Working with fsevents_win.node

To support recursive file watching on Windows, Brackets uses a native Node.js addon, called fsevents_win. This page describes how to build and debug this node module.

Node.js addons are described in more detail here: http://nodejs.org/api/addons.html

Pre-requisites

1. Node.js

• into the root of your c: drive, git clone https://github.com/joyent/node.git. If you choose to clone node into a different folder, you'll need to change the Visual Studio project settings later to point to the correct location.
• using a DOS command prompt, run vcbuild release nosign from the c:\node folder
• git checkout v0.10.24 (or whichever version of Node currently used by Brackets)

2. Node-inspector

• npm install -g node-inspector

3. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 or 2012 (Express)

Building fsevents_win.node

1. cd brackets/src/filesystem/impls/appshell/node/node_modules/fsevents_win
2. to create the VS project, run node-gyp configure or node-gyp configure --debug to build the Release or Debug builds of fsevents_win.node, respectively
3. node-gyp build

Note: to use the Debug build, you'll need to edit fsevents_win.js and change the line var binding = require('./build/Release/fswatch_win'); to var binding = require('./build/Debug/fswatch_win');

Debugging fsevents_win.node

1. from a git bash window, run Node Inspector using node-inspector &
2. launch Brackets
3. Debug / Enable Node Debugger
4. launch Chrome. Browse to the URL displayed from Node Inspector after running step (1) above. This will allow you to step thru fsevents_win.js.
5. launch VS 2010. Open build\binding.sln.
6. Debug / Attach to process... In the resulting dialog, find node.exe and click Attach. This will allow you to step thru fsevents_win.cpp.