expressively

Expressively

Express with some directory structure associated.

Options

• options.app The express app - created if not passed in
• options.engine - the express view engine used - defaults to pug
• options.express express itself - created if not passed in
• options.protocol - if this is 'https', express will handle https - suggested use for dev only
• options.https.key - used with options.protocol of https
• options.https.crt - used with options.protocol of https
• options.staticOptions - options to pass to the express.static call
• options.structure - object that describes the directory layout for the app - all paths are relative to structure.base
• options.structure.baseDirectory The directory other directory options are relative to - required
• options.structure.middlewares Path to the "middlewares" directory use from routes.json
• options.structure.routes The location of the routes.json file
• options.structure.static An object of directories to be used for express.static - keys are paths
• options.structure.startup An array of modules to be rerquired in in series - optionally return promises from them - defaults to []
• options.structure.views The express "views" directory
• options.verbose If you want verbose outpout

Usage with Socket.io

You can use this with socket.io. Since the docs in socket.io show a more complicated method, below is a full example with browserify. You will need to npm install expressively, socket.io, and socket.io-client.

var expressively = require('expressively'),
    socketio = require('socket.io');

expressively
    .start({
        ...
    })
    .then(function(result){

        var io = socketio(result.server);

        io.on('connection', function (socket) {
            console.log('socket connected');
            console.log('you will only see this if someone is looking at the front end');
            socket.emit('news', { hello: 'world' });
            socket.on('my other event', function (data) {
                console.log(data);
            });
        });})

Now on the front end (assuming you are using browserify):

var io = require('socket.io-client'),
    socket = io.connect('http://my.domain.com');

socket.on('news', function (data) {
    console.log(data);
    socket.emit('my other event', {my : 'data'});
});

If you are using nginx and you have issues, make sure your reverse proxy looks something like this:

location / {
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header X-NginX-Proxy true;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;

    proxy_http_version 1.1;

    proxy_pass http://my_app/;
    proxy_redirect off;
}

Not have Upgrade and version 1.1 will cause problems.

Directories

Configs

Starting in v1.0.0 there is less magic in expressively, and configs are not built for you. To import your own configs in from anywhere in your app just use require.main.require('./configs'). The previous would work if you had a configs dir at the level of your main file.

Important configs:

{
    "port" : "// The port number the express app should listen on"
}

Optional configs:

{
    "protocol" : "http|https //Only really needed for HTTPS, HTTP is run by default",
    "https" : {
        "key" : "//relative path to private key from baseDirectory",
        "cert" : "//relateive path to certificate from baseDirectory"
    }
}

Middlewares

routes.json will look for available middlewares here. You can put your "pages" as directories here with each page directory containing and index.js and a view.pug. You can refer to just the directory name in routes.json, and you can do res.cache(require.resolve('./view.pug'), date) to render your page and cache it.

Views

Jade templates can be stored here for conveniance

Release Notes

• 2.0.0 - Adding more flexibility via configuration and removing some uneeded functionality. Docs incomplete.
• 1.1.3 - Dependency fix to fully support pug.