Imagine a service that already has a full ecommerce catalog and purchasing etc back office with a RESTFUL API that developers can use to connect to remotely to create ecommerce websites from it. I have already built this. What I was hoping for is some advice in implementing a RESTFUL EJS service on top of this that would allow for a developer to specify an EJS template file via http resource URL and a typical catalog query in the same call such as:
http://mywebsite.ecommerceapi.com/catalogid/products?query=sunglasses&ejs=httpurl
The resulting service would then return the rendered EJS template (using caching etc for the query and EJS template). This would be primarily for SEO purposes and allowing the developers to create the same solution client-side in terms of templating as they do in server-side so it eases development in simplifying how client-side and server-side templates are done regardless of the technology used to setup the websites.
Your suggestions? I also have no problem with you saying "this is a bad idea" but please give reasons.
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I'm starting out on my Node.JS journey and I discovered a fantastic boilerplate over at https://github.com/azouaoui-med/pro-sidebar-template. I'm unsure though how to turn the static html into a web app. Just wondering how someone with more experience would do this?
Do I take the html and translate it into a PUG template file? I'm guessing to then make the onclick / links actually run some code, i'd need to point them at the routes setup in the web app?
Sorry to ask such inexperienced questions, web apps seem to take a vastly different approach to the desktop apps i'm familiar with programming
I'm wanting to create a web app that runs on a server, which I will later put on the desktop via electron.
thanks
The project you have is using browser-sync which indirectly uses NodeJS to run a local server and host the web application files.
Do I take the HTML and translate it into a PUG template file?
I am not sure about this question unless you specifically want to use server-side rendering I am not sure I would recommend this to start with especially if you plan to later convert this to a desktop application.
[Note* - Assuming you are referencing this library PUGJS in statements above ]
Now For this requirement I'm wanting to create a web app that runs on a server, which I will later put on the desktop via electron.
This will require you to make your data serving layer which is most commonly called backend separate from that of the data viewing layer which is most commonly referred to as front-end. Thus a case for using the same data layer across different types of clients viz. A web application and/or A desktop application ( electron if you choose so )
Step 1 - Define what sort of web application architecture you want to follow or use. This will be based on your project and business requirements. From what information I have so far I would suggest a simple client-server architecture where your frontend or web-application is the client which makes REST API calls to the backend (API Server) and thus produces a meaningful result.
Step 2 - Start with the creation of 2 projects a frontend where your HTML, CSS JS, etc will be and a simple NodeJS script to serve this static web app when deployed on the server. I am going with NodeJS since the context of this question is suggesting the same.
Step 3 - The other project which will only be an API Server or Backend. This server will provide only REST API to the frontend. This server will talk to the database and provide other services like authentication and logging etc. You can use expressJS for this also in the frontend project.
Here is a simplistic representation of the client-server model which you can reference.
Some additional links for you to digest.
What is the difference between a web application and a client/server application?
https://medium.com/codiumclub/web-application-architecture-part-1-guide-to-become-full-stack-developer-cc9526a3519b
We have a multitennant CMS which currently runs on PHP. For the next version we're looking at moving to Node.js and looking at Handlebars as the view engine.
My understanding is that unless I add helpers, the templates are safe and can't manipulate or access global state. Is this understanding correct?
Aside from XSS, are there any other security issues to consider when allowing users to edit their own HBS templates?
I'm retro engineering a couple of web apps to figure out which technologies are behind them so I can know which one I can use or learn to build my own web app
So, going through the app I can see that it's based on NodeJs and ExpressJS and luckily I know both of them.
But what I can't figure out is the template engine, there's a lot of template engines that are really friendly to Express(Jade, EJS, HandleBars, etc...)
So I was wondering if there is a way to know which template engine is used on a web site
Not normally. The whole point of a template engine is to replace special characters with user facing content so that precludes the type of hints one would need to determine the template engine. One would need to see the server side source code to really know.
Hello guys i was learning web developments and have a simple question. If i built a e-commerce web page using node.js and ejs template engine and everything works fine. The next decision is to build a native app for the same e-commerce site either android or IOS. I want the native app to also communicate with the same application server designed in node.js. Do i have to redesign the application server?
My approach or thought:
Native app will have to consume data either xml or json. So i will have to change the business logic of my endpoints. And if i do it this way, i will also have to change the way the web ui interacts with the application server and it also has to consume json or xml response using ajax call. Is my thinking or approach on the right track? But if using node.js, should i avoid the template engines?
Yes, you have to redesign the application server logic by exposing API endpoints. As mobile apps (iOS/Android) will interact with the server using these API endpoints, via JSON. And this will affect your web page also, as everything thing now has to be done via AJAX calls.
Best practice is to built a single page web application using Angular or React.
That way both your mobile app and web app would behave almost the same.
I am building a website using nodejs and express. How to make divisions in a page dynamic? Is Jade used for that? if not how to do it?what is angularjs used for? Please help i searched a lot on google and i couldn't get a clarity in the usage of them.
Jade creates the html used in the browser on the server-side. The browser executes a request to the web-server, the web-server executes Jade, which will generate the html that will be sent to the browser. This server-side content generation has been very common in the last ~20 years, but it has quite some cons when building rich internet application. Mostly this has to do with performance and client state tracking.
AngularJS is a client-side MVC/MVVM like framework to build so called Single Page Applications (SPA), which allows you to have the complete user interface flow, all content generation and state tracking to be done at the client side. It even allows you to build offline applications. From the developer point of view this feels much more like building a desktop application where the client knows the state of the user interface. From the user point of the view the website will respond much smoother and snappier because the UI is all generated locally.
Note: SPA does not mean that you can only have one page in your website.
It's a technical term where the browser downloads one page (~/index.html), which contains the complete or partial web application. The user technically never leaves this page, but the content (pages) is dynamically swapped in and out from this placeholder page.
To most common way to provide data to a SPA is via RESTful web services. AngularJS comes with builtin support for REST.
Some developers combine server-side content generation techniques with AngularJS, but there's actually no real need for this.
Jade is used as a template engine on both server-side and client-side. Yes, it can update a page dynamically, you just have to compile your jade templates to a javascript functions (using jade -c or something similar).
Yes, you can use angular.js with it, but I see no real need to use two template engines in your project. Suggesting to just stick with jade, unless you know what are you doing.