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README.md

cljsbuild-example-advanced

This is an example web application that uses lein-cljsbuild, Ring, and Compojure. It demonstrates several things:

  1. The use of lein-cljsbuild to build ClojureScript into JavaScript.
  2. How to share code between Clojure and ClojureScript, including macros.
  3. How to use lein-cljsbuild's various REPL commands.
  4. How to configure lein-cljsbuild to perform multiple parallel builds.

To play around with this example project, you will first need Leiningen installed.

Running the App

Set up and start the server like this:

$ cd example-projects/advanced
$ lein ring server-headless 3000

NOTE 1: You do not need to issue the lein cljsbuild once subtask. This is because cljsbuild has been hooked to lein tasks in the project.clj (i.e. :hooks [leiningen.cljsbuild]). This way when the above lein ring server-headless 3000 subtask is executed, it implicitly executes the lein compile task which, in turn, implicitly executes the lein cljsbuild once subtask as well.

Now, point your web browser at http://localhost:3000, and see the web app in action!

PhantomJS

[PhantomJS] (http://www.phantomjs.org) is a headless Webkit browser, which can be automated via Javascript. It provides a Javascript execution environment with access to all browser features (the DOM, etc), without opening a browser GUI.

The tests and the "phantom-*" REPLs require PhantomJS 1.3 or newer to be installed. The process for accomplishing This is OS dependent. See [PhantomJS] (http://www.phantomjs.org) for information on installing it on your OS.

If you do not plan to run the tests and only want to use the rhino or firefox REPLs, you can skip this step.

Running the Tests

To run the unit tests:

$ lein cljsbuild test

Note that if more than one test were configured in the project, the above command would run all tests. To run the "unit" tests in isolation:

$ lein cljsbuild test unit

The unit tests live in test-cljs. They are written in ClojureScript, and thus must be compiled, so they have their own entry in the :builds configuration. Note that all of the :source-path entries from the :builds are added to the classpath, so the tests can :require ClojureScript namespaces from, e.g., the src-cljs directory.

See the phantom/unit-test.js file for more details on how PhantomJS is configured to make this work.

Connecting Firefox to a REPL

First, in one terminal, start the Ring server:

$ lein ring server-headless 3000

Now, in a different terminal, run repl-launch with the "firefox" identifier and the URL of the REPL demo page:

$ lein trampoline cljsbuild repl-launch firefox http://localhost:3000/repl-demo

The REPL should start, and in a moment, Firefox should start up and browse to the repl-demo page. Viewing the source for repl-demo, you'll see that after loading the main JavaScript file, it calls example.repl.connect(). This function connects back to the REPL, thereby allowing you to execute arbitrary ClojureScript code in the context of the repl-demo page.

There's also a launcher configured for a "naked" page. This is just a simple static HTML page that will connect to the REPL. This is convenient when you want to run a ClojureScript REPL with access to your project, but don't need a specific page to be loaded at the time. The biggest advantage to the "naked" launcher is that you don't need to have your app running in the background:

$ lein trampoline cljsbuild repl-launch firefox-naked

Connecting PhantomJS to a REPL

To try out a PhantomJS-based REPL, first start the Ring server in one terminal:

$ lein ring server-headless 3000

Now, in a different terminal, run repl-launch with the "phantom" identifier and the URL of the REPL demo page:

$ lein trampoline cljsbuild repl-launch phantom http://localhost:3000/repl-demo

The REPL should start, and in a moment, PhantomJS should start up and browse to the repl-demo page, in the background. This is a convenient way to interact with your application in cases where you don't need to open a full browser UI.

As with the Firefox example, there's a launch configured for a "naked" page. This is probably the most convenient way to launch a REPL when you just want to try running a couple snippets of ClojureScript code. As with the "firefox-naked" launcher, you don't need your app to be running in the background:

$ lein trampoline cljsbuild repl-launch phantom-naked