Question

Currently, Compass is watching the .scss files inside the src folder and automatically updating the cs files. (by typing compass watch myproject).

Is there any way of including haml files in the “watching process”?

(I couldn’t install StaticMatic because I don’t want to install Ruby1.8).

Answer 1

Firstly, you should be using RVM. Installing any version of Ruby becomes painless.

Secondly, I just wrote this for myself, using the same ‘fssm’ gem that Compass uses to watch files. Add this to your / create a Rakefile:

require 'rubygems'
require 'fssm'
require 'haml'

class HamlWatcher
  class << self
    def watch
      refresh
      puts ">>> HamlWatcher is watching for changes. Press Ctrl-C to Stop."
      FSSM.monitor('haml', '**/*.haml') do
        update do |base, relative|
          puts ">>> Change detected to: #{relative}"
          HamlWatcher.compile(relative)
        end
        create do |base, relative|
          puts ">>> File created: #{relative}"
          HamlWatcher.compile(relative)
        end
        delete do |base, relative|
          puts ">>> File deleted: #{relative}"
          HamlWatcher.remove(relative)
        end
      end
    end

    def output_file(filename)
      # './haml' retains the base directory structure
      filename.gsub(/\.html\.haml$/,'.html')
    end

    def remove(file)
      output = output_file(file)
      File.delete output
      puts "\033[0;31m   remove\033[0m #{output}"
    end

    def compile(file)
      output_file_name = output_file(file)
      origin = File.open(File.join('haml', file)).read
      result = Haml::Engine.new(origin).render
      raise "Nothing rendered!" if result.empty?
      # Write rendered HTML to file
      color, action = File.exist?(output_file_name) ? [33, 'overwrite'] : [32, '   create']
      puts "\033[0;#{color}m#{action}\033[0m #{output_file_name}"
      File.open(output_file_name,'w') {|f| f.write(result)}
    end

    # Check that all haml templates have been rendered.
    def refresh
      Dir.glob('haml/**/*.haml').each do |file|
        file.gsub!(/^haml\//, '')
        compile(file) unless File.exist?(output_file(file))
      end
    end
  end
end


namespace :haml do
  desc "Watch the site's HAML templates and recompile them when they change"
  task :watch do
    require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'lib', 'haml_watcher')
    HamlWatcher.watch
  end
end

Run it with:

rake haml:watch