Express Backbone Boilerplate

A small sample app built using Express and Backbone plus a few friends. I've used it as the basis for a few bigger projects, so hope it can help others in this regard too.

Dependencies

Ensure the following are installed:

Install the global dependencies:

$ npm install -g grunt-cli karma istanbul node-inspector bower

Change to your project directory then install the local dependencies:

$ npm install; bower install

Client

RequireJS is used for file and module loading
Backbone.js is the client-side MVC framework
Handlebars is used for client-side templating
Compass is used for CSS authoring

To start using default options:

$ grunt start

Can be accessed via http://127.0.0.1:3000/. Node Inspector will also be available via http://0.0.0.0:8080/debug?port=5858.

Once started, the app will also:

Watch the server source files, and restart the Node server if any changes are made
Watch the SASS files, and recompile the dev CSS if any changes are made
Watch the relevant JS files, and run the relevant JSHint tasks if any changes are made

Unit tests

Client

Jasmine is used for testing the JS
The Jasmine SpecRunner.html is automatically generated via grunt
Karma is used to run the tests against various browsers, as well as providing code coverage via Istanbul

Tests can be run in the browser via http://127.0.0.1:3000/test.

To run tests only:

$ grunt client:test

To run tests with coverage:

$ grunt client:cover

Coverage information is output to ./coverage/client.

Server

Mocha and expect.js are used for testing the Node server JS
Istanbul is used to run the tests and provide code coverage

To run tests only:

$ grunt server:test

To run tests with coverage:

$ grunt server:coverage

Coverage information is output to ./coverage/server.

Docs

Docker is used to generate the documentation.

To generate:

$ grunt docs

Can be accessed via http://localhost:3000/docs.

Distribution

Uses the RequireJS optimiser to compress the JS
Rewrites the index.html file to only include the one script

To generate:

$ grunt dist

Thanks

@andrewpmckenzie, whose node-jasmine-dom was a big inspiration for this project
@smozely, for the scaffolding and eventMediator suggestions
@timsnadden, for showing me some new npm modules and Backbone helpers
@appleYaks, whose grunt-express-workflow I leaned heavily on when configuring Istanbul and Karma

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