I am beginner on node.js. Actually my intention are setup portable environment for development node.js on windows. Wingnix are good candidates since it include nginx, mysql, and php.
I install the npm package via -g (global flag), however, it stored in my ${APPDATA}\npm due to the npmrc file on
C:\Winginx\nodejs\node_modules\npm
However, as in the documentation of Winginx for node.js section
As you know, Node.js supports packages (modules). Global packages
folder is \winginx\nodejs\node_modules.
Node.js Package Manager NPM, popular Node.js web framework Express.js
and template engine Jade are included.
That make me confuse, how i install additional global package and manage them? do Winginx provide command shell to manage? Because i set the \winginx\nodejs as Path in environment variables for access through Bash/CMD in windows.
Use this bat file: X:\winginx\nodejs\npm.cmd
Related
Why do I have to install Node.js to work with Polymer? Just because of npm? Are there any other uses for Node.js in a typical Polymer project? Or is npm just used to install Bower, and Bower to install project dependencies?
Node.js is just use to create project files. create a polymer project you have to use the console polymer CLI.
once files are generated you don't need the CLI until new project or to modify the current one.
You don't need Node.js. You can download all the components you want (plus all their dependencies and polyfills) from Github yourself, and organize them in your project directory. You also don't need any project files if you're going that route.
If you want, however, to conveniently install the components and all their dependencies, you can use bower, or the more recent yarn, which use Node.js. Also, if you want to host your project on Github or similar, it's useful to just commit bower.json which contains a list of all the dependencies (and can then conveniently be installed after cloning the repo), instead of forking all of Polymer's code into your project repo.
Having this said, if all you need is Polymer itself without any of the web components Polymer provides, it's probably even easier to just download Polymer and the required polyfills yourself.
There are more uses for Node.js. You may want to use some packages in your Polymer project, such as Redux, which you can also just download yourself, or install using NPM/Node.
I really like virtual environments in Python, where you can put a whole Python environment including the interpreter into a project directory. If you dig out an old project after years you can just activate the environment and you are ready to go - this is awesome.
What is the node.js way of doing this?
Usually you mark down the package versions and Node.js version that your code supports in the appropriate package.json directive. This means that distributed versions of your projects import the same modules. Locally, this doesn't matter as npm installs your packages in the project directory by default.
However, for managing your local Node versions more efficiently, a tool such as Node Version Manager will do the trick. NVM specifically supports a .nvmrc file in the project directory to mark down the Node version.
I started a tutorial on Angular 2.0, the first step in setting up the workspace is installing Node.js and NPM.
Why do we have install Node.js for Angular 2.0?
I don't remember doing this for angular 1.X.
Technically, Node.js and NPM are not needed to do Angular2 work. It does ease things though. Here's the main reasons I speculate are behind this choice:
CLI: Since a while now the de facto way to build and develop new Angular apps is to use the CLI tooling which relies on Node and NPM as well.
TypeScript: Examples are .ts, and you need to run a compiler step to get them into .js, which can be done on-the-fly easily with Node.js and NPM (plus it's a way of easily getting typing files);
Web Server: Serving your Angular SPA from a "real" albeit light web server prevents probably some nasty issues that come with checking your site using file:// links.
The Quickstart guide itself actually continues to mention some more concrete reasons as well:
Here's what these scripts do:
npm start - runs the compiler and a server at the same time, both in "watch mode"
npm run tsc - runs the TypeScript compiler once
npm run tsc:w - runs the TypeScript compiler in watch mode; the process keeps running, awaiting changes to TypeScript files and re-compiling when it sees them
npm run lite - runs the lite-server, a light-weight, static file server with excellent support for Angular apps that use routing
npm run typings - runs the typings tool separately
npm run postinstall - called by npm automatically after it successfully completes package installation. This script installs the TypeScript definition files defined in typings.json
You can also have a look at the Quickstart source and further dive into where NPM is needed.
Footnote: there's a similar question about needing Node.js for AngularJS (1.x).
Because Anglar2 is based on Typescript, Web Components and ES6 which need compilation for performance and broader browser support. Typescript is compiled to ES5 JavaScript and the other features require shims for backwards compatibility.
Since Typescript is a superset of JavaScript, and it's compiled to JavaScript anyway, you can write your code in plain JavaScript but it's not recommended.
For a more detailed explanation check out these videos on YouTube
Why Typescript
Instalation steps
NodeJS gives you the tool npm that allows you to download libraries and packages you would use in Angular 2. From the shell you can go to your folder and type npm install to install dependencies you need to have installed to get your angular project going. It will make it easier for you! If you want a complete starter kit go to https://github.com/buckyroberts, you can fork or download the zip with all the starter files to get you going :)
You do not need to use Node anywhere in production to use any front-end JavaScript framework, whether it is jQuery, AngularJS, ReactJS, Angular2, etc.
Angular2 can be used in isolation but to get and feel better development environment, angular2 should be used with nodejs and npm. Some of the nodejs modules helps you in web development.
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
Is there any way to change the directory where node.js modules are installed? By default (on Linux Mint 13), npm install express installs the express module in home/username/node_modules, but I want modules to be installed by default in home/username/Dropbox/node_modules instead.
Well if you want to change installation directory try setting relevant prefix.
Just a suggestion though, if its a small project, a quick fix is simply install packages separately on each machine. If its a big project then I guess you would be atleast using some source control like git. All package dependencies can be managed elegantly using source control.