tinfox project creator

A rewrite of https://github.com/bit101/tinpig in Go.

tinfox is a simple command line utility for quickly creating projects of any kind. Projects are created from templates which are collections of folders and files. The folders and files can contain special tokens that can be replaced with other values when the project is created. You can use an existing temple as-is, modify a template, or create your own from scratch.

tinfox is currently somewhat more simple and more minimal than tinpig. This is based on years of personal use, seeing what features I regularly used and what I did not use.

Requirements

Go 1.22.1

Installation

go install github.com/bit101/tinfox@latest

First Use

The first time you use tinfox, a tinfox directory will be created in the OS standard configuration location. This will contain a templates directory with one sample template, and a config file.

You can add additional templates to the templates directory, which will then be available for use.

Various settings can be applied in the config file, including the location of your templates, color theme values, and verbosity. These will be covered further on in this file.

Use

Simply type tinfox on the command line. You will be shown a list of installed templates. Choose one and you'll be walked through the steps to create a project based on that template. The process will include:

1. Choosing a location for the new project. This must be a valid path on your file system. No other file or folder can exist at that location.
2. Depending on the template, you may be presented with one or more tokens to provide values for. These may or may not include default values. Enter a value for each token.
3. If project creation is successful, the path to the new project will be displayed along with any instructions included in the template.

Configuration

The default config file looks like this:

{
  "templatesDir": "/home/keith/.config/tinfox/templates",
  "invalidPathChars": "‘“!#$%\u0026+^\u003c=\u003e` ",
  "headerColor": "boldgreen",
  "instructionColor": "yellow",
  "errorColor": "boldred",
  "defaultValueColor": "blue",
  "verbose": true
}

The templatesDir value will be slightly different based on your OS and user name of course. It defaults to the templates folder that is in the same location as the config file. But you can change it to point anywhere on your file system. You may likely want to keep your templates in a version controlled or backed up location.

The invalidPathChars value determines which characters will not be accepted when prompting the user for a path. Note that <, = and > have been rendered in unicode. Also note that the space character is included. If you want to be able to specify path names with spaces, you can remove that, but it may very well cause problems.

The next four values specify colors that will be used in prompts. These are pretty obvious, but can be changed to suit your tastes or terminal theme. Available colors are listed below. They are NOT case sensitive, so "boldred", "Boldred", "BoldRed" or "BOLDRED", etc. are all the same.

• "black"
• "boldblack"
• "red"
• "boldred"
• "green"
• "boldgreen"
• "yellow"
• "boldyellow"
• "blue"
• "boldblue"
• "purple"
• "boldpurple"
• "cyan"
• "boldcyan"
• "white"
• "boldwhite"

The verbose value determines how much information is shown while prompting your for values and setting up your project. Expert users may be comfortable with setting this to false.

Commands and Flags

tinfox -h or tinpig --help displays general help data.

tinfox version displays the current version of tinfox.

tinfox list displays all available templates and descriptions as a view-only list.

Templates

Coming soon. For now, https://github.com/bit101/tinpig/wiki/Tinpig-Template-Guide mostly applies, with the changes listed below.

Differences from tinpig

Removed, not coming back:

• tinpig has special user name and email configuration values. These can be used in templates, but mostly are not and can be set up as tokens in templates in the case they are needed. They have been removed in tinfox.

• tinpig has a configuration function that walks you through configuration, and a config reset function. These have been removed in tinfox. A sensible default config is created and it can be edited manually.

• tinpig allows you to create a project in an existing directory, even if that directory is not empty. It gives a warning and will not overwrite any existing files. tinfox just disallows the use of an existing directory.

• tinpig came with more built-in templates. tinfox only has one sample template. https://github.com/bit101/tinfox-templates provides additional samples which you can copy or use as inspiration.

Not yet, but probably coming soon:

• tinpig allows you to specify a template and path on the command line. In general it's just easier to choose a template from a list and enter the path when prompted. So this did not carry over to tinfox. These could be useful in scripting or setting up shortcuts though, so it may come back.

• tinpig allows for setting a temporary template directory when calling the command. tinfox does not have that functionality, but may have more advanced template management in the future.

New in tinfox, not in tinpig:

• tinfox added the verbose setting.

• tinfox added customizable colors.

Template Differences

tinfox uses almost the exact same template format as tinpig. The only differences:

• tinpig uses a tinpig.json manifest file whereas tinfox uses template.json
• Special tokens:
  • TINPIG_USER_NAME and TINPIG_USER_EMAIL do not exist in tinfox as the user name and email have been removed from config.
  • TINPIG_PROJECT_PATH has become PROJECT_PATH
  • TINPIG_PROJECT_DIR has become PROJECT_DIR

Why the change from tinpig?

tinpig was created with node.js and uses several third party libraries from npm. I'm not super comfortable with node and npm these days, but I constantly have my hands on Go. I've made a number of other tools and libraries in Go and have wanted to pull over tinpig's templated project creation functionality to Go for a long time. So here it is.

I've been personally using tinpig for years and other than a recent dependency upgrade have not really touched the code in a long, long time. When I started porting it over, I was actually pretty impressed about how much functionality I'd given it initially and how well it all just worked. The port took more work than I expected and there's still stuff to be moved over. But it is functionally working now at least.

TODO

• Create wiki with full info. Move readme to that.
• Allow user to enter template on command line.
• Allow user to enter project path on command line.
• Allow use of alternate template directory.
• Additional template management features (template categories maybe).