mass 0.1.4

Merge and Simplify Scripts: an automated tool for managing, combining and minifying javascript assets for web projects.

Goals

• easy method to combine multiple files into single asset request
• automated minification/optimization
• extending javascript to allow import other scripts

Python Packages Used

• jsmin (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/jsmin)
• macfsevents (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/MacFSEvents/0.2.1)
• virtualenv (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv)
• argparse (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/argparse)

pip install mass

python setup.py install

cd path/to/MASS
source env/bin/activate

Including Files

Inside 'extended' javascript files, you can import other scripts. All javascript files listed in the source file will be combined, minified and output to a javascript file with the same name as the original xjs file. Paths to imported javascript files should be relative to the directory of the xjs file they are imported into.

The example below specifies two javascript files and will be output to the file foo.min.js:

// foo.xjs
// import "foo.js"
// import "plugins/jquery.jnotify.js"

Require commands can be used to ensure that a file has been already been imported, and will import the script if they have not.

// foo.xjs
// import "foo.js"
// import "bar.js"

// foo.js
// require "bar.js"

In the above example, bar.js will not be re-imported since foo.xjs has already imported it.

MASS also supports 'inline' javascript

// bar.js
// import "foo.js"

// now some javascript
$(document).ready(function(){
    // jquery is ready
});

// another import!
// import "plugins/jquery.jnotify.js"

Basic Commands

Mass has two basic CLI commands, watch and compile. watch begins monitoring the specified directory and will compile files as they are edited while compile will simply minify and combine files located in the specified directory.

mass watch -s path/to/source

mass compile -s path/to/source

Defining Destination Directory

By default, MASS saves the compiled js files in the same directory as the source files. The -d argument can be used to specify a different output directory.

mass watch -d path/to/output

Defining Source Directory

If a source directory is not specified, MASS uses the current directory by default. The -s argument can be used to specify the directory for MASS to discover files.

mass watch -s path/to/source -d path/to/output