Suppose I modified the source code of generator-jhipster repo and I would like to generate my "custom" JHipster application into a specific directory, how would I accomplish this task?
After installing JHipster:
npm install -g generator-jhipster
I would be able to generate the application with:
jhipster
However, this command runs the application directly from the JHipster repository.
Since I modified the source code, I could generate the application locally by running:
node jhipster.js
in the ../cli directory.
The problem is, running this command in cli directory will generate the application in the same directory (cli) and this is not what I want.
I need to find a way to export the application into a specific directory.
Note: I strongly believe this has something to do with process.cwd(), because that generates the application in the local directory, but I'm not sure exactly
which source file to modify as I don't want to break anything.
I would like to have repository with default NPM modules and its configs for all future NPM projects.
For now the configs consists of tsconfig.json, tslint.json, .prettierrc.
The goal is to have a simple way for creating new project with custom defaults and also have possibility of changing configs for all of these projects from one place.
I tried to create my own NPM module with package.json containing dependencies I want to have in all my new projects and its configs in root. The problem is obvious - if I install this package into new project, modules (and configs) are scoped to my custom module and not to my newly created project.
Does anyone has any idea how to deal with this?
You are basically making a boilerplate. Do develop it, I see two possible approcches:
Publish the boilerplate as NPM module.
Build and publish the boilerplate on your repository provider (Github, Bitbucket etc) and use it as starting project to be forked for every new project you build.
I will suggest you to follow the second approach, that's easier to achieve.
You are instead tryng to follow the first approch that's more tricky. To generate a starting project you should build a CLI (Command line interface). So you will build an NPM module that should be globally installed and that you will use with a set of commands like:
myawesomecli generate my-new-starting-project
And the myawesomecli module will generate a my-new-starting-project folder containing your boilerplate. You could optionally ask to the user for settings to be selected in an interactive session. That's what famous framework like React, Vue.js, Angular etc. are doing.
You can follow this tutorial to build a CLI that generates boilerplates. Keep in mind that the inquier module is the key module for such scopes.
I have developed a nodejs project as an umd library, with the purpose to use it in a another nodejs project. The library project builds fine and generates the index.js file and index.min.js file.
But when I tried installing the library project locally using npm install "asolute path". It brings all the things in the library project. And the size of my project I want to use the library project grew. Seems it is because of all the files in library project is getting copied.
Thanks for any help in advance.
Have you added an .npmignore file?
Also, you'll probably want to use npm link for local development.
I put some common code in this local module called 'client-common'. In one of the app project using this common module, I add this to package.json dependencies:
"client-common": "../client-common"
After npm install the module gets copied to node_modules. When I run (it's an Ionic project) ionic serve, it builds all fine, but at runtime in the browser I get
Runtime Error
Cannot find module "client-common"
I'm assuming this is a webpack issue? The question is why is the local module treated differently and not bundled at all?
It seems that I was supposed to supply an index.js in the common module. After adding an index.js duplicated from the existing index.d.ts, exporting everything, it just works now.
I am new to Node.js programming and I have recently created a sample working web application using (express, backbone & other complimentary view technologies, with mongoDB). Now i am at a point where I want to deploy the same on a staging environment and I am not sure how to package this application and distribute the same. [I can take care of mongoDb and setting it up seperately]
I am from Java world and in there we create jars for reusable libs and war/ear packages for web applications which is deployed in a servlet container. Now in this case since node.js itself acts as a web container as well, how do i package my webapp?
Is there any standard format/guidelines of packaging node webapps built using express? (Is there a similar jar/war packaging systems for node apps?)
How do I deploy it once packaged? Would it become an exe, since it is also its own container?
PS: As of now I am thinking of just manually copying all the required source files into the staging environment and run npm commands to download all dependencies on that machine and then use 'forever' or some other mechanism to run my server.js. (Also, add some sort of monitoring, just in case app crashes and forever fails) I am not sure if that is the right way? I am sure there must be some standardized way of addressing this problem.
Deploying Node.js applications is very easy stuff. In maven, there is pom.xml. Related concept in Node.js is package.json. You can state your dependencies on package.json. You can also do environmental setup on package.json. For example, in dev environment you can say that
I want to run unit tests.
but in production;
I want to skip unit tests.
You have local repositories for maven under .m2 folder. In Node.js, there is node_modules folder under your Node.js project. You can see module folders with its name.
Let's come to the grunt part of this answer. Grunt is a task manager for your frontend assets, html, javascript, css. For example, before deployment you can minify html, css, javascript even images. You can also put grunt task run functions in package.json.
If you want to look at a sample application, you can find an example blog application here. Check folder structure and package.json for reference.
For deployment, I suggest you heroku deployment for startup applciations. You can find howto here. This is simple git based deployment.
On project running part, simply set your environment NODE_ENV=development and node app.js. Here app.js is in your project.
Here is relative concept for java and nodejs;
maven clean install => npm install
.m2 folder => node_modules(Under project folder)
mvn test => npm test(test section on package.json)
junit, powermock, ... => mocha, node-unit, ...
Spring MVC => Express.JS
pom.xml => package.json
import package => require('module_name')
There is no standardized way, but you're on the right track. If your package.json is up to date and well kept, you can just copy/zip/clone your app directory to the production system, excluding the node_modules.
On your production system, run
npm install to install your dependencies, npm test if you have tests and finally NODE_ENV=production node server.js
Some recent slides I considered to be quite helpful that also include the topic of wrappers like forever, can be found here.
Hope this might be helpful for somebody looking for the solution,Packaging of Node js apps can be done using "npm pack" command.It creates a zip file of your application which can be run in production/staging environment.
Is there any standard format/guidelines of packaging node webapps
built using express? (Is there a similar jar/war packaging systems for
node apps?)
Yes, the CommonJS Packages specification:
This specification describes the CommonJS package format for
distributing CommonJS programs and libraries. A CommonJS package is a
cohesive wrapping of a collection of modules, code and other assets
into a single form. It provides the basis for convenient delivery,
installation and management of CommonJS components.
For your next question:
2. How do I deploy it once packaged? Would it become an exe, since it is also its own container?
I second Hüseyin's suggestion to deploy on Heroku for production. For development and staging I use Node-Appliance with VirtualBox and Amazon EC2, respectively:
This program takes a Debian machine built by build-debian-cloud or
Debian-VirtualBox-Appliance and turns it into a Node.js "appliance",
capable of running a Node application deployed via git.
Your webapp will not become an exe.
few ways to approach this:
Push your code into Git repository, excluding everything that isn't your code (node_modules/**), then pull it in your staging environment, run npm install to restore all dependencies
create an NPM package out of it , install it via npm in your staging environment (this should also take care of all of the dependencies)
manual copy/ssh files to your staging environment (this can be automated with Grunt), than restore your dependencies via npm
I used zeit's pkg module. It can create cross platform deliverables for linux/win/macos. Actually used it in production and works fine without any issues.
It takes in all the js scripts and packages it into a single file.
The reason I used it is because it helps in securing your source code. That way in production at customers environment they will have access to application but not the source code.
Also one of the advantages is that at production environment, you do not actually need to have the customer install node.js as the node binaries also get packaged inside the build.
https://www.npmjs.com/package/pkg