INSTALL

The backend requires Node in minimum version 7.6. Get it here

The dependencies (express and body-parser) are installed by executing the following command: npm install

USE

Start server

npm start

Test server

Open the following URL in the browser: localhost:3000

Open the file Dynamo-BIM-BOT.dyn in Revit/Dynamo while the server is running to confirm that the connection is working.

LEARN

For testing purposes, nodemon is a good tool as it takes care of restarting the server every time you make a change to the file. To install it, do the following:

1. Close server (ctrl+c)
2. Install nodemon by executing command npm install -g nodemon
3. Now start the server using this command instead: nodemon app.js

First step is to get a good understanding of how node/express works. Read through the program and try the following:

1. Change route /data to return here is some other data instead, and confirm that it works both in the browser and with Dynamo
2. Make a new post route /hello that reads the body element and simply returns hello $var (just do it in pure Javascript)
3. change route /data to use another program in your preferred language

Play around and have fun! You could try some more advanced stuff:

1. Get data from another public API using the request package (npm install request) - even easier with request-promise as it returns promises and thereby supports async/awain
2. Copy the project and run another API locally (on another port than 3000) and make API1 request data from API2
3. Connect with a database mongo for instance
4. Dig into the wonderful world of Linked Building Data