I'm learning how to propel use gruntjs. I found the server task but I can't get the point.
Can i use the server task mapping concatenated/minified files to test my application (uses backbone.js) without moving or placing source files in web server root? Without apache for example.
If no, what's the supposed use of server task?
The server task is used to start a static server with the base path set as the web root.
Example: Serve ./web-root as http://localhost:8080/:
grunt.initConfig({
server: {
port: 8080,
base: './web-root'
}
});
It will function similar to an Apache server, serving up static files based on their path, but uses the http module via connect to set it up (source).
If you need it to serve more than just static files, then you'll want to consider defining a custom server task:
grunt.registerTask('server', 'Start a custom web server.', function() {
grunt.log.writeln('Starting web server on port 1234.');
require('./server.js').listen(1234);
});
And custom server instance:
// server.js
var http = require('http');
module.exports = http.createServer(function (req, res) {
// ...
});
Can I use the server task mapping concatenated/minified files to test my application [...]
Concatenation and minification have their own dedicated tasks -- concat and min -- but could be used along with a server task to accomplish all 3.
Edit
If you want it to persist the server for a while (as well as grunt), you could define the task as asynchronous (with the server's 'close' event):
grunt.registerTask('server', 'Start a custom web server.', function() {
var done = this.async();
grunt.log.writeln('Starting web server on port 1234.');
require('./server.js').listen(1234).on('close', done);
});
The server task is now the connect task and it's included in the grunt-contrib-connect package.
The connect task starts a connect web server.
Install this plugin with this command:
npm install grunt-contrib-connect --save-dev
Note: --save-dev includes the package in your devDependencies, see https://npmjs.org/doc/install.html
Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-connect');
Run this task with the grunt connect command.
Note that this server only runs as long as grunt is running. Once grunt's tasks have completed, the web server stops. This behavior can be changed with the keepalive option, and can be enabled ad-hoc by running the task like grunt connect:targetname:keepalive. targetname is equal to "server" in the code sample below.
In this example, grunt connect (or more verbosely, grunt connect:server) will start a static web server at http://localhost:9001/, with its base path set to the www-root directory relative to the Gruntfile, and any tasks run afterwards will be able to access it.
// Project configuration.
grunt.initConfig({
connect: {
server: {
options: {
port: 9001,
base: 'www-root'
}
}
}
});
The point of the server task is to have quick and dirty access to static files for testing. grunt server IS NOT a production server environment. It really should only be used during the grunt lifecycle to get static testing assets to the testing environment. Use a full-fledged server, possibly controlled by the NPM lifecycle scripts, for production environments.
Related
I'm trying to set up a Node.js project that uses Express to provide a few backend APIs and serve a SPA built with Vue.js.
When I use the Vue cli to initialize a project, I get e.g. src/main.ts main file and commands npm run serve to run a dev server and watch for changes and npm run build to build a production release.
When I use the Express application generator to create a project, I get ./app.js main file and npm start to start the server and watch for changes.
How can I combine these into a single project, both served by the same Express server? Preferably so that a single command would watch + update changes to both server and client? I want to use Vue single file components and TypeScript, which (probably?) require a build step.
(I don't need dynamic server-side rendering of Vue templates, just the static SPA app provided. I prefer TypeScript, but JavaScript answers are fine as well.)
These will be different for your dev and prod environments...
For development look into concurrently - it basically allows you to create a single script in your package.json to start both the client and server concurrently and will watch for changes etc...
For production, you would need something like this in your app.js:
if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
app.use(express.static('client/build'));
const path = require('path');
app.get('*', (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(path.resolve(__dirname, 'client', 'build', 'index.html'));
});
}
(The code above assumes that your directory structure has a client folder with a build folder after having run npm run build I'm more familiar with React than Vue... but the logic should be the same...)
I need to test koajs support on azure. since koajs uses --harmony flag with node to take advantage of generators its very hard to tweek node on azure.
following is the code for server.js file.
var koa = require("koa")
var app = koa();
app.use(function * () {
this.body = "Hello World!";
});
app.listen(80);
console.log("The app is listening. Port 80");
I have a web app on azure that use git local publising to push code online. how can i configure node to use --harmony switch?
You can control the node command line by using the nodeProcessCommandLine configuration setting which can be specified in an iisnode.yml config file as detailed in the "advanced scenarios" section of this post. This allows you to pass additional command line switches, choose your node version, point to your own deployed node build, etc.
For example:
nodeProcessCommandLine: "D:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\0.10.18\node.exe" --harmony
Your specific issue is discussed in more detail in this github issue.
I am working off of Yeoman's gulp-webapp generator. I have modified my gulp serve task to use my Express server, rather than the default connect server it ships with. My issue is with Livereload functionality. I am trying to simply port the connect-livereload to work with my Express server rather than having to install new dependencies. It's to my understanding that most connect middleware should work fine with Express, so I am assuming connect livereload is compatible with Express 4.
