watch.js

h1. Watch

Watch is a script reloader. Watch monitors local Javascript and CSS files for changes and automatically reloads the modified file in your browser.

Examples:

Watch all CSS files for changes and reload them:

<script>_watch.css("*");</script>

Watch 1 Javascript file for changes and reload it:

<script>_watch.js("test.js");</script>

In this next example, test.js is a custom library that leaks 2 variables into the global namespace. We'll pass watch a cleanup function to remove the global variables (optional), and then a reinitialize function to reinit the test.js library.

Watch 1 Javascript file for changes, run a cleanup, reload the script, then run reinit:

<script>
_watch.js(
  "test.js",
  function () { //cleanup
    delete window.testGlobal1;
    delete window.testGlobal2;
  },
  function () { //reinit 
    test.init(); 
  }
);
</script>

h3. Updates

Follow "@markmarkoh":http://twitter.com/markmarkoh for updates.

h3. Dependencies

The following needs to be installed to run watch:

• "Node":http://nodejs.org/
• "npm":https://github.com/isaacs/npm/

Watch requires the following libraries, which should install automatically:

• "Socket.io":https://github.com/learnboost/socket.io

h2. Installation

npm install watch.js -g

• "-g" switch is used to install globally. WatchJS provides an executable, so this is necessary.

h3. Alternative Installation (from source)

git clone [e-mail]:markmarkoh/watch.git watch
cd watch
npm install . -g

h2. Running Watch

In the Terminal, change directory to the server root

cd ~/programs/web/sample
watchjs

Alternatively:

watchjs path/to/static/resources

If everything is working, you should see a message like this:

Staring Watch.js server...
Watch.js server started on port 7202
Add <script src="http://localhost:7202/watch.js"></script> to your HTML

Add that script to the bottom of your HTML document. Refer to the 'Examples' above for making API calls.

h4. Licence (GPL)

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see "http://www.gnu.org/licenses/":http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.