chirpy Wiki Rss Feed

New Comment on "Documentation"

schalkvanwyk — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:37:35 GMT

Great tool, but it's easy to miss Chirpy's settings found in the VS options dialogue and there is a small catch to remember if you want to use the T4 template feature: "One of the new T4MVC related features put into the latest release is 'Smart Run T4MVC'. If you turn on this option in the chirpy settings, it will only run the T4MVC template when it should." from: http://blog.waynebrantley.com/2010/07/t4mvc-add-in-and-resource-compression.html

New Comment on "Documentation"

leavelllusion — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 10:09:04 GMT

I get 500 - Internal server error on all http://www.weirdlover.com/ links from this page

New Comment on "Documentation"

amitkumarpatel — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 06:32:35 GMT

I have written article on it how to use it. http://www.dotnetchunks.com/Article/Chirpy%20-%20VS%20Add%20In%20for%20Handling%20CSS,%20JS,%20DotLess%20and%20T4%20files/54#.UHEggk3MjHQ Thanks Amit

Updated Wiki: Documentation

ploufs — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 16:31:17 GMT

Goto :
XML config
http://chirpy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=XML%20Config
Version 2
http://www.weirdlover.com/2011/03/03/chirpy-v2/
Version 1.0.0.5
http://www.weirdlover.com/2010/09/07/chirpy-to-the-xxxtreme-v1-0-0-5-da-kine-release/
Version 1.0.0.4
http://www.weirdlover.com/2010/07/18/chirpy-attains-godlike-abilities-in-version-1-0-0-4/

New Comment on "XML Config"

ploufs — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 16:30:06 GMT

Create by : flamewave4 http://chirpy.codeplex.com/workitem/153

Updated Wiki: XML Config

ploufs — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 16:28:48 GMT

XML Config At-A-Glance

Click on a node or attribute name for details.

<root xmlns="urn:ChirpyConfig" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <Settings>
        <Setting
            key=""
            value="" />
    </Settings>

    <FileGroup
        Name="string"
        Path="string"
        Minify="true|false|both"
        Debug="true|false"
        Find="string|regex"
        Replace="string">

        <File
            Path="string"
            Minify="true|false|both"
            MinifyType="MinifyType"
            Engine="Less|<nothing>"
            CustomArgument="string"
            Find="string|regex"
            Replace="string" />
        
        <Folder
            Pattern="string"
            Minify="true|false"
            Deep="true|false"
            Find="string|regex"
            Replace="string" />
        
        <Raw
            Type="CSS|JS">
            <!-- Place your CSS or JS code here. -->
        </Raw>

    </FileGroup>
</root>

Element and Attribute Overview

Element: root
This is the root node of the XML config file. It is required and must occur exactly once.
- Element: Settings
  This is the container class for the Chirpy settings. It is not required, but must only occur once if used. Settings specified here will override the defaults set in the main Chirpy configuration window.
  - Element: Setting
    This is the node that contains an individual setting. It has two required attributes:
    key: The name of the setting. See the list below for a list of available settings and their values.
    value: The value of the setting.
- Element: FileGroup
  This element defines a group of files that will be combined into one "compiled" file. This element is optional, and can occur an unlimited number of times.
  
  Child nodes in the file group are processed in the order they appear. This way if you have files that need to be included in a certain order this is possible.
  
  The following attributes are available:
  
  Name: The name of the "compiled" file. The file will be located in the same folder as the config file (or if a path is specified, the path must be relative to the location of the config file). Either Name or Path must be specified or an error will be thrown.
  
  Path: The name and path of the "compiled" file. This value will override the Name attribute (i.e. if both are specified, Name will be ignored). Paths are relative to the root of the Visual Studio project. Either Name or Path must be specified or an error will be thrown.
  
  Authors Note: As far as I can tell, Path is relative to the Visual Studio project root. I have not experimented to see if that is actually the case. Perhaps one of the developers can verify this.
  
  Minify: A value indicating if files in the file group should be minified or simply combined into a single file. Possible values are true, false, or both. If both is specified, then the files will be combined into an uncompiled file with the name specified in Name or Path, and a compiled version of the file will also be generated with ".min" (or the configured suffix) suffixed to the end of the file name (before the file extension). If this attribute is omitted, a true value is assumed.
  
