Watching for file changes

When working on a project, it helps to have your files built automatically when you change a source file. There may be subtle differences between the source files and the merged, transpiled and minified output. To detect possible bugs and errors as soon as possible, I recommend you develop with the built JavaScript files. Closure compiler itself does not offer a watch mode. This leaves you with two options:

• If you are using Eclipse, see m2e maven integration.
• Outside of eclipse, you can use a third-party maven plugin to watch for file changes and trigger the execution of this plugin. See below for an example.

  <project>
    <!-- ... -->
    <build>
      <plugins>
        <!-- ... -->
  
        <!-- Watch for changes and recompile JS resources -->
       <plugin>
         <groupId>com.fizzed</groupId>
         <artifactId>fizzed-watcher-maven-plugin</artifactId>
         <version>1.0.6</version>
         <configuration>
           <!-- Files to watch for changes -->
           <watches>
             <watch>
               <directory>${basedir}/path/to/your/js/files</directory>
             </watch>
           </watches>
           <skipTouch>true</skipTouch>
           <!-- Goal to run when a files has changed -->
           <goals>
             <goal>generate-resources</goal>
           </goals>
           <!-- Optional profile to activate -->
           <profiles>
             <profile>development</profile>
           </profiles>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
  
        <plugin>
          <groupId>com.github.blutorange</groupId>
          <artifactId>closure-compiler-maven-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>${closure-compiler-maven-plugin.version}</version>
          <executions>
            <execution>
              <id>default-minify</id>
              <configuration>
                <includes>
                  <include>myfiles.js</include>
                </includes>
              </configuration>
              <goals>
                <goal>minify</goal>
              </goals>
            </execution>
          </executions>
        </plugin>
        <!-- ... -->
      </plugins>
    </build>
    <!-- ... -->
  </project>