How to make an Express site without a template engine? - express

I do not want Jade or EJS on my site. How can I create an express site without it defaulting to the Jade templates? Thanks

If what you want is directly to serve static html files with the possibility to cache resources, while still being able to hit "/" and get index.html, then the answer is as easy as this:
var express = require('express');
var http = require('http');
var app = express();
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
http.createServer(app).listen(3000);
Gotcha: Html files including index.html must be inside /public folder instead of /views

You could use commands below to install express-generator globally and then scaffold a project without a view engine
npm install -g express-generator
express newProject --no-view

You can comment out the lines
app.set 'views', __dirname + '/views'
app.set 'view engine', 'jade'
from the Express initialization code.
If you are serving only static content: https://github.com/visionmedia/express/blob/master/examples/static-files/index.js
Otherwise, use your database, your files, your user input, or whatever to concatenate a string that will make up the http response.
// Express 3.x
app.get('*', function(req,res){
fs.readFile('./foo.txt', 'utf8', function (err, data) {
if (err) throw err;
data += (req.query['something'] || "")
res.type('text/plain');
res.send(200, data);
});
});
With that said: I have grown to love Jade as I've been playing with it for the past few months. It has its idiosyncracies but it's orders of magnitude faster to write any complicated html.

With Express 4.0.0, the only thing you have to do is comment out 2 lines in app.js:
/* app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'jade'); */ //or whatever the templating engine is.
And then drop your static html into the /public directory. Example: /public/index.html

Use Restify
http://restify.com/
var restify = require('restify'),
fs = require('fs');
var server = restify.createServer({
certificate: fs.readFileSync('path/to/server/certificate'),
key: fs.readFileSync('path/to/server/key'),
name: 'MyApp',
});
server.listen(8080);
It borrows heavily from Express -Routing

Related

How to properly set up Vite, Express, Tailwind web app

Scenario:
I am making a basic web app using Vite & Tailwind. I set up my app as normal installing Vite, and Tailwind, and got everything running fine by testing for Tailwind css on localhost:5500.
Problem:
Once I added an Express server to the mix, and it sends the index.html in response to a 'GET' request # '/', I no longer get the compiled CSS from tailwind.
Is this an uncommon setup that should be troublesome?
You could possibly use a middleware like express.static
Example:
const express = require('express')
const app = express()
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'))
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/index.html')
})
In this example, the express.static middleware is used to serve the public directory, which is where the compiled CSS files from Tailwind will be located. Then the express server will send the index.html file in response to a GET request at the root '/' path.
Extra: Alternatively you can also use Webpack or Parcel , which can automatically handle the process of bundling and serving your CSS files

Built Vue SPA not working when using "publicPath"

I set a public path in vue.config.js like
module.exports = {
publicPath: '/subpath'
};
it works fine when I start the devlopment server with npm run serve (vue-cli-service serve). The app becomes available at localhost:8080/subpath which is exactly what I want. It uses vue-router and at least in development it seems to work perfekt with the /subpath as publicPath.
Problem
I am using Express to serve the app files. Running npm run build the app will be built and stored to ./dist folder (default output folder).
// simplified server.js
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '/dist')));
app.get('/', (req, res, next) => {
res.sendfile('./dist/index.html');
});
After starting my express server and visiting my browser at localhost:<port>/subpath or localhost:<port> it can't find the necessary files.
// EXAMPLE FROM BROWSER CONSOLE
GET http://localhost:5050/subpath/js/app.6c6daa90.js net::ERR_ABORTED 404 (Not Found)
Which somehow looks obvious to me but I don't know how to set the express server correctly to respect the publicPath setting . Maybe there is a different approach ?
Attempt #1
I made a little change in my express server.js
// app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '/dist')));
/* NEW */
app.use('/subpath', express.static(path.join(__dirname, '/dist')));
This way it should serve the static files from the /dist folder when requested with /subpath/app.js
Result
From Browser console when requesting localhost:<port>/subpath or localhost:<port>
Refused to load the font 'data:application/font-woff2;base64,<omitted>' because it violates the following Content Security Policy directive: "default-src 'none'". Note that 'font-src' was not explicitly set, so 'default-src' is used as a fallback.
Refused to load the image 'http://localhost:5050/favicon.ico' because it violates the following Content Security Policy directive: "default-src 'none'". Note that 'img-src' was not explicitly set, so 'default-src' is used as a fallback.
I played around with express.static and this combination seems to work for me
const path = require('path');
const express = require('express');
const history = require('connect-history-api-fallback');
const app = express();
app.use(history());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '/dist')));
app.use('/subpath', express.static(path.join(__dirname, '/dist')));
const listener = app.listen(5050, () => {
console.log(`Open http://localhost:${port} in your browser`);
});
Sidenote : Adding connect-history-api-fallback was not required to solve the initial problem but is required for vue-router to work properly when in history mode.

