The EXP CLI allows developers to run a local web application in an EXP player. This gives the application access to the Player App SDK.

Install NodeJS on your operating system. For OSX users with homebrew you can use brew install node.

Once Node is installed, install the exp-cli package globally using NPM.

npm install -g exp-cli

Note: You may need to use sudo or be logged in as root.

An alternative to using NPM to install and start the CLI is cloning the git repository and running the script directly.

git clone https://github.com/ScalaInc/exp-cli.git
node ./exp-cli/bin/exp.js

Create a directory where you want to create your application and run

exp init

This will generate an index.html, style.css, main.js, and manifest.json.

From the directory where you created the app run

exp play

This will launch an EXP player in a webrowser. The first time you run exp play you'll be presented with a pairing screen. Use the EXP user interface to pair the device to your browser.

After pairing the device, your app will now be running inside of a full featured EXP player. The browser tab will automatically reload the player when you make changes to your application's code.

You can provide configuration to the application by putting a manifest.json file in your web application's root directory. Default options can be specified as in the example below.

{
  "config": {
    "option1": [true, false, "45"],
    "another_option": 1234
  }
}

These options will be accessible inside the application at exp.app.config.

You can run multiple players by specifying a port to the exp play command, i.e. exp play -p 8899. Each running player will need to be paired individually.

From the directory where you created the app run

exp deploy

This will begin the process of uploading new or changed files and folders to an app in your content tree. The first time you run exp deploy you'll be required to log into an organization. The authentication will be saved temporarily to make subsequent deploys faster. If for any reason you need to remove the saved authentication you can use the exp logout command.

During deployment you will be asked to enter the relative (to root) or absolute path to the app in your content tree. Optionally, you can specify the app path to the exp deploy command, i.e. exp deploy --app custom-weather-app

If the app does not exist you will be asked to confirm that you want to create the app. Enter y or yes to approve the upload.