• Fixed: removed weinre from the UI - it was using deprecated packages, and is un-maintained. e6be4e9058f862425264b689b807f42575c9ba6a
• Fixed: Updated socket.io to the latest version (security advisory)
• Fixed: Allow notify command over HTTP protocol ac86665bbde182ff1c033bf915cbeb06e8103c61 (closes #1467)
• New: CI: build on node 8 (latest lts) 3b7e8cbe8b3b5cc3fb1f8891318a0c22df60e21b
• New: Easier CLI commands for common flows. (see below) 91b7e89155bc6b3bfd3860f3105b7e76396acf86
• New: watch option - (see below)
• New: Supports CSS @imports - thanks to Live Reload fb26e82aa69a851bc5db46381420f5c3fc5d1a8b (closes #10)
• New: Fall back to a directory listing if a request gives a 404 b5cc56e64d906eaddc897bf34bb07dc5b4bf3c9c
• New: single option - adds a middleware to help with SPAs (serves index.html for all non-matching routes) 91480aa692779825aef0791b79d79139e56030f4
• New: ignore option - shortcut for adding to watchOptions.ignored - added because of the new watch option
• Improved: Perf: Always group file-changes into flexible 500ms buffers - this will help things such as git checkout without any configuration fd3d074b80da14b99027018de0f1ea8da4ef9ce5
• Improved: Perf: Adding adding cwd + ignore defaults to all watcher options dbb1267af51a6e27df4657fb487ec887a7bd8baa
• Changed: Log CSS file injections into the console (rather than the overlay, which always gets in the way) cb5b44c0e7393b6f083b1000848bba8fce602d9f

Highlights

Easier CLI commands

In an attempt to streamline the common use-cases, Browsersync will now attempt to 'do the right thing' when no command is provided, for example:

To run a static server, serving from the current directory

# before
browser-sync start --server

# after
browser-sync .

To run a static server, serving from 2 directories:

# before
browser-sync start --server app/src app/tmp

# after
browser-sync app/src app/tmp

If the directory contains a 'index.html' file, you can omit any input and just run:

# after
browser-sync

You can run the proxy in this manner too

# after
browser-sync https://example.com

To run a proxy, whilst also serving static files

# after
browser-sync https://example.com htdocs/themes/example

New watch option

Because we now have the shorthand ways of launching servers/proxies, eg: browser-sync . - it also made sense to automatically watch files too. So, if watch: true - then Browsersync will make a best-guess at which files to automatically watch.

Here's a comparison to the old way (which will still work, of course)

# before
browser-sync start --server ./app --files ./app

# after
browser-sync ./app -w

Behind the scenes, Browsersync is just looking at served directories (in this case, app) and adding it to the regular files option as normal.

It means the following the 2 configurations are identical, but the latter is better since there's no repetition.

{
  "server": {"baseDir": ["app"]},
  "files": ["app"]
}

{
  "server": {"baseDir": ["app"]},
  "watch": "true"
}

New ignore option

Added as a convenience since we have simpler watching via the watch flag. Use it to ignore any patterns that should not cause Browsersync reloads/injections

Example: - Serve files from the 'app' directory - Watch all files - But, exclude **/*.js (if using Webpack, etc)

CLI:

browser-sync app -w --ignore '**/*.js'

Config:

{
    "server": "app",
    "watch": true,
    "ignore": "**/*.js"
}

New single option, easy SPA development

This option will add the connect-history-api-fallback middleware automatically for you, meaning that developing with client-side routers can be done without configuring this middleware manually

Example: - Serve files from the app directory - Watch all files - Serve index.html for all none matching routes

browser-sync app -w --single

Fall back to a directory listing if a request gives a 404

No more Cannot Get /' messages. If you run Browsersync in a directory where there's no index.html, a directory listing will be shown instead.