Live-reloading SASS, JS, and PHP

1. WordPress Workflows
and Gulp.js
Live-reloading SASS, JS, and PHP

2. whoami
Eli McMakin
English major, minor in design
From WA State
Building WordPress sites 3+ years
http://elimcmakin.com/

3. New Tech
“Things done changed.” – Programmer Notorious BIG

4. List of Tech
Node – https://nodejs.org/
NPM – https://www.npmjs.com/
Bower – http://bower.io/
SASS and LibSASS – http://sass-lang.com/libsass
BrowserSync – http://www.browsersync.io/
Zurb Foundation – http://foundation.zurb.com/
Gulp.js – http://gulpjs.com/

5. Um … That’s a lot

6. Pear it Down

7. Use jumpstart
My personal WordPress base
https://github.com/elimc/jumpstart
Removes a lot of the code you would need to learn
Branched from Underscores (official WordPress theme)
Uses Foundation, Gulp.js, Bower, Modernizr, and my
custom functions

8. Lost?
Let’s introduce each technology

9. Node
Basically, Chromes JavaScript interpreter that can be
ported anywhere
We’ll use it as a server

10. JS as a Server?

11. JavaScript Everywhere
Node is Chromes V8 engine
Allows running of JS anywhere (desktop, server, IOT,
Raspberry Pi, Drones, etc …)

12. NPM
Package Manager for Node
Similar to Bower, Composer, RubyGems, PIP/PyPI,
Maven, etc …
Package managers allow us to download other people’s
code and keep them updated

13. Bower
Install with NPM
I use it to update Foundation
That’s it

14. SASS
Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets
Tired of 8000 line CSS files? Abstract them with SASS
Allows variables, importing, nesting, and some other
things
Written in Ruby, originally

15. SASS Variables
Variables converted to correct CSS during compilation

16. Importing
Split ginourmous CSS files into something manageable

17. Nesting
Pre-compiled SASS

18. Nesting
Post-compiled CSS

19. LibSASS
We use it to compile SASS into CSS
Based on the Ruby SASS compiler, but written in C/C++

20. LibSASS
Major speed boost compared to Ruby SASS compile
The timings for processing a 200 KB file of plain CSS
(lower is better, http://www.solitr.com/blog/2014/01/css-
preprocessor-benchmark/):
• Sass: 4.9 sec
• Sass: 2.5 sec (with warm .sass-cache)
• libsass: 0.2 sec

21. BrowserSync
Live-reloads everything
BrowserSync in action: http://quick.as/az3sxrb
We will combine BrowserSync with Gulp.js

22. Zurb Foundation
Similar to Bootstrap
I use it to create grids quickly
But mostly, I use it for the JS modules
Don’t write code if you can use someone else’s
Good example is Off-Canvas module:
http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/components/offcanvas.ht
ml

23. Gulp.js
Basically, faster version of Grunt
Will run tasks for us
Run with BrowserSync to reload pages

24. Grunt Internals
Convert SASS to CSS and auto-prefix it for browser
compatibility
Files temporarily saved before next step

25. Gulp Internals
Convert SASS to CSS and auto-prefix it for browser
compatibility
Files “piped” like in Unix

26. After Putting jumpstart in your
themes directory …
1. Adjust the path of the browserSyncProxy variable in
gulpfile.js.
2. Using the CLI, navigate to the root of your gulpfile.js file
and enter npm install.
3. Wait for the node_modules to automatically install. Once
installed, you won't have to run npm install for this site in
the future.
4. Enter “gulp” in the CLI, without the quotes. This will start
your node server, along with automattic SASS compiling.
5. That's it!

27. Jumpstart Step 1
Launch Apache server and MySQL database
Find the path to your WordPress install
Replace null with proper path

28. Set up Dependencies
Enter “npm install” in WP directory in Command Line
Interface
NPM will auto-download and set up modules

29. Watch Files
Choose files to monitor
For SASS, specify where to put CSS files

30. Init
Run tasks after “gulp” entered in Command Line

31. Live-Reload for PHP
When a watched PHP file is saved, we reload it in the
browser
I’ve never seen anyone else use this technique

32. Start it up!
Just enter Gulp in the CLI
That’s it

33. *Demonstrate Sexy Browser
Reloading Action
Receive wild applause and roses from crowd

34. Restarting Gulp
Sometimes gulp breaks if your PHP has compilation errors
Other random breaks
To restart Gulp:
1. Enter ^C in the CLI
2. Then enter “gulp” in the CLI
3. That’s it!

35. The Future
Instructions still too complex for new WordPress
Developer
Possible integration with Virtual Machine
Will allow one-line development setup with
Vagrant/Puppet
Would allow for handoff of projects to other team
members without needing to instruct them on setting up
their environment
Still exploratory

36. Thankyou