  Debug: Indicates if debug information should be included in uncompiled versions of files.
  
  Authors Note: In older versions of Chirpy, this was what determined if an uncompiled version of the file group's file was generated. Currently it appears that all this option does is insert a comment at the top of each file in the combined file stating what options were used and the name and path of the original file.
  
  Find: A string or a regular expression search pattern to search for in the code before it is processed (compiled). Used in conjunction with Replace to perform search and replace operations on code files during the compilation process. For file groups, the search and replace operation is performed after all the files are combined into one but before they are minified.
  
  Authors Note: This attribute seems to be ignored (for the FileGroup node only) by source code currently. The FileGroupXml class never loads it's value from the config file.
  
  Replace: A string to replace values found by the Find attribute in the code before it is processed (compiled). Used in conjunction with Find to perform search and replace operations on code files during the compilation process. For file groups, the search and replace operation is performed after all the files are combined into one but before they are minified.
  
  Authors Note: This attribute seems to be ignored (for the FileGroup node only) by source code currently. The FileGroupXml class never loads it's value from the config file.
  - Element: File
    This element is used to include a single file in a FileGroup. This element is optional and can occur an unlimited number of times.
    
    The following attributes are available:
    
    Path: The path to the file to include in the file group. Can be either an absolute path or a path relative to the location of the config file. This attribute is required.
    
    Minify: A Boolean value indicating if the file should be minified before it is combined with other files in the file group. If this attribute is omitted, false is assumed.
    
    Authors Note: Currently, if true is specified, the file code appears to be compiled twice: once when iterating through the files (the file contents is compiled and then appended to the code for the file group) and then again when the file group's code is compiled (unless the file group has a Minify attribute value of false). This doesn't appear to affect the code, although it may affect it when using the advanced optimizations mode for the Google Closure compiler.
    
    MinifyType: Allows you to specify what compiler to use to compress the file. This attribute is only used if the Minify attribute is true. If omitted, the default compiler is used (specified in the Chirpy options).
    
    See MinifyType below for a list of possible values.
    
    Engine: Allows a custom parser engine to be specified. Currently only the {less} CSS engine is supported. If omitted, no custom engine is used.
    
    CustomArgument: Allows custom arguments to be passed to the compiler engine. This attribute is only used if the Minify attribute is true.
    
    Find: Same as Find for the FileGroup node, but allows a search and replace operation that is limited to the contents of this file only.
    
    Replace: Same as Replace for the FileGroup node, but allows a search and replace operation that is limited to the contents of this file only.
  - Element: Folder
    This element is used to include a folder of files in a FileGroup. This element is optional and can occur an unlimited number of times.
    
    The following attributes are available:
    
    Pattern: The path of the folder to include the files of. The path must be either an absolute path or a path relative to the config file. The wildcard characters "*" and "?" can be used to specify patterns in the file names of the files within the folder to include. The "*" wildcard will match zero or more characters and the "?" wildcard character will match exactly zero or one character. For example, "*.js" would include all files with the ".js" extension.
    
    This attribute is required. See the remarks section of http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143316 for more details on wildcard support and examples.
    
    Deep: A value indicating if files within sub-folders should also be processed. If omitted, true is assumed.
    
    Minify: A Boolean value indicating if the files within the folder should be minified before they are combined with other files in the file group. If this attribute is omitted, false is assumed.
    
    Authors Note: Currently, if true is specified, the file code appears to be compiled twice: once when iterating through the files (the file contents is compiled and then appended to the code for the file group) and then again when the file group's code is compiled (unless the file group has a Minify attribute value of false). This doesn't appear to affect the code, although it may affect it when using the advanced optimizations mode for the Google Closure compiler.
    
    Find: Same as Find for the FileGroup node, but allows a search and replace operation that is limited to the files within this folder only.
    
    Replace: Same as Replace for the FileGroup node, but allows a search and replace operation that is limited to the files within this folder only.
  - Element: Raw
    This element is used to include raw code in a FileGroup that is not in a file. This element is optional and can occur an unlimited number of times.
    
