Monkey Do

Our Pattern Library Template

Working with a pattern library can help your project's front end come together quickly, efficiently, and modularly.

What I really like to do when I start working on a project is start working on the project with a minimum of fuss. I like tools I can start working with right away, requiring nothing more than a text editor. I’ve found most pattern library frameworks come with a bit too much overhead for my taste; often they depend on pre-processors like Grunt or Sass, or server-side languages like PHP.

I’ve been working on my own pattern library template (I won’t even call it a framework, it’s too simple), and have been using it not just as a way to display developed components, but as an actual development tool. Today I put it up on GitHub, and you can take a peek at it (and use it) for yourself: A Simple Pattern Library

The thing I like most about it is it’s fully front-end — no parsers or processors required. It works just fine without JS, but it uses jQuery to build the nav and display the code snippets, meaning you only need to author each component once; you don’t need to worry about updating the nav or code samples every time you update a component.

Let me know if you use it, or feel free to create an issue on GitHub if there are features you’d like to see added!