How to timeout gulp-watch if inactive

Question

I have a gulp watch task, and I want it to stop automatically if there has been no changes in the last hour. Is this possible?

Answer 1

Use timeouts:

gulp.task('watcher', function() {
    var watcher = gulp.watch('./app/*.js', ['jshint']);
    var timeout = setTimeout(watcher.end, 60*60*1000);

    watcher.on('change', function() {
        clearTimeout(timeout);
        timeout = setTimeout(watcher.end, 60*60*1000);
    });
});

Everytime something in your Glob changes, you kill the timeout and start it anew. Otherwise you end your watcher.