    The following attributes are available:
    
    Type: Specifies the code type contained in the node. Possible values are "CSS" for cascading style sheet code, or "JS" for JavaScript code. If omitted, "JS" is assumed.

List of Settings

And their possible values.

ChirpDeanEdwardsPackerFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpDeanEdwardsPackerFastDecode: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>
ChirpDeanEdwardsPackerSpecialChars: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>
ChirpDeanEdwardsPackerEncoding: <var>DeanEdwardsPackerEncoding</var>
ChirpJsFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpSimpleJsFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpWhiteSpaceJsFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpSassFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMSAjaxSassFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpHybridSassFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMichaelAshSassFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpScssFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMSAjaxScssFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpHybridScssFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMichaelAshScssFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpYUIJsFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpGctJsFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMSAjaxJsFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpPartialViewFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpViewFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpRazorCSViewFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpRazorVBViewFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpLessFile: <var>string</var>
LessSyntaxHighlighting: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>
ChirpMSAjaxLessFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpHybridLessFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMichaelAshLessFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpUglifyJsFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpCoffeeScriptFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpSimpleCoffeeScriptFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpWhiteSpaceCoffeeScriptFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpYUICoffeeScriptFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpGctCoffeeScriptFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMSAjaxCoffeeScriptFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpUglifyCoffeeScriptFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpCssFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMSAjaxCssFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpHybridCssFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpMichaelAshCssFile: <var>string</var>
ChirpConfigFile: <var>string</var>
DefaultCssMinifier: <var>MinifyType</var>
DefaultJavaScriptMinifier: <var>MinifyType</var>
DotLessCompress: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> <!--
AllLessExtensions: comma delimited string
AllExtensions: comma delimited string
JsHintOptions: <var>JSHintOptions</var>
CssLintOptions: <var>CSSLintOptions</var>
CoffeeScriptOptions: <var>CoffeeScriptOptions</var>
MsJsSettings: <var>Microsoft.Ajax.Utilities.CodeSettings</var>
MsCssSettings: <var>Microsoft.Ajax.Utilities.CssSettings</var>
YuiCssSettings: <var>YuiCssSettings</var>
YuiJsSettings: <var>YuiJsSettings</var> -->
T4RunAsBuild: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>
T4RunAsBuildTemplate: <var>string</var>
SmartRunT4MVC: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>
RunJSHint: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>
RunCSSLint: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>
OutputExtensionJS: <var>string</var>
OutputExtensionCSS: <var>string</var>
GoogleClosureOffline: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>
GoogleClosureJavaPath: <var>string</var>
ShowDetailLog: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>

