Plugins
Plugins are packages that provides core processing for the Expansive processing pipeline. Plugins provide services that are used to transform content from one file type to another. For example: the exp-markdown plugin provides the Markdown service that transforms .md files into standard .html files.
Installing Plugins
Plugins are delivered as Pak packages. Most skeletons will install the required plugins by specifying them as skeleton package dependencies. This means you often do not need to explicitly install plugins when installing skeletons.
To install a plugin, simply use pak install. For example:
pak install exp-babel
This will install the Babel transpiler to compile Javascript ES6 into Javascript ES5. If the plugin relies on other packages as dependencies, those dependent packages will also be installed.
Expansive understands the list of package dependencies in the package.json and will automatically add plugins loaded as packages to its transformation processing pipeline. Other than installing the plugin, no further configuration is required to enable the plugin.
Popular Plugins
| Package Name | Description |
|---|---|
| exp-angular | Manage building Angular applications. |
| exp-babel | Convert client-side ES6 Javascript to ES5 for current browsers. |
| exp-css | Process CSS files to add browser specific prefixes and minify the output. |
| exp-esp | Compile ESP pages, controllers and applications. |
| exp-gzip | Compress final content using gzip. |
| exp-js | Process Javascript files to minify. |
| exp-less | Process Less stylesheets into CSS. |
| exp-markdown | Process markdown pages into HTML. |
| exp-reload | Live reload in the browser for Expansive when content is updated. |
| exp-sass | Process SASS files into css. |
| exp-shell | Run shell scripts and capture the output. |