Slushbox

Reloads web pages when files in local directories change.

Contact

John J. Workman (@workmajj)

Description

When building static web pages, you need to reload them often to see your changes. Slushbox opens web pages and then refreshes them automatically when files in their respective directories (or subdirectories) change. So if you edit a CSS file, for example, Slushbox will notice and refresh accordingly.

Slushbox also works with arbitrary URLs. This addresses situations where a web framework is handling your URL routing or you're working in a server-hosted dev environment. Slushbox runs as long as the initial URL can be pattern-matched in the browser bar, so you can even navigate to subpages.

At this point, Slushbox has a couple known (and probably some unknown!) limitations:

• Runs only under Mac OS X, since it uses AppleScript for browser control.

• Currently works only with Google Chrome (not yet tested with Safari, and Firefox has minimal AppleScript support).

Thanks to Robert Winslow (@robert_winslow) for the initial project idea!

Running on OS X 10.7 Lion

Slushbox relies on the MacFSEvents library, which will be installed automatically if you use pip. Parts of MacFSEvents are written in C and will not compile under XCode 4.2. If you want to install Slushbox on Lion, first tell OS X to use gcc instead of llvm-gcc (which is the new default on XCode 4.2):

$ CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.2

This will ensure that MacFSEvents compiles correctly when Slushbox installs it.

If you don't have the gcc-4.2 binary on your system, you can get it by installing Xcode 4.1 or by using osx-gcc-installer.

Testing & Usage

1. Install Slushbox from PyPI. If you have pip on your system, you can do:

   $ sudo pip install slushbox
   

2. Next, create a temporary directory. In that directory, make an HTML file called test.html with these contents:

   <p>Lorem ipsum blah blah blah.</p>
   

3. Run Slushbox in that directory, telling it to open the file and watch the directory (and any subdirectories) for changes:

   $ slushbox test.html
   

4. At this point, Chrome should open if it's not already running, and the page will load in a new tab.

5. Now use a text editor to modify test.html. Slushbox will reload the page in Chrome when you save. You can also try adding or deleting files in the directory, or creating and modifying subdirectories. While the page is open, you can even navigate to other linked files.

6. When you're finished, close the browser tab Slushbox originally opened; the command-line program will quit automatically.

7. Slushbox can also refresh arbitrary URLs, which is handy for working with web frameworks or remote dev environments:

   $ mkdir random-directory
   $ slushbox random-directory https://github.com/workmajj/slushbox
   

8. Now when you modify the contents of random-directory, Chrome will reload that GitHub page (or the current page if you've navigated away).

License

Copyright (c) 2011, John J. Workman. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

• The names of its contributors may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.