I just stumbled across one of those “it’s about time” utilities for front-end app development: Live Server. Long story short, you issue the command live-server from your application’s current directory and… well… that’s it. A browser pops open, your web app is loaded, and the lil’ utility watches for changes. Any changes that are made are instantly pushed to the browser.
Installation is ridiculously easy via NPM:
npm install -g live-server
Of course, there’s a slew of command line switches and parameters to make even the geekiest geek happy:
--port=NUMBER– select port to use, default: PORT env var or 8080--host=ADDRESS– select host address to bind to, default: IP env var or 0.0.0.0 (“any address”)--no-browser– suppress automatic web browser launching--browser=BROWSER– specify browser to use instead of system default--quiet | -q– suppress logging--verbose | -V– more logging (logs all requests, shows all listening IPv4 interfaces, etc.)--open=PATH– launch browser to PATH instead of server root--watch=PATH– comma-separated string of paths to exclusively watch for changes (default: watch everything)--ignore=PATH– comma-separated string of paths to ignore (anymatch-compatible definition)--ignorePattern=RGXP– Regular expression of files to ignore (ie.*\.jade) (DEPRECATED in favor of--ignore)--middleware=PATH– path to .js file exporting a middleware function to add; can be a name without path nor extension to reference bundled middlewares inmiddlewarefolder--entry-file=PATH– serve this file (server root relative) in place of missing files (useful for single page apps)--mount=ROUTE:PATH– serve the paths contents under the defined route (multiple definitions possible)--spa– translate requests from /abc to /#/abc (handy for Single Page Apps)--wait=MILLISECONDS– (default 100ms) wait for all changes, before reloading--htpasswd=PATH– Enables http-auth expecting htpasswd file located at PATH--cors– Enables CORS for any origin (reflects request origin, requests with credentials are supported)--https=PATH– PATH to a HTTPS configuration module--proxy=ROUTE:URL– proxy all requests for ROUTE to URL--help | -h– display terse usage hint and exit--version | -v– display version and exit
If you’re building web-based apps, or even if you’re just starting out in web development, this little gem will save you a tonne of time up front.
