starter.md

Setting up a Project

Run the following commands to create a directory for your project and then download the necessary packages:

mkdir my-elm-project
cd my-elm-project

elm-package install evancz/elm-html --yes
elm-package install evancz/elm-http --yes
elm-package install evancz/elm-components --yes

Your directory structure should now be like this:

my-elm-project/
    elm-stuff/
    elm-package.json

You should never need to look in elm-stuff/, it is entirely managed by the Elm build tool elm-make and package manager elm-package.

The elm-package.json file is interesting though. Open it up and check it out. The most interesting fields for you are probably:

• source-directories — lists the directories in your project that have Elm source code. I like to set this equal to [ "src" ] and put all of my code in a src/ directory.

• dependencies — This lists all the packages you need. Depending on what you want to do, you should use these bounds differently:

  • Creating a product — you want to crush those ranges down to things like 3.0.4 <= v <= 3.0.4 such that you can use exact versions.

  • Creating a package — you want to make these ranges exactly as wide as you have tested. Best practice is to start with them within a single major version and then expand as new versions come out and you test that things still work.