First Steps with Enyo

Preparing Your Development Environment

As an Enyo developer, you have a great deal of freedom in choosing the platform and tools you use to code your applications. You may work in a Windows, Mac, or Linux environment. Only a few simple tools are needed to get up and running.

Text Editor

Strictly speaking, the only requirement to write Enyo code is a text editor. Just about any text editor will suffice, including basic freeware options such as Notepad++ (Windows) or TextWrangler (Mac). For what it's worth, most developers on the Enyo team use either Sublime Text, which is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, or the Mac-only TextMate. We have also heard good things about the multi-platform WebStorm IDE.

Node.js

Next, you'll need to have Node.js installed on your development machine. Enyo's build system requires Node version 4.0 or later. If Node is not installed, you will need to install it; if you have an outdated version, you will need to update it. To check the version of a Node installation, use the command node --version.

enyo-dev

Once Node is in place, you'll need the tools provided by the enyo-dev module. Use the following command to install the enyo-dev tool:

    npm install -g enyo-dev

You may need to run npm install as root, i.e., sudo npm install -g enyo-dev.)

Web Browser and Web Server

During your development process, you may test your code using any modern Web browser. While it is possible to test by loading files into the browser directly from the local file system, we strongly suggest that you access the application through an HTTP server. This approach provides numerous benefits, including the ability to test from remote devices.

Running your app on a Web server will also let you avoid dealing with the Chrome browser's AJAX security restrictions. If you choose to develop in Chrome and load your app directly from the file system, you'll need to launch the browser using the command-line switch "--allow-file-access-from-files". (On Windows, you can do this by creating a shortcut to chrome.exe and adding the switch to the end of the shortcut's Target property. Then use the shortcut each time you launch the browser. A similar approach should work on Mac and Linux as well.)

If you are not currently running a local Web server, you may want to use a stand-alone server that can be launched where and when needed. One such option is the npm module serve. Install it using the following command:

    npm install -g serve

This module can launch a web server (by default on port 3000) in the directory of your choice. For example, serve dist will serve your built enyo application.

Alternatively, if you need a more robust solution, you may want to install an Apache/MySQL/PHP software bundle, such as BitNami WAMPStack (Windows) or MAMP (Mac).

Next Steps

Now that you have all the necessary tools, try creating a new app using the instructions in Creating and Building an App.

Or, if you haven't already done so, take a look at the Moonstone App Tutorial.