Kontent sample Express.js web application

This is an Express application meant for use with the Dancing Goat sample project within Kontent.ai. This fully featured project contains marketing content for Dancing Goat – an imaginary chain of coffee shops. If you don't have your own Sample Project, any admin of a Kontent.ai subscription can generate one.

You can read more about our JavaScript SDKs

Setup

1. Clone the repository

2. Create a .env file on the root and set the projectId variable to your sample project's Project ID:

   • You can use env.example as a template for the .env file

   projectId=<your project ID>

3. Run the following commands:

   npm install
   npm start

The application will then be available at localhost:3000 (configurable in /bin/www).

⚠️ Due to the optional webhook integration, we've hard-coded the language codes available to the application in app.js. If necessary, you can update the languages there to match the code names in Kontent:

const supportedLangs = ["en-US", "es-ES"];
const languageNames = ["English", "Spanish"];

The first language in the list will be used as the default language for the application.

Algolia Search Integration

You can test Algolia search functionality on the project's Article content types. Register for an account on Algolia and copy the App ID and Admin API key from the API Keys tab and set the variables in .env. Also create an indexName with any name you'd like:

algoliaKey=<key>
algoliaApp=<app name>
indexName=dancing_goat

The application will automatically create, configure, and populate a search index when you visit the /algolia route. It will redirect you to the home page when finished, and you should immediately be able to search for articles using the search bar.

To check out the code used to create the index, see app.js:

//generate Algolia index
app.use('/:lang/algolia', function (req, res, next) {
  let client = algoliasearch(process.env.algoliaApp, process.env.algoliaKey);
  let index = client.initIndex(process.env.indexName);
  //etc...
}

To view the search functionality, see /routes/search.js.

Automatic content translation

There is a /webhook route that you can use with workflow webhooks to automatically submit an English language variant to Microsoft's Translator Text Cognitive Service, translate the variant into other supported languages, and create new language variants in Kontent.

At the moment, this integration only works if you are using 4-letter language code names in Kontent.ai (e.g. "es-es"). The application's supported languages can be modified in app.js.

First, you need to create an Azure Cognitive Services account for the Translator Text service. Then, add Key 1 from the Keys tab to .env:

translationKey=<key>

Depending on how your translation service is configured in Azure, you may also need to add the service's region to the .env, e.g.:

translationRegion=westus2

If you are running the project locally, you can still test webhooks using ngrok (or a similar program). To use ngrok, follow their setup guide and in step 4 use the port number the Express application will run on (3000 by default). When you're done running ngrok, you should see something like the following:

Copy the URL from the Forwarding section and paste it into a new Kontent.ai webhook's URL address with the /webhook path appended:

While you're there, add a workflow step to Workflow steps of content items to watch and remove any other events. This is the workflow step that will trigger the webhook, once any language variant is placed in that step.

Also, copy the Secret and add it to .env, then grab the Content Management API key from the API keys tab:

contentManagementKey=<CM API key>
webhookSecret=<secret>

ℹ The translation process is prepared to translate only article items.

Run your Express application, then move an English language variant into the workflow step you selected in the webhook. You should see some debugging information in the console when the webhook is consumed, then you will find your new language variants in the Draft step!

Sending push notifications

This application can also send push notifications to visitors whenever a content item in Kontent.ai is published. You can read this blog post to read more about how it works and how to set it up from scratch.

To start, you need to create a new content type in Kontent.ai with the codename "push_notification" and the following elements:

• title: Text
• body: Text
• icon: Asset
• vibrate: Multiple choice (checkbox with single value "Yes")
• url: Text

Next, go to the Project settings > Webhooks page in Kontent.ai and create a new webhook. We want to send push notifications whenever an item of our push_notification type is published, so select "Publish" from the Content item events to watch drop-down.

For the URL address, use the /push endpoint, e.g. https://mysite.com/push. You can also run the project locally as in the Automatic content translation section and enter the ngrok URL with /push at the end.

NOTE: Management API webhook triggers are supported as well. Use /push_cm endpoint instead.

Copy the Secret and add it to .env with the "pushSecret" key:

pushSecret=<secret>

Save the webhook. Open up a Command prompt and install web-push then generate VAPID keys for the project:

npm i web-push -g
web-push generate-vapid-keys

Copy the Public and Private key to the .env file:

vapidPublicKey=<public key>
vapidPrivateKey=<private key>

Also add the Public key to the top of /public/scripts/client.js:

const publicVapidKey = "<public key>";

The application uses SQLite database to store push notification subscriptions. Make sure to specify dbPath in the .env file, e.g.:

const dbPath = subs.sqlite;

The database will be created automatically on first subscribe attempt.

You're ready to test the notification now! Make sure to access your site via https; push notifications will not work over insecure connections. When you access the site, your browser will prompt you to accept notifications from the website. Accept it, and you should see a successful POST to /subscribe in the browser's Network tab.

Now that you're subscribed, head over to Kontent.ai and create a new content item using the push_notification content type. When you publish it, the webhook will shortly trigger and a notification will appear on your desktop:

Documentation

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Feedback & Contributing

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