Custom Types

DeanEdwardsPackerEncoding: None; Numeric; Mid; Normal; HighAscii
MinifyType: Unspecified: Not set/use default; yui: Yahoo UI compressor; yuiMARE: Yahoo UI with Michael Ash Regex Enhancement; yuiHybrid: Yahoo UI hybrid; gctAdvanced: Google Closure Tools - Advanced; gctSimple: Google Closure Tools - Simple; gctWhiteSpaceOnly: Google Closure Tools - Whitespace only; msAjax: Microsoft Ajax Toolkit; uglify: Uglify.js; jsBeautifier: js Beautifier <!--
JSHintOptions: bitwise: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Prohibit the use of bitwise operators.; boss: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Allow assignments inside if/for/while/do.; curly: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Require curly braces around all blocks.; debug: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Allow debugger statements.; eqeqeq: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Require that you use === and !== for all comparisons; evil: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Allow the use of eval.; forin: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Disallow the use of for in without hasOwnProperty.; immed: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Require immediate invocations to be wrapped in parens.; laxbreak: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Not check line breaks.; maxerr: <var>integer</var> | <var>null</var> - Maximum number of errors before stops processing your source.; newcap: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Require that you capitalize all constructor functions.; noarg: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Prohibit the use of arguments.caller and arguments.callee.; noempty: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Prohibit the use of empty blocks.; nonew: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Prohibit the use of constructors for side-effects.; nomen: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Disallow the use of initial or trailing underbars in names.; onevar: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Allow only one var statement per function.; passfail: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Stop on the first error it encounter.; plusplus: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Prohibit the use of increment and decrement operators.; regexp: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Prohibit the use of unsafe in regular expressions.; undef: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Require all non-global variables be declared before they are used.; sub: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Tolerate all forms of subscript notation.; strict: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Require you to use "use strict"; pragma.; white: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Check your code against strict whitespace rules.
CSSLintOptions: AdjoiningClasses: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Don't use adjoining classes.; Import: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Don't use @import.; Ids: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Don't use IDs in selectors.; EmptyRules: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Remove empty rules.; DisplayPropertyGrouping: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Use correct properties for a display.; Floats: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Don't use too many floats.; FontFaces: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Don't use too many web fonts.; FontSizes: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Don't use too may font-size declarations.; QualifiedHeadings: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Don't qualify headings.; UniqueHeadings: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Heading styles should only be defined once.; ZeroUnits: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Zero values don't need units.; VendorPrefix: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Vendor prefixed properties should also have the standard.; Gradients: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - CSS gradients require all browser prefixes.; RegexSelectors: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Avoid selectors that look like regular expressions.; BoxModel: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Beware of broken box models.; Important: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Don't use !important.; CompatibleVendorPrefixes: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Include all compatible vendor prefixes.; DuplicateProperties: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Avoid duplicate properties.
CoffeeScriptOptions: bare: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Compile the JavaScript without the top-level function safety wrapper.
YuiCssSettings: ColumnWidth: <var>integer</var> - Number of characters before text wrapping occurs.; RemoveComments: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var> - Indicates if comments should be stripped.
YuiJsSettings: IsObfuscateJavascript: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>; PreserveAllSemiColons: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>; DisableOptimizations: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>; LineBreakPosition: <var>integer</var>; IgnoreEval: <var>true</var> | <var>false</var>-->

New Comment on "Documentation"

isochronous — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:55:46 GMT

Guess what? You guys are right, open source projects certainly don't require documentation. But you know what else? Everyone I know who was once using Chirpy is now moving to some other solution (myself included) and the lack of documentation is a primary reason. There are THOUSANDS of open source projects that include at least rudimentary documentation, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect at least a "getting started" guide, or a list of all the options available (thanks, btw, flamewave4, for providing what the author couldn't be bothered to generate).

New Comment on "Documentation"

flamewave4 — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 18:03:41 GMT

For those wanting documentation on the config file, I threw something together. See http://chirpy.codeplex.com/workitem/153

New Comment on "Documentation"

richyk — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:14:32 GMT

I agree with Tim as well. I'm glad to be able to use this in the first place. I understand the comments though, it's not too easy too implement and especially when you use it in a live environment and something goes wrong, you'd like some quick help or a manual, but that is just too bad :-) Take it or leave it

New Comment on "Documentation"

gtbremer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:42:17 GMT

After carefully consideration of the insightful comments from raylinder and timheckel, I've changed my mind. Chirpy has the kindest, warmest, most wonderful documentation I've ever seen. Furthermore, there is no reason whatsoever to offer any constructive criticism of any aspect of an OSS project.

New Comment on "Documentation"

raylinder — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:31:11 GMT

I agree with Tim. If you want documentation, go find a similar product and PAY for it OR add your own documentation. This stuff is FREE, as included in what "free" offers. If there is ANY documentation, be thankful it exists. Documentation is never required, regardless.

New Comment on "Documentation"

timheckel — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:24:55 GMT

jeez. lay off this guy. so the documentation is thin? don't use the tool. it's free, remember? If you want to make it better, dig through the code and start documenting it...then share. but. please. don't. bitch. it's so tiresome.

Updated Wiki: Home

ploufs — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:36:37 GMT

Meet Chirpy

Mashes, minifies, and validates your javascript, stylesheet, and dotless files.
Chirpy can also auto-update T4MVC and other T4 templates.

Chirpy is chippy. Use Google Closure Tools, YUI Compressor for .Net, Ajax Minifier, or Uglify.js to minify and mash all of your precious assets. It's easy, it's flexible, and it's automatic.

Chirpy also flirts with T4. Auto-run your T4 templates. Smart-run your T4MVC template. Make your friends and family members uber-jealous.

NEW Chirpy now supports CoffeeScript , Sass!

For extensive documentation, please check out weirdlover.com.

