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Installing the visual tools

Paperclip comes with visual tooling that eliminiates the compile step so that you can see your changes immediately after you save (or type if you're using VS Code extension). You'll be happy to use them!

There are two options currently for getting started locally:

  1. For VS Code users, you can install the extension.
  2. For non-vscode users, you can install the CLI tools.

VS Code extension​

I highly recommend using the VS Code extension since you can launch previews directly from the IDE, and changes appear as you type.

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Check out the VS Code extension guide for more info.

CLI dev server​

If you don't have VS Code, you can just run the CLI tool:

npx paperclip dev

This will launch Paperclip's visual tooling in the browser. Changes that are saved locally will appear immediately here.

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Note that there are some limitations to the dev server. For example, you won't be able to move frames around, and you won't be able to jump to source code via meta + click. That functionality is only available for the IDE extensions.