Amber: [Enhancement] Simplify default front-end

[faustinoaq]

Description

I would suggest to remove the current front-end configuration (making amber more lightweight and less complex) . Then we would offer a configurable amber watch (see #476), so amber could include just a basic vanilla js css and finally we can provide examples or scaffolding to add npm, yarn, webpack, rollup, laravel-mix, parcel, browserfy, and so on.

Recently on my projects I'm removing all default JavaScript, css and webpack config, also I'm commenting this line all time. Mainly Because I'm not using complex front-ends on my projects and removing NPM does my workflow faster (sometimes I removed it to use yarn ) :sweat_smile:

Steps to Reproduce

Not applicable

Expected behavior: Not applicable

Actual behavior: Not applicable

Reproduces how often: Not applicable

Versions

v0.6.7

Additional Information

See original comment here: https://github.com/amberframework/amber/issues/692#issuecomment-372379819

@amberframework/contributors WDYT?

[robacarp]

What would the default front end workflow look like? Just putting the amber.js script straight in the public folder?

[faustinoaq]

Just putting the amber.js script straight in the public folder?

Actually, I think we can make current front-end workflow optional, so we should provide a basic main.js and styles.css on public folder as you said, but we can have the option to scaffold a default front-end like this: amber g frontend, so people creating api or simple apps with custom front-end don't have to delete our webpack config and folders that comes by default, WDYT?

BTW, We can provide some guide for developers about how to create their own font-end generators

So, Hopefully we could have:

targets:
  amber_parcel:
    main: /lib/amber_parcel/src/cli.cr

dependencies:
  amber_parcel:
    github: jondoe/amber_parcel

An then they can do something like: bin/amber_parcel g frontend

Related issue: https://github.com/amberframework/amber/issues/573

[robacarp]

I like that idea.

What about amber g webpack-frontend instead?

[marksiemers]

If frontends will be standard as plugins, what about:

amber g frontend webpack

or will that get too complicated with options, etc. that could be passed to the generators?

[faustinoaq]

amber g frontend webpack

I like this one :+1: so we should be able to do:

amber g frontend rollup
amber g frontend yarn
amber g frontend npm
amber g frontend parcel
amber g frontend browserfy
amber g frontend npm
# and so on ...

or will that get too complicated with options, etc. that could be passed to the generators?

I think that's not an issue, we can figure out how to do that.

[faustinoaq]

Interesting comment here: https://github.com/amberframework/amber/issues/580#issuecomment-379435659

Seems recipe feature is going to fix a lot of issues :wink:

[drujensen]

This should be addressed using recipes. Closing this.