This project create a simple nodejs Webserver for hosting static files and TypeScript files. The main purpose of this project is create a basic development environment for client-side TypeScript development.
TypeScript is a new language developed by Microsoft and bring many advance features like compile-time type check, Class and Module support to JavaScript. To use this language to develop JavaScript program, the .ts file must be compiled to JavaScript file by compiler tsc. You must call the compiler each time you modify any code of the ts source code.
After search on the Internet I found a project by niutech called TypeScript Compile which compile the ts file on-the-fly in the browser. It's very cool but I found it will be difficult to debug because the code is generated and added to HTML file by adding a <script> tag.
Now you can use the NodeJS TypeScript Webserver as a simple web server to develop TypeScript program. The Webserver takes a similiar way as TypeScript Compile but compile the ts code on-the-fly on backend.
It's very simple to use this Webserver, just run
node <the directory you place the NodeJS TypeScript Webserver >/bin/FileServer.js
A Webserver will be launched on 0.0.0.0:808, you can run http://127.0.0.1:808 to visit the server now. The root directory of the site will be the directory you launch the server. Now when you download a .ts file from the server, the .ts file will be compile to JavaScript on-the-fly and the response will be the compiled code.
So you can just modify the <script> file from:
<script src="./js/MyModule.js"></script>
To
<script src="./js/MyModule.ts"></script>
And everything will be working the same like you compile the .ts by tsc.
You can find the demos on directory demo/ , the demos are copied from TypeScript source code and the <script> tag in the html files are all modified from .js to .ts.
If the TypeScript compiling is failed, the error report alert will be returned for the request instead of compiled code.
Source Maps is supported by the server. You can debug the client code in TypeScript if you use the browser which source maps is supported (e.g. Chrome).
To compile the NodeJS TypeScript Webserver yourself, TypeScript must be installed by npm:
npm -g install typescript
You don't need to install this module if you just want to use this program as a static web server with on-the-fly ts compile support. But I'm strongly recommend to install the TypeScript for I think it's worth for everyone to try this new language (although it's still in early preview).
This program is developed by TypeScript too :) And you can port the code of this project into other web-server framework like express to enable the on-the-fly TypeScript compile feature.
TypeScript is developed by Microsoft Corp. under Apache 2.0 License.
NodeJS TypeScript Webserver is released under Apache 2.0 License.