I recommend supervisor, since nodedemon time to poll for file changes is too slow and not configurable. Supervisor will feel fast. forever tries to do too much. Whenever I look at the docs, I get frustrated and give up.

server.js:

var express = require('express')
  , http = require('http')
  , path = require('path')
  , reload = require('reload')

var app = express()

var publicDir = path.join(__dirname, 'public')

app.configure(function() {
  app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000)
  app.use(express.logger('dev'))
  app.use(express.bodyParser()) //parses json, multi-part (file), url-encoded
  app.use(app.router) //need to be explicit, (automatically adds it if you forget)
  app.use(express.static(clientDir)) //should cache static assets
})

app.get('/', function(req, res) {
  res.sendfile(path.join(publicDir, 'index.html'))
})

var server = http.createServer(app)

//reload code here
reload(server, app)

server.listen(app.get('port'), function(){
  console.log("Web server listening on port " + app.get('port'));
});

public/index.html: (very valid HTML5, watch the YouTube video)

<!-- 
  watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxmcDoAxdoY 
-->
<!doctype html>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>My sweet app!</title>

<!-- all you have to do is include the reload script -->
<script src="/reload/reload.js"></script>

<h1>Hello!</h1>

install supervisor:

npm install -g supervisor

reload on any html or js file change:

supervisor -e 'html|js' node server.js

How does it work?

It's actually stupidly simple. We leverage supervisor to restart the server if any file changes. The client side keeps a websocket open, once the websocket closes, the client sets a timeout to reload in approximately 300 ms. Simple huh?

API

reload(httpServer, expressApp, [timeout_millis])

httpServer: The Node.js http server from the module http.
expressApp: The express app. It may work with other frameworks, or even with Connect. At this time, it's only been tested with Express.
timeout_millis: The client side refresh time in milliseconds. Default is 300.

License

(MIT License)

Keywords

FAQs

What is reload?

Is reload popular?

Is reload well maintained?

Package last updated on 14 Mar 2013

Did you know?

Socket for GitHub automatically highlights issues in each pull request and monitors the health of all your open source dependencies. Discover the contents of your packages and block harmful activity before you install or update your dependencies.

Install