removing these extra burdens, new features and bug fixes should be easier to implement. If you are dependent on this option, please take a look at ngMin and seriously consider implementing it in your own code. It will help reduce the amount of typing you have to do (and look through) as well as make your code cleaner to look at.

By default, generators produce unannotated code. Without annotations, AngularJS's DI system will break when minified. Typically, these annotations that make minification safe are added automatically at build-time, after application files are concatenated, but before they are minified. By providing the --minsafe option, the code generated will out-of-the-box be ready for minification. The trade-off is between amount of boilerplate, and build process complexity.

Example

yo angular:controller user --minsafe

Produces app/controller/user.js:

angular.module('myMod').controller('UserCtrl', ['$scope', function ($scope) {
  // ...
}]);

Background

Unannotated:

angular.module('myMod').controller('MyCtrl', function ($scope, $http, myService) {
  // ...
});

Annotated:

angular.module('myMod').controller('MyCtrl',
  ['$scope', '$http', 'myService', function ($scope, $http, myService) {

    // ...
  }]);

The annotations are important because minified code will rename variables, making it impossible for AngularJS to infer module names based solely on function parameters.

The recommended build process uses ngmin, a tool that automatically adds these annotations. However, if you'd rather not use ngmin, you have to add these annotations manually yourself. **One thing to note is that ngmin does not produce minsafe code for things that are not main level elements like controller, services, providers, etc.:

resolve: {
  User: function(myService) {
    return MyService();
  }
}

will need to be manually done like so:

resolve: {
  User: ['myService', function(myService) {
    return MyService();
  }]
}

Add to Index

By default, new scripts are added to the index.html file. However, this may not always be suitable. Some use cases:

• Manually added to the file
• Auto-added by a 3rd party plugin
• Using this generator as a subgenerator

To skip adding them to the index, pass in the skip-add argument:

yo angular:service serviceName --skip-add

Bower Components

The following packages are always installed by the app generator:

• angular
• angular-mocks
• angular-scenario

The following additional modules are available as components on bower, and installable via bower install:

• angular-cookies
• angular-loader
• angular-resource
• angular-sanitize

All of these can be updated with bower update as new versions of AngularJS are released.

Configuration

Yeoman generated projects can be further tweaked according to your needs by modifying project files appropriately.

Testing

Running grunt test will run the unit tests with karma.

Contribute

See the contributing docs

When submitting an issue, please follow the guidelines. Especially important is to make sure Yeoman is up-to-date, and providing the command or commands that cause the issue.

When submitting a PR, make sure that the commit messages match the AngularJS conventions.

When submitting a bugfix, write a test that exposes the bug and fails before applying your fix. Submit the test alongside the fix.

When submitting a new feature, add tests that cover the feature.

License

BSD license