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Express boilerplate

I like Ruby On Rails and his structure so I decided to follow their MVC conventions with the node module expressjs. I'm also inspired with the Ember.js framework that I like too.

Install

All the code is written with ES2015 syntax, you need the Node v4 version.

  • Clone the repo
  • npm i
  • npm start -> Will start a nodemon instance for your server

ES2015

This boilerplate use ES2015 syntax with Node.js 4.0, you can check out the feature available here

rootRequire

rootRequire is a global function designed to avoid some excessive path in your application and avoid NODE_PATH configuration (specialy for Windows users). Instead of calling require, just call rootRequire and the path of your module. Remember, the path always start from the top of your application :

let Book = rootRequire('app/models/Book');

Structure

MVC pattern is cool and simple to understand, so it's based on him. First, you have an app folder who will contain all code of your application :

app/

assets/

config/

Controller

A controller is design to handle the logic of your application, so he will handle the request and send the response. You should create one controller per route, so if you create a /users route the controller should be named UsersController. This pattern allow you to quickly find the file you want in your text editor.

The structure of a controller is simple, export an object of methods. Here is an example :

// IndexController.js

module.exports = {
  index: {
    get(req, res) {
      res.locals.title = "Home";
      res.render('index');
    }
  }
};

Models

I chose Sequelize for the ORM because it has a great syntax based on Promise and has a great documentation. Moreover, you can choose the database type of you want (MySQL, Postgre, Cassandra, etc...). With this way, you can create and share your models very easly.

Each model must have a sync in the createTables task wich can be run with the npm command : npm run db:tables:create.

Example :

'use strict';
// app/models/Book.js

let db   = rootRequire('config/db');
let Book = db.define('book', {
  title: {
    type: db._Sequelize.STRING,
  },
});

module.exports = Book;
'use strict';
require('../utils/rootRequire')();
let Book = rootRequire('app/models/Book');

Book.sync().then(() => {
  console.log('Creating table Book');
  // Todo : Kill the script
});

Views

This boilerplate use Jade for templating, if you prefer ejs, you just need to edit the middleware.js file in the config folder.

As I said for controller and routes, it's almost the same for the views. You should create a folder based on your routes (ex: users), create a users folder who will contain all the view concerned by the user.

Routes

The routes files are used for making the relation between your controller and the URLs. Here is an example :

'use strict';
// IndexRoute.js

/**
* Home Route
* path: /
******************** */

let express    = require('express');
let Controller = rootRequire('app/controllers/IndexController');
let router     = express.Router();


router.get('/', Controller.index.get);

module.exports = router;

As you can see, I put a function according the HTTP verb like here index.get for the GET on /.

Router.js

The Router.js may intrigue you, it serves to handle all of your routes. Here is an example :

// Router.js

module.exports = [
  {
    path: '/',
    handler: rootRequire('app/routes/IndexRoute'),
  },
  {
    path: '/books',
    handler: rootRequire('app/routes/BooksRoute'),
  },
];

Assets

This boilerplate set the assets folder for all of your static files. Some folders are already available :

  • stylesheets
  • javascripts
  • images
  • fonts

In your views, the links will look like this : /stylesheets/style.css or /images/logo.png.

Config

The folder config is design to keep all config files like middleware, mysql config, etc.. The idea of this folder is to separate the logic of the configuration. With MySQL as example, you just have to create the connection and export the object for making queries.

Testing

This boilerplate use Mocha and superagent for testing

Production

I recommand you to use PM2 as process manager who is really simple to handle. Don't forget to set your NODE_ENV to production !

set NODE_ENV=production

When the NODE_ENV is set to production, the compression module will be called. Feel free to use the global PROD_ENV variable to use differents configurations for your application.

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Express boilerplate using MVC pattern and ES2015

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