How to use folders in views with express app

I have a pug template inside my views folder under views/administration/assets/fixed-assets.pug
My default.pug which the fixed-assets.pug extends from is in my root views folder.
When I try to render the fixed-assets.pug view it looks for the default.pug inside the views/administration/assets/ directory rather than the views directory itself
Everything works fine if I take the fixed-assets.pug and place it in the views directory instead of the views/administration/assets/ directory and update the route accordingly.
How can I tell express to look for the default.pug in the views directory and the fixed-assets.pug in the views/administration/assets/ directory?
Here is my route
var express = require('express');
var secured = require('../lib/middleware/secured');
var router = express.Router();
/* GET fixed-assets page. */
router.get('/administration/fixed-assets', secured(), function(req, res, next) {
res.render('administration/assets/fixed-assets', {
title: 'Fixed Assets'
});
});
module.exports = router;
Here is my views/administration/assets/fixed-assets.pug
extends default.pug
block scripts
if !starter
script(src='/js/main.js')
block view
.animated.fadeIn
h1 Fixed Assets
and this is the error I'm getting
ENOENT: no such file or directory, open
'/usr/src/app/views/administration/assets/default.pug' at
/usr/src/app/views/administration/assets/fixed-assets.pug line 1
Thanks for your help!
In the docs for Includes it says:
If the path is absolute (e.g., include /root.pug), it is resolved by
prepending options.basedir. Otherwise, paths are resolved relative to
the current file being compiled.
The explanation for that is in the API Reference:
basedir: string The root directory of all absolute inclusion.
You can implement basedir globally like this in your main app.js/server.js file:
// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'pug');
app.locals.basedir = path.join(__dirname, 'views');

Serving static files from an express/node.js application

Hi I am a newbie and started to learn about node recently. I took an Heroku tutorial on websockets (https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/node-websockets) and adapted it for a specific project I was working on. In the example code there was a single index.html file with some embedded javascript. I moved this script out to a separate file and referenced it in the HTML. Everything worked fine locally but doesn't work when i deploy to Heroko. I chatted with the very helpful team at Heroku who informed me that my server side code is serving up all files as HTML and I need to change the code. They gave me some pointers and I tried as many things as I could over several days but to no avail. In the end they recommended coming to this forum as a way to solve the problem as it is beyond their scope. The existing code that serves up the index.html file is as follows:
const express = require('express');
const SocketServer = require('ws').Server;
const path = require('path');
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 3000;
const INDEX = path.join(__dirname, 'index.html');
const server = express()
.use((req, res) => res.sendFile(INDEX) )
.listen(PORT, () => console.log(Listening on ${ PORT }));
At first i edited this to include the line:
app.use(express.static('public'))
but this didn't work. I then amended as follows and it still doesn't work:
const INDEX = path.join(__dirname, 'index.html');
const JS = path.join(__dirname, 'client.js');
const server = express()
.use((req, res) => {
res.sendFile(INDEX);
res.sendFile(JS);
I have looked at other tutorials that work when i run them in isolation but when I try to adapt my above code it simply doesn't work. I would really appreciate if someone out there could point me in the right direction.
BTW this is what Heroku told me:
"To explain a bit further this error Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token < is because the URL for http://thawing-journey-33085.herokuapp.com/client.js isn't serving a javascript file but is instead trying to serve the HTML for the homepage. This suggests you have an issue with the routing in your application which you'll need to review. This is probably because your server.js file doesn't check for any particular URL before sending the index.html file."
Thanks
I serve my static files like this:
// define the folder that will be used for static assets
app.use(Express.static(path.join(__dirname, '../public')));
// handle every other route with index.html, which will contain
// a script tag to your application's JavaScript file(s).
app.get('*', function (request, response){
response.sendFile(path.resolve(__dirname, '../public', 'index.html'));
});
This way i set the static folder in the express.static middleware so i can serve the files. And then i redirect all url request to the index.html
To know more: express static

How to Serve Static Content (.html, .js, etc) with Express.JS

Express isn't letting my web application load up AngularJS. My web application has a directory structure that basically looks like this:
\root
server.js
\angularApplication
index.html
\assets
angular.js
My server.js looks like this:
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.get("/", function(req, res) {
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/angularApplication/index.html');
});
app.use("/angularScripts", express.static(__dirname + '/angularApplication/assets'));
index.html loads fine, but the script doesn't load. I get this 404 error:
GET http://localhost:8000/angularScripts/angular.js
If I reference AngularJS in my HTML normally:
<script src="/relative-path-to/angular.js"></script>
then Express still won't get the files. What am I doing incorrectly, and why does Express refuse to serve up any my scripts?
The following worked for me:
app.use("/angularJS", express.static(__dirname + '/angularApplication/assets'));
But only if I reference the script in the HTML like this:
<script src="angularJS/angular.js"></script>
Obviously this isn't how app.use is meant to be used. The better solution I've found is this:
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/angularApplication/assets'));
// app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/angularApplication/etc'));
These will serve up all of the files in the directory, and thus the scripts and stylesheets can be referenced like this instead on the front-end:
<script src="angular.js"></script>