yanexbo = yet another node/express boilerplate
This is a minimalistic boilerplate which can be used as a quick start for your next node project using express, mongoose and the jade templating engine. It suggests a simple yet slightly opinionated set of files and directories giving some structure to your application. It can easily grow into any direction of node/express app.
yanexbo includes:
- express (incl. Connect) - Web development framework
- mongoose - Modelling framework for MongoDB
- jade - Template engine
yanexbo provides:
- a small set of files and folders as a basic project structure
- a small, uncluttered server.js main entry point
- a separate environment configuration file
- a separate express settings configuration file
- a separate express routing configuration file
- a simple HTML5 jade layout file plus views extending it
This boilerplate emerged from working with several other projects and tries to combine some "best practices". I needed some simple and robust starting point for own node/express projects I recently worked on. Toolboxes/generators provided by e.g. yeoman do a fantastic job but are bit too heavy when quick and small start is desired. So, to give a short answer: I'm just sharing my personal flavour for setting up a node/express app structure - perhaps some of you guys out there may find it useful.
via git and npm:
$ git clone git@github.com:atufkas/yanexbo.git [my-app-name]
$ cd [my-app-name]
$ npm install
Database and other environment specific application configuration is meant to be stored in ./config.js.
...
development: {
db: 'mongodb://localhost:27017/yanexbo-dev'
}
...
Be sure to have your MongoDB up and running and define the connection string in [env].db like shown above.
Note: yanexbo doesn't include a schema definition
nor any other db access example at all (at least not yet) - it just illustrates how to setup the connection.
If you don't want to use MongoDB at all right now, just remove or uncomment two lines in ./server.js (require() + connect()).
node server.js
Open http://localhost:3000 for sample page.
/public Public (static) static files for express http server
/public/javascripts Public javascript files
/public/javascripts/app.js Sample javascript file (just a wrapper)
/public/stylesheets Public stylesheet files
/public/stylesheets/app.js Sample stylesheet file (minimalistic)
/routes Routing modules ("controllers")
/routes/index.js Example routing module
/routes/hello.js Example routing module
/views/ View templates
/views/layout.jade Example jade view (layout) template
/views/index.jade Example jade view template (extends layout.jade)
/views/dump.jade Example jade view template (extends layout.jade)
/config.js Database and application related configuration
/express-routes.js Express routing definitions
/express-settings.js Express configuration / settings
/server.js Main file for bootstrapping and starting node http server
Included are two example routes (/ and /hello/dump-request-headers) rendering output using a simple HTML5 jade layout template.
Ideas, suggestions and pull requests are welcome.
Copyright (c) 2013 Matthias Lienau <matthias@mlienau.de>