Responsive+AppCache+Network

It can be challenging to set up a good looking web project whose layout responds well to different screen resolutions and work well in mobile and offline environments.

This project template sets up a responsive webapp that uses Bootstrap along with AppCache and network events.

This makes it easy to set up web apps that are mobile-ready and can be used as Mozilla Web Apps or Chrome Store Apps.

Since the goal of the project is to target more modern browsers with AppCache support, older browsers like IE 6-9 are not supported.

Usage

This project uses volo to do the template setup and for generating the builds and AppCache. It is easy to install and use. Just be sure to have Node installed first. Then use npm, which is installed as part of Node, to install volo:

To install volo:

> npm install -g volo

Then:

> volo create myproject volojs/create-responsive-template
> cd myproject
> ../volo appcache

Now you will have a responsive project template set up in the myproject directory.

You can do development using the myproject/www directory in your browser.

The built, AppCache-enabled project will be in myproject/www-built.

What Happened

volo grabbed this project template from GitHub, then:

• Fetched Bootstrap code from GitHub
• Fetched jQuery

It generated the responsive CSS files from Bootstrap's LESS files, and then converted the Bootstrap JS code to work as AMD modules.

The project uses RequireJS so that you can create modular code that is easy to debug. When volo appcache is run, it builds all the JS into one file and removes the use of RequireJS. Additionally, it optimizes the CSS files by combining them into one file. Then it generates the AppCache application manifest.

Deploy to GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages is a great, free way to host your web application. This template comes with an easy way to deploy to GitHub Pages.

First, be sure to build the source files by either running volo build or volo appcache. This will generate the www-built build directory. That build directory's contents will be used for the deployment to GitHub Pages:

> volo appcache
> volo ghdeploy
Log in to GitHub to complete action (your password is not saved.
It is sent over SSL to GitHub and converted to an OAuth token)
GitHub user name: YOUR_GITHUB_USER_NAME
GitHub password: YOUR_GITHUB_PW
Contacting GitHub...
Save OAuth token for later use [y]? n
YOUR_GITHUB_USER_NAME, name of github repo [example]:
Initialized empty Git repository in ~/example/www-ghpages/.git/
[gh-pages (root-commit) 2e834ee] Create branch.
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 index.html
To git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USER_NAME/example.git
 * [new branch]      gh-pages -> gh-pages
[gh-pages 320707a] Deploy
 10 files changed, 5045 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 css/app.css
 create mode 100644 img/glyphicons-halflings-white.png
 create mode 100644 img/glyphicons-halflings.png
 create mode 100644 img/icon-128.png
 create mode 100644 img/icon-16.png
 create mode 100644 img/icon-48.png
 rewrite index.html (100%)
 create mode 100644 js/app.js
 create mode 100644 manifest.appcache
 create mode 100644 manifest.webapp
To git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USER_NAME/example.git
   2e834ee..320707a  gh-pages -> gh-pages
GitHub Pages is set up. Check http://YOUR_GITHUB_USER_NAME.github.com/example/ in about 10-15 minutes.

After the first ghdeploy, once the www-ghpages directory has been set up, the volo ghdeploy command will just push any new built code without prompting you for any questions.

If you want a custom commit message for the deployment, pass it via m=:

> volo ghdeploy m="This is a custom commit message"

Deploy to a custom sub-domain

Once you have GitHub Pages deployment working, you can set it up to be served from a subdomain that you own. For instance, if you owned the 'example.com' domain name, you could set up webapp.example.com to be served from the deployed GitHub Pages repo:

> echo "webapp.example.com" > www/CNAME
> volo appcache
> volo ghdeploy

Then, go to your domain name registrar and set up an example.com "CNAME" entry for webapp.example.com to point to your YOUR_GITHUB_USER_NAME.github.com:

Hostname: webapp
Record Type: CNAME
Target Host: YOUR_GITHUB_USER_NAME.github.com

More info in the GitHub Pages Help for Custom Domains.

Suggested Workflow

Do development in the www directory. Do modifications and shift+reload in the browser to see changes. If you need some script dependencies, you can fetch them with volo add. To get the modular versions of Underscore and Backbone, run these commands in the myproject directory:

volo add amdjs/underscore
volo add amdjs/backbone

Project Layout

This web project has the following setup:

• www/ - the web assets for the project
  • index.html - the entry point into the app.
  • js/ - the directory to hold scripts.
    • app.js - the top-level app script used by index.html. It loads all other scripts.
    • app/ - create this directory to store your app-specific scripts. Any third party scripts should go in the js/ directory, as siblings to app.js.
    • lib/ - where to store 3rd party JavaScript libraries. By default, volo add when run from the project base will install those scripts into this directory.
• tools/ - the build tools to optimize the project. Also contains the LESS files used by Bootstrap to create its CSS.

By default, the package comes with the .css files already generated from Bootstrap's .less files. If you edit the tools/less files again, you can regenerate the CSS files by running the following command from this directory:

> volo less

To optimize the project for deployment, run:

> volo build

This will create an optimized version of the project in a www-built directory.

The js/app.js file will be optimized to include all of its dependencies.

If you want an AppCache manifest created and the index.html modified to reference the manifest, run:

> volo appcache

This will run the build command, then generate a manifest.appcache manifest for the built files and modify the built index.html to reference it.

Links

• HTML5 Rocks - Working Off the Grid
• Bootstrap
• AppCache
• Online detection
• RequireJS API
• RequireJS optimizer
• volo

Next Steps

• Figure out a way to easily create manifests for the Mozilla Web Apps and Chrome Store initiatives.
• Work out an IndexedDB shim layer so that a uniform local data storage mechanism can be used.
• Suggestions from you.

Feedback

To leave feedback, open an issue in the Issues section.