expresslane's Introduction

Express Lane

Get started building with Express fast.

Express Lane builds around these assumptions:

View engine is handlebars.
Settings are managed centrally and loaded on server object.
Session handling is used.

Requirements

Node.js
Connect
Express
hbs
A settings module that exports settings as an anonymous object:

module.exports = { // My settings };

Express lane settings variables

modules (array of modules to be required on start)
port
publicHostname
Layout template variables
siteTitle
siteSlogan
entitiesRoot
footerMessage
analytics
feedbackMessage

Custom settings

Organize custom settings by module name. I. e. your module should expect settings at settings.mymodule.

Usage

// settings.js: configuration for Express Lane and Express Lane modules.
module.exports = {
    modules: [
        'train'
    ],
    train: {
        cars: 12,
        number: 502
    }
    port: 8080,
    siteTitle: 'Transport'
};

// Start express server via Express Lane
require('expresslane').start();

// Example: query settings for train module.
var settings = require('expresslane').app.set('settings)('train);

Directory structure

/public - static files

Messages

You can display status messages to the user like this

require('expresslane').on('renderStatusMessages', function(req, res) {
    res.statusMessages.push('Hello World');
});

Of course your layout template needs to contain {{statusMessage}}.

TODO: Page based message support would be trivial:

app.get('/', function(req, res, next) {
    res.messages.push('Hello World');
});

Environment dependent settings

Additionally to settings.js, environment dependent settings can be specified in modules named

settings.env.ENV_NAME.js

So if the application is started with NODE_ENV=production node app.js a file settings.env.production.js will be looked for and - if present - its values would be added to the ones defined in settings.js. If a value with the same key already exists in settings.js it will be overridden.

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