Fable WebMIDI Sample

This sample contains a simple web app with Fable and a Web MIDI implementation with Fable.

This is the complementary sample for my F# Advent 2017 blog post at http://blog.pagansoft.de/articles/a-fable-of-webmidi/

Requirements

dotnet SDK 2.0 or higher
node.js 6.11 or higher
A JS package manager: yarn or npm

npm comes bundled with node.js, but we recommend to use at least npm 5. If you have npm installed, you can upgrade it by running npm install -g npm.

Although is not a Fable requirement, on macOS and Linux you'll need Mono for other F# tooling like Paket or editor support.

Editor

The project can be used by editors compatible with the new .fsproj format, like VS Code + Ionide, Emacs with fsharp-mode or Rider. Visual Studio for Mac is also compatible but in the current version the package auto-restore function conflicts with Paket so you need to disable it: Preferences > Nuget > General.

Building and running the app

In the commands below, yarn is the tool of choice. If you want to use npm, just replace yarn by npm in the commands.

Install JS dependencies: yarn install
Move to src folder: cd src
Install F# dependencies: dotnet restore
Start Fable daemon and Webpack dev server: dotnet fable yarn-start
In your browser, open: http://localhost:8080/

dotnet fable yarn-start (or npm-start) is used to start the Fable daemon and run a script in package.json concurrently. It's a shortcut of yarn-run [SCRIPT_NAME], e.g. dotnet fable yarn-run start.

If you are using VS Code + Ionide, you can also use the key combination: Ctrl+Shift+B (Cmd+Shift+B on macOS) instead of typing the dotnet fable yarn-start command. This also has the advantage that Fable-specific errors will be highlighted in the editor along with other F# errors.

Any modification you do to the F# code will be reflected in the web page after saving. When you want to output the JS code to disk, run dotnet fable yarn-build and you'll get a minified JS bundle in the public folder.

JS Output

This template uses babel-preset-env to output JS code whose syntax is compatible with a wide range of browsers. Currently it's set to support only Chrome.

Project structure

Paket

Paket is the package manager used for F# dependencies. It doesn't need a global installation, the binary is included in the .paket folder. Other Paket related files are:

paket.dependencies: contains all the dependencies in the repository.
paket.references: there should be one such a file next to each .fsproj file.
paket.lock: automatically generated, but should be committed to source control, see why.
Nuget.Config: prevents conflicts with Paket in machines with some Nuget configuration.

Paket dependencies will be installed in the packages directory. See Paket website for more info.

yarn/npm

package.json: contains the JS dependencies together with other info, like development scripts.
yarn.lock: is the lock file created by yarn.
package-lock.json: is the lock file understood by npm 5, if you use it instead of yarn.

JS dependencies will be installed in node_modules. See yarn and/or npm websites for more info.

Webpack

Webpack is a bundler, which links different JS sources into a single file making deployment much easier. It also offers other features, like a static dev server that can automatically refresh the browser upon changes in your code or a minifier for production release. Fable interacts with Webpack through the fable-loader.

webpack.config.js: is the configuration file for Webpack. It allows you to set many things: like the path of the bundle, the port for the development server or Babel options. See Webpack website for more info.

F# source files

The template only contains three F# source files: the project (.fsproj), the WebMIDI module (WebMIDI.fs) and the Application source file (App.fs) in src folder.

Where to go from here

Check more Fable samples and check the awesome-fable for a curated list of resources provided by the community.

magicmonty / fable-webmidi-sample