# Overview

In the AIO application, we offer the reader the option to download each example as a full self-contained runnable project packaged as a zip file.
These zip files are generated by the utility in this folder.

## Example zipper

The `exampleZipper.mjs` tool is very similar to the Stackblitz's `builder.mjs`.
The latter creates an HTML file with all the examples' files and the former creates a zip file instead.
They both use the `stackblitz.json` file to flag an example as something to stackblitz or zip.
For example:

```json
{
  "description": "Tour of Heroes: Part 6",
  "files":[
    "!**/*.d.ts",
    "!**/*.js",
    "!**/*.[1,2].*"
  ],
  "tags": ["tutorial", "tour", "heroes", "http"]
}
```

The zipper will use this information for creating new zips.

## Two kinds of examples

There are mainly two kinds of AIO docs examples: The ones based on the Angular CLI and the ones based on SystemJS.
The majority of the examples are CLI-based with only some of the `ngUpgrade` examples using SystemJS.

Some of the CLI-based examples require small tweaks to the default layout/configuration (for example, to add support for Angular elements, i18n, universal, etc.).
These example types have separate boilerplate directories with the files that are different from the default `cli` boilerplate.

There are appropriate `package.json` files for each type of example in the boilerplate directories.
If there is no special `package.json` file for an example type, the one from the `cli` boilerplate directory will be used instead.

The `exampleZipper.mjs` won't include any `System.js` related files for CLI-based projects.

## The zipper.json

As mentioned, the tool uses the `stackblitz.json` as a flag and also a configuration file for the zipper.
The problem is that not all examples have a stackblitz but they could offer a zip instead.

In those cases, you can create a `zipper.json` file with the same syntax. It will be ignored by the stackblitz tool.

## Executing the zip generation

`generateZips.mjs` will create a zip for each `stackblitz.json`  or `zipper.json` it finds. The zips
are created as part of the Bazel build, and can be toggled on or off in
[`examples.bzl`](../../content/examples/examples.bzl).

Where? Under the Bazel output tree rooted at `../dist/bin/aio/example-zips/generated/zips`.

Then the `<live-example>` embedded component will look at this folder to get the zip it needs for the example.