Getting started with Bower – A package manager for web.

1. What is Bower:
   • A package manager for a web (front-end) that manages all your application’s front-end dependencies.
   • It is used to install the right versions of the packages which are needed and their dependencies.
   • It keeps track of all the packages and making sure they are up to date.
   • It can manage components which contains HTML, CSS, JavaScript, fonts or image files.
2. Installing Bower:
   • It is a command line utility and installed using npm. So Bower requires node, npm and git and command to install:
     npm install -g bower
     (-g is if you want to use it as a command line tool)
3. Finding Packages:
   • bower search <query>
     Example: bower search jquery
     Example: bower search modernizr
     
     
   • You can also find package using the online component directory at https://bower.io/search/
4. Installing Packages:
   
   • bower install <package>
   • Example: bower install jquery
     Example: bower install modernizr
     
   • Installed packages will be present in a bower_components directory. This is created in the folder which the bower program was executed. The package path can be changed using the configuration options in a .bowerrc file.
     
5. Installing Packages Using a bower.json File:
   • It would be tiresome to manage to install multiple libraries/packages in an application individually using above commands so bower.json file help to manage multiple packages using the single command.
   • bower.json looks like below and it needs to present in the root folder where the application is present.

     {
         "name": "app-name",
         "version": "0.0.1",
         "dependencies": {
             "sass-bootstrap": "~3.0.0",
             "modernizr": "~2.6.2",
             "jquery": "~1.10.2"
         },
         "private": true
     }

   • In above:
     name: Name of your application/package.
     version: Version number for your application/package.
     dependencies: The packages that are required by your application. You should specify a version number for each of these packages as shown in the example above. Specifying latest will cause Bower to install the most recent release of a package.
     private: Setting this property to true means that you want the package to remain private and do not wish to add it to the registry in the future.
   • Now, using below command will install all packages with a specific version or latest as defined in bower.json under ‘dependencies’ key value.
     bower install
     
     
6. Listing Installed Packages:
   • bower list
     (It also checks to see if a newer version of each of the packages is available and show with the listing)
     
     
7. Updating Packages:
   • bower update
     (Update all packages with the specific version specified or to latest if the version is specified as latest in bower.json)
   • bower update <package>
bower update jquery
     (To update specific package)
8. Uninstalling Packages:
   • bower uninstall <package> <package> <package> ... <package>
     Example: bower uninstall jquery modernizr
     (It can uninstall multiple packages at once)

Reference:
https://bower.io/
http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/getting-started-bower