Enhancement: TNS create <project> --template <xyz> has issues...

[NathanaelA]

Since I make a bazillion plugins, I created a really cool template that automates a lot of the grunt work, however when you do a tns create --template <pluginTemplate> - TNS totally messes up my all new tns plugin project and really destroys it's usability.

Can we make it so that if I have a flag in the template package.json like {"cleanTemplate": "true"} that the tns will not start messing with things it doesn't understand. ;-) Or if you MUST install all that crap; please put it into the "demo" folder (if the demo folder exists in the template); as that is where the actual demo project will resides. I have no problem automating the install of the demo folder; but man it is a serious pita to work around tns's attempt to destroy my cool new plugin...

[enchev]

Hey @NathanaelA,

Can you clarify how exactly {N} CLI destroys your plugin?

[NathanaelA]

Ok, so here is what my tns-template-plugin looks like:

package.json
.npmignore
README.md
LICENSE
index.js
postinstall.js

When I run it; this is what happens:

app/
app/App_Resources/*
app/.npmignore
app/index.js
app/LICENSE
app/package.json
app/postinstall.js
app/README.md
node_modules/tns-core-modules/*
node_modules/tns-core-modues-widgets/*
platforms/
package.json

Now my expectations would be that template installs AS-IS no additional files, and my plugin files wouldn't get stuck inside and app folder. That is what I mean by it destroys my plugin, the output of the template is totally unusable for plugin development...

Also because of the way tns works; my post-install scripts runs BEFORE your changes; so it makes it really difficult for me to actually "undo" all the damage that it does. It would be really awesome if tns could have a "post-tns" script step so that I can run some final cleanup after the plugin is installed in the final location.

[NathanaelA]

I'm closing this because I think #1945 is a better way to state what I need and why I need it. I wrote this one right after discovering how tns destroyed my cool plugin template. So it is a bit more snarky. :-)