[new project] Integrate Yeoman in an external tools (editor, node-webkit, atom-shell)

[SBoudrias]

What?

Yeoman provide a programmatic API and an interface abstraction that allow users to integrate it inside graphical user interfaces: standalone apps, IDE, editors, web app, etc etc

Unfortunately, we don't have any working right now. Want to dig into this not so well known API? Then it's probably a good occasion!

Features?

Whatever you want really!

Helping document this feature along the way would also be very useful.

Prior art

@zenorocha got a basic prototype using node-webkit (not sure about the status)

What you really need to know:

1. The Yeoman Environment is orchestrating running generators and discovery.
2. Adapters are in charge of rendering content. Yeoman provide a terminal adapter by default, but it could be replace by an adapter creating HTML or to an IDE interface.

[stefanbuck]

Since 2 days I'm working on a yeoman integration in atom-shell. It's far from ready but a first sneak peek is available https://github.com/stefanbuck/yoapp

[ahmadnassri]

nice job @stefanbuck excited to see the final product!

[SBoudrias]

Hey @stefanbuck, nice use of the API. It'd be great to have feedback on some parts of our programmatic API so we can improve it and make these apps easier to build.

You may want to speak with @ruyadorno and @zenorocha, they've been working on a similar project on top of node-webkit. There's probably tools you can extract in reusable components and share between your projects.

[zenorocha]

That's true, I've discussed w/ @ruyadorno about a separated module to handle this conversion between inquirer prompts to html tags.

[stefanbuck]

@zenorocha I had the same idea in mind. If you and @ruyadorno want we can chat these days about it.

[ruyadorno]

:+1:

Funny to see that I had started working on it around the same time, I guess telepathy across the globe still a thing these days :smile:

@stefanbuck I can only see benefits on cooperating, I don't know if you would be willing to help on the node-webkit implementation but we can sure try to share some of the middleware modules.

Our current implementation for the Inquirer prompts are slightly more robust but for now they still very coupled with what we expect in our visual layer. We can try to turn that into a separated module like @zenorocha sugested but I would like some advise from @SBoudrias on that too. I'm not 100% sure that this is the way to go as it would enforce some html structure on both projects thus limiting our development on the front-end side somehow.

Anyways, feel free to ping me anytime on #yeoman at Freenode, also I'm ruyadorno on Twitter

[sindresorhus]

I would go with atom-shell. I've used both. node-webkit has this weird coupling that results in weird perf problems and bugs. atom-shell is also more actively developed as Atom editor depends on it being good and fast.

[ruyadorno]

@sindresorhus good piece of advice, I never gave it too much thought as I just jumped right into the existent structure but it might be a good time to make the switch.

[SBoudrias]

I think it'd be good to give access to the yeoman-app private repo to @stefanbuck. - cc @sindresorhus mind opening the gate?

Also, IMO, we could just make the repo public even if it's not finished.

[sindresorhus]

done

[stefanbuck]

Thank you. You made my day :wink:

[SBoudrias]

@stefanbuck Feel free to comment and contribute if you feel like it - maybe the best would be to combine our efforts in a single tool? I let you judge of that.

[stefanbuck]

No worry, i will do. Working together one one tool make definitely more sense.

[ruyadorno]

:+1:

@stefanbuck like I said before, feel free to contact me :)

I have just finished converting our current app to atom, so you should feel at home there.