Here are the contents of the relevant tasks in my gulpfile:
gulp.task('express', function() {
var serveStatic = require('serve-static');
var app = require('./server/app');
app.use(require('connect-livereload')({port: 35729}))
.use(serveStatic('.tmp'));
app.listen(3000);
});
gulp.task('watch', ['express'], function () {
$.livereload.listen();
// watch for changes
gulp.watch([
'app/*.ejs',
'.tmp/styles/**/*.css',
'app/scripts/**/*.js',
'app/images/**/*'
]).on('change', $.livereload.changed);
gulp.watch('app/styles/**/*.css', ['styles']);
gulp.watch('bower.json', ['wiredep']);
});
gulp.task('styles', function () {
return gulp.src('app/styles/main.css')
.pipe($.autoprefixer({browsers: ['last 1 version']}))
.pipe(gulp.dest('.tmp/styles'));
});
gulp.task('serve', ['express', 'watch'], function () {
require('opn')('http://localhost:3000');
});
With this simple setup, when I run gulp serve in my cmd everything spins up fine and I can accept requests at http://localhost:3000.
Now if I go and change the body's background color from #fafafa to #f00 in main.css and hit save, my gulp output will respond with main.css was reloaded, as seen in the bottom of this screenshot.
However, my webpage does not update. The background color is still light-grey instead of red.
Is there perhaps a conflict between my express server config and the way gulp handles its files? Is my Express server forcing the use of app/styles/main.css rather than the use of .tmp/styles/main.css? Shouldn't the livereload script handle the injection of the new temporary file?
Thanks for any help.
EDIT:
I was able to move forward a bit by adding livereload.js to the script block of my index file, like so:
<script src="http://localhost:35729/livereload.js"></script>
I am now able to get live changes pushed to the client. Why was this file not getting injected before? How can I ensure this is getting used programatically as opposed to pasting it into my files?
I was able to get past this issue by removing the app.use(require('connect-livereload')({port: 35729})) from my gulpfile, along with a couple of other lines, and having that instantiate in my Express server's app.js file.
My gulpfile's express task now looks like this:
gulp.task('express', function() {
var app = require('./server/app');
app.listen(3000);
});
I added in the connect-livereload just above where I specify my static directory in Express:
if (app.get('env') === 'development') {
app.use(require('connect-livereload')());
}
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '../app')));
Once I started using this setup, I was getting the livereload.js script injected into my document, and client-side changes are now auto-refreshed just how I wanted.
Hope this helps someone!
Currenty I'm using grunt with karma and jasmine to run my tests etc. for my Angular app.
I want to connect this app to a mongo database and was wondering what the best way to do this is. Should I keep using grunt and just connect to a database and use it all the way, or should I use an Express server as my main server connected to the database and run the tests with grunt?
Initially I want to publish this project to heroku, and I know you can do this by just adding a static server.js (wich I do not currently have) like this.
var express = require('express');
var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
var app = express();
app.use(express.static(__dirname + ‘/public’));
app.listen(port);
and modify the gruntfile.js with this:
tasks
grunt.registerTask('heroku',
['compass:dist', 'autoprefixer', 'imagemin']);
What is the best way to do this?
I see, I feel you have slight misconception of what grunt is. Grunt is a task runner. It will run other commands when for each task. Say for example if you can compile css or minifiy js or combine images before starting server you can do it with grunt. But that does not mean grunt can do all those by itself. It will be using other libraries for those.
If you are using grunt to do testing you internally using jasmine or karma js or something else. Same when you say grunt serve you use express internally start server. So grunt does not connect to mongodb. It is express which connects to mongodb. You can write grunt tasks which will start mongodb and start express server but grunt can not do either by its own.
Should you use grunt? Yes of course.
I'm using yeoman for my application which consists of 2 parts - client site with js/html/css and the rest service.
During development I start rest service in Eclipse and start server for my static files with
grunt server
The problem is that I have to do a post request to root url '/' (it's a fake login POST request to make browsers prompt to save passwords).
It worked with yeoman 0.9 but after updating I get:
Cannot POST /
Is there a way to configure grunt server task to accept POST requests?
Thanks!
Leonti
I think you want the connect-rest middleware.
https://github.com/imrefazekas/connect-rest
npm install connect-rest --save-dev
Edit Gruntfile.js, at the top
var restSupport = require('connect-rest');
restSupport.post( { path: '/savequestion'}, function(req, content, next){
next(null, {result: 'OK'});
});
In your connect or livereload middleware section:
livereload: {
options: {
middleware: function (connect) {
return [
lrSnippet,
mountFolder(connect, '.tmp'),
mountFolder(connect, yeomanConfig.app),
restSupport.rester( {'context': '/forms'} ),
rewriteRulesSnippet, // RewriteRules support
The key part is "restSupport.rester()", remove the context if you don't want it.
This simple function should just reply with the json object {result: 'OK'} to everything you post to /forms/savequestion . It should at least let you build out scaffolding in grunt server :9000 mode before you have build your templates. Without this you would have to $.get() each $.post() and then change it during or after the build.