Harp Weekly – Middlewear

It seems like everyone’s wrapped in scarves and heavy coats here in Vancouver; we saw a dusting of snow this past week. So maybe I’m predisposed to see layering—it seemed like many more people wanted to layer Harp into their applications this week, too.

Using Harp as Middleware

We took this opportunity (the interest, not the weather) to update the guide for using Harp alongside Express.

If your application already has a server, you can still get the benefits of Harp’s implicit preprocessing; follow this guide, and learn how to use Harp as your asset pipeline.

Install Harp Screencast

The Harp documentation is improving elsewhere, too. Harp’s quick start guide is now much better, including platform specific details and this fantastic “How to install the Harp web server” screencast from Jorge Pedret. If designers or developers you know would benefit from Harp’s preprocessing, but are less familiar with the terminal and installing Node, this screencast is for them.

Identity guide

In addition to designing Harp itself, we’re exploring how visual identity design can work in an open source project. The initial version of our visual identity guide has been published, and will be improving it in the open as time goes on. It’s an experiment, so we value your feedback as always.

Harp recipes

The Harp community has come up with efficient ways of building impressive features into their static sites with Harp. It made sense to start collecting some of them alongside some we use ourselves. The new Harp recipes section includes code snippets and reusable patterns you can add to your site or app.

For example, you’ll often want to show a different title in the title tag, on each page of your site or app. Now, there’s a great of exactly that—just follow the recipe.

Node Brigade in Vancouver, BC

The Harp team is hosting Node Brigade on Tuesday, December 17th, our recurring Node.js meetup in Vancouver, BC. If you’re in the area, it would be great to meet you. There are two very accomplished JavaScript developers speaking, free drinks, and we can chat about Harp afterwards.

Share your event

If you’re hosting or attending a meetup or event in your city—on Node, web development, design, or something else entirely—and want to speak or find out more about Harp, please get in touch with us! We’ll do our best to help you out, send swag, and let people know about your event or talk in a future edition of Harp Weekly.

Next Harp Weekly

If you were patiently waiting for this edition of Harp Weekly, I apologise! Harp Weekly will return this Monday as normal—make sure to subscribe here.