You can also follow project updates via Twitter.

New Comment on "Documentation"

ArmchairBronco — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 23:43:04 GMT

I'm also going to weigh in with some complaints about the lack of up-to-date documentation. I've been using Chirpy since the early days with version 1.0. As noted, back then the blog posts from the original author were a pretty good road map (although the constant stream of humor & pithy comments does become tiresome). Since Chirpy 2.0 has been released and folks in the community have been adding to the tool, there has been essentially zero effort to aggregate a summary of the changes in one place and provide step-by-step instructions and code samples for users of the tool. It seems as if people are just making random changes to solve a specific need, and then checking the code in. And the checkins are being done very casually, with debug statements left behind that need to be fixed 5 minutes later. This clearly indicates very little unit testing is going on. It's not surprising that documentation is basically ignored in such an environment. I've reviewed the checkin comments and have found them to be (for the most part) totally lacking in any meaningful explanation of what happened. Occasionally, someone will try to paint a before and after picture, but frequently the comments are so poorly written (littered with spelling and grammatical mistakes) that they only confuse things. In particular, work related to the *.config mashup files is very poorly documented, if at all. This is one of the pitfalls of Open Source projects. It's great when everyone has access to the sources and can make changes, but binary-level changes are only half of the equation. If you don't document what you've done so others can use (and/or test) your changes, then what's the point?

New Comment on "Documentation"

ArmchairBronco — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 23:19:46 GMT

I'm also going to weight in with some complaints about the lack of up-to-date documentation. I've been using Chirpy since the early days back with version 1.0. As noted, back then the blog posts from the original author were a pretty good road map. Since Chirpy 2.0 has been release and folks in the community have been adding to the tool, there has been essentially zero effort to aggregate a summary of the changes in one place and provide step-by-step instructions and code samples for users of the tool. It seems as if people are just making random changes to solve a specific need, and then checking the code in. And the checkins are being done very casually, with debug statements left behind that need to be fixed 5 minutes later. This clearly indicates very little unit testing is going on. It's not surprising that documentation is basically ignored in such an environment. I've reviewed the checkin comments and have found them to be (for the most part) totally lacking in any meaningful explanation of what happened. Occasionally, someone will try to paint a before and after picture, but frequently the comments are so poorly written (littered with spelling and grammatical mistakes) that they only confuse things. In particular, work related to the *.config mashup files is very poorly documented, if at all. This is one of the pitfalls of Open Source projects. It's great when everyone has access to the sources and can make changes, but binary-level changes are only half of the equation. If you don't document what you've done so others can use (and/or test) your changes, then what's the point?

New Comment on "Documentation"

gtbremer — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:51:43 GMT

+1 for "Is there any 'real' documentation?" While the blog posts are entertaining at first, the humor quickly become annoying when you're trying to figure out how something actually works.

New Comment on "Documentation"

broth628 — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:40:33 GMT

Is there any "real" documentation? I'm specifically looking for examples of using the "mashing" functionality but what's in the above links appears to be VERY out of date (especially when compared to the source code). We have a main scripts folder containing most of our js files, but we also have js files throughout the site as well and would like to mash them all together into a single file (actually two files: one minimized and another not minimized). The problem I seem to be having is that it's trying to mash the mash file (e.g. recursively mashing the file into itself to the point of having to kill my VStudio process). Thanks, BR

Updated Wiki: Documentation

ploufs — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:58:39 GMT

Goto :
Version 2
http://www.weirdlover.com/2011/03/03/chirpy-v2/
Version 1.0.0.5
http://www.weirdlover.com/2010/09/07/chirpy-to-the-xxxtreme-v1-0-0-5-da-kine-release/
Version 1.0.0.4
http://www.weirdlover.com/2010/07/18/chirpy-attains-godlike-abilities-in-version-1-0-0-4/

Updated Wiki: Home

weirdlover — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:10:52 GMT

Meet Chirpy

For extensive documentation, please check out weirdlover.com.

You can also follow project updates via Twitter.

Updated Wiki: Home

weirdlover — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:24:31 GMT

Meet Chirpy

For extensive documentation, please check out weirdlover.com.

You can also follow project updates via Twitter.