Introduction
Polymer CLI is a command-line interface tool that helps developers to create, test and deploy Polymer applications. Polymer is a JavaScript library that provides a set of web components, which allows developers to create reusable and modular components for web applications. If you are new to Polymer or just getting started with it, this article will guide you through the process of installing Polymer CLI using npm.
What is NPM?
NPM stands for Node Package Manager, which is a package manager for Node.js. It allows developers to install and manage packages or modules that are required for their project. NPM is widely used in the JavaScript community and is the go-to package manager for web development projects.
How to Install NPM
Before installing Polymer CLI, you need to install Node.js and NPM on your system. Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. You can download Node.js from the official website and install it on your system. Once Node.js is installed, NPM will also be installed on your system automatically.
Installing Polymer CLI
Once NPM is installed on your system, you can install Polymer CLI by running the following command in your terminal:
npm install -g polymer-cli
This command will install the latest version of Polymer CLI globally on your system. The ‘-g’ flag is used to install the package globally, which means that it will be available for all projects on your system.
Creating a New Polymer Project
After installing Polymer CLI, you can create a new Polymer project by running the following command:
polymer init
This command will prompt you to select a template for your project. You can choose from various templates like ‘polymer-3-element’, ‘polymer-3-application’, and ‘polymer-3-starter-kit’. Once you select a template, Polymer CLI will create a new project for you with all the required files and dependencies.
Running Your Polymer Project
To run your Polymer project, navigate to the root directory of your project and run the following command:
polymer serve
This command will start a local development server and open your project in a browser at ‘http://localhost:8080’. You can now start developing your Polymer application and see the changes in real-time.
Building Your Polymer Project
Once you are done with the development of your Polymer application, you can build and deploy it using Polymer CLI. To build your application, navigate to the root directory of your project and run the following command:
polymer build
This command will create a ‘build’ directory in your project with all the required files for deployment. You can now deploy your application to any hosting service like Firebase or GitHub Pages.
Conclusion
In this article, we learned about installing Polymer CLI using npm and creating a new Polymer project using Polymer CLI. We also learned about running and building our Polymer application using Polymer CLI. Polymer CLI is a powerful tool that helps developers to create, test, and deploy Polymer applications with ease. If you are new to Polymer or just getting started with it, I hope this article will help you get started with Polymer CLI.