I wrote previously about Continuous Integration for JavaScript where I explained a build with Jenkins and Gradle. I’ve learned a lot since that article and thought it’s now significant enough to write more on the topic.

Documentation

When you’re writing code that other developers have to use or maintain, you ought to provide some amount of documentation. Your code is simply not self-documenting enough.

My favorite doc tool right now is jsduck developed by Sencha Labs for their Ext JS 4 docs. It basically consumes JSDoc-style comments (with some extras for namespaces, etc.) and generates beautiful documentation. Super easy to install and use:
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Jenkins is a CI tool that is often used for Running tests and code analysis for Java and .NET projects. There are a lot of benefits that we as a community are not taking advantage of for our web (CSS, JS, etc) code. In this article I’m going to walk you through setting up automated building and testing for a JavaScript project.

NOTE: The steps outlined are generally Linux/Mac centric, I don’t go into depth on Windows setup, but it shouldn’t be much different using Cygwin.

Why use CI?

Aside from the traditional benefits you see from your compiled code, there are some very compelling reasons:

1. Automate versioning, combining, minifying, and gzipping files
2. Run automated tests and get reports, keeping the codebase maintainable
3. Run static analysis tools like the closure compiler or jshint
4. Auto-deploy files (to S3, say) if our build passes
5. Tag and other special stuff for release builds
6. … that’s just JavaScript, we can also hook in Selenium tests, CSS Lint, and more

Not convinced? Tell me why in the comments.
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Anyone looking to stay productive with their work, errands or chores keeps a to-do list. You need to have that to-do list available at all times and be easy to manage.

With that in mind, I am introducing an application that I think will help you with that: Cheqlist. A desktop application powered by Remember The Milk that does 2 things very well: make managing tasks very efficient and look sweet on your desktop.

What makes Cheqlist awesome

I wanted to build an application that I, myself, would use everyday. There are a few key features that would make that happen:

• Adding tasks quickly using RTM’s new Smart Add feature
• Visual appeal and lots of room for customization. Special thanks to Rakesh Menon for allowing me to use his JavaFX color picker
• Easily search tasks and use RTM’s custom search keywords
• Must work on all the OSes I use: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux

On top of that, I think there are some things you’ll come to appreciate:

• Easy-update: Cheqlist checks for updates on startup, and if you want to upgrade, it takes just seconds!
• Free and open-source
• Lots of nice “easter egg” features for those of you who take time to find them ;)

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