Web Assignment Starter

A template for bootstrapping a web assignment.

Setup

Clone or download this repo and install all dependencies:

npm install

Now you can write your files and tests under src/, and modify README.md with your assignment instructions for students.

Overview

The project is pre-configured with the following settings and tools:

• eslint for checking JavaScript linting issues in src/. See .eslintrc.js for configuration.
• stylelint for checking CSS linting issues in src/. See .stylelintrc.js for configuration.
• prettier for formatting HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code in src/. See .prettierrc.js for configuration.
• jest for testing JavaScript.

There is also a .vscode directory, which includes recommended extensions and project settings, to help use the above.

npm Scripts

There are a number of npm scripts to automate tasks, including:

• npm run eslint to run eslint
• npm run prettier to run prettier
• npm run stylelint to run stylelint
• npm test to run Jest
• npm test-watch to run Jest in watch mode (automatically re-runs tests)

When running tests, if you want to run a single test, pass extra filename info:

npm test file1

See package.json for a complete list.

Adding Tests

Unit tests can be added under src/* and be named using the .test.js suffix. For example, to write tests for file1.js use file1.test.js.

See the Jest Getting Started docs for info on how to write tests.

Instructions for Students

A student using this project would need to do the following:

npm install
...write code in src/...
npm test
...fix bugs in their code...
npm test
...repeat as necessary...
npm run prepare-submission

The command npm run prepare-submission will do the following:

• create a submission/ directory, deleting an existing one if present
• run prettier on the source
• copy all files under src/ to submission/src
• copy package.json to submission/package.json (i.e., so you can re-setup the project and run tests again if necessary).
• run eslint and write the output to submission/eslint.log
• run stylelint and write the output to submission/stylelint.log
• run npm test and write the output to submission/test.log
• zip the submission/* directory to submission.zip

The student can upload submission.zip to Blackboard for submission.

Instructions for Faculty

When a student submits a submission.zip it will contain output from running all the commands listed above. See submission/*.log to get details on warnings or failures caused by running one of the commands (e.g., failed tests).

If you need to re-run the tests to confirm something, use npm install first to regenerate node_modules/. Some students don't follow instructions, and zip the entire assignment folder, which will include node_modules/ and be huge. Try to educate them on why this is a bad idea (large file size, specific to an OS) and how to avoid (i.e., generate again using npm install).

Generating assignment.zip

Once you've written your code and tests in src/ you can create an assignment zip file (i.e., assignment.zip) using the npm run create-assignment command:

$ npm run create-assignment

> [email protected] clean /assignment/package.json
> rimraf assignment assignment.pdf assignment.zip


> [email protected] create-assignment-root /assignment/package.json
> mkdirp assignment


> [email protected] create-assignment-pdf /assignment/package.json
> markdown-pdf -o assignment.pdf README.md


> [email protected] create-assignment-files /assignment/package.json
> copyfiles ./.vscode/**/* ./src/**/* ./.eslintrc.js ./.npmrc ./.prettierrc.js ./stylelintrc.js package.json assignment.pdf assignment


> [email protected] create-assignment-zip /assignment/package.json
> bestzip assignment.zip assignment/

Writing assignment/ to assignment.zip...
zipped!

This command will do a number of things, including generate a PDF from your README.md (see below for more details), and also add the following files/folders to assignment.zip:

• .vscode/
• src/
• .eslintrc.js
• .npmrc
• .prettierrc.js
• .stylelintrc.js
• package.json
• assignment.pdf

This should be everything needed for a student to install and work on the assignment. If you want to include other files, modify create-assignment-zip in package.json.

NOTE: make sure you remember to remove any implementation code you wrote in src/

Converting README.md to assignment.pdf

Whatever you include in README.md will automatically be turned into assignment.pdf when the command npm run create-assignment-pdf is run. This is useful, since it lets you write your instructions as Markdown, but generate a PDF to give the students.

NOTE: The npm run create-assignment-pdf command is run automatically when you run npm run create-assignment.