WebAppEngine

A web application server that can host multiple web apps running with Node.js.

WebAppEngine Note. The administration UI is currently under construction.

Installation

For the API usage:

$ npm install --save webappengine

For the command line usage:

$ npm install -g webappengine

Kickstart your project using generator-webappengine

A Yeoman generator for developing WebAppEngine app is available at https://github.com/cheton/generator-webappengine. You can use the generator to kickstart your project. It includes Gulp, Browserify, Babelify, Stylus, Handlebars, i18next, and React.

Follow the steps to run the generator:

$ npm install -g yo
$ npm install -g generator-webappengine
$ yo webappengine

Once completed, you have to install NPM packages and Bower components, and run the gulp command to build your project.

$ npm install
$ bower install
$ gulp

Now you can run node app/main.js to launch your web app, or use webappengine to load app.js. For example:

var path = require('path');
var webappengine = require('webappengine');

webappengine({
    port: 80,
    routes: [
        {
            type: 'server',
            route: '/',
            server: function(options) {
                options = options || {};

                var app = express();
                var serveStatic = require('serve-static');
                var assetPath = path.resolve(__dirname, 'web');
                
                app.use(options.route, serveStatic(assetPath));

                return app;
            }
        }
    ]
});

Usage

API usage

var path = require('path');
var webappengine = require('webappengine');
var options = {
    port: 80, // [optional] The listen port (default: 8000)
    //host: '', // [optional] The listen address or hostname (default: 0.0.0.0)
    //backlog: 511, // [optional] The listen backlog (default: 511)
    routes: [
        {
            type: 'static', // [static|server]
            route: '/',
            directory: path.resolve(__dirname, 'web') // for the static type
        }
    ]
};

webappengine(options)
    .on('ready', function(server) {
        var address = server.address();
        console.log('Server is listening on %s:%d', address.address, address.port);

        var io = require('socket.io')(server); // using socket.io
    })
    .on('error', function(err) {
        console.error('Error:', err);
    });

Command line usage

Run webappengine to start the app, and visit http://yourhostname:8000/ to check if it works:

$ webappengine

To check what port the app is running on, find the message Server is listening on 0.0.0.0:8000 from console output.

By default the app listens on port 8000, you can run webappengine with -p (or --port) to determine which port your application should listen on. For example:

$ webappengine -p 80

Set the environment variable NODE_ENV to production if you are running in production mode:

$ NODE_ENV=production webappengine

Run webappengine with -h for detailed usage:

$ webappengine -h

  Usage: webappengine [options]
  
  Options:

    -h, --help               output usage information
    -V, --version            output the version number
    -p, --port               set listen port (default: 8000)
    -H, --host <host>        set listen address or hostname (default: 0.0.0.0)
    -b, --backlog            set listen backlog (default: 511)
    -c, --config <filename>  set multihost configuration file
    -v, --verbose            increase the verbosity level

Getting Started

Working with static assets

The following configuration will serve static assets from the directory:

static-config.json:

[
    {
        "type": "static",
        "route": "/",
        "directory": "/path/to/your/project/web/"
    }
]

Run webappengine with --config to set multihost configuration file:

$ webappengine --config "/path/to/your/project/static-config.json"

or use the API:

var webappengine = require('webappengine');
var routes = require('./static-config.json');

webappengine({
    routes: routes
});

Visits http://yourhostname:8000/ will serve index.html file as below:

<h1>WebAppEngine Test Page</h1>

(See also: examples/static/index.html)

Configure multihost settings to run multiple web apps

First, checkout examples/simple/app.js and examples/multihost.json, and copy examples to your project folder to kickstart a web application.

simple/app.js:

var path = require('path'),
    express = require('express');

module.exports = function(options) {
    options = options || {};

    var app = express();
    var serveStatic = require('serve-static');
    var assetPath = path.resolve(__dirname, 'web');

    // Enable case sensitivity routing: "/Foo" is not equal to "/foo"
    app.enable('case sensitive routing');
    // Disable strict routing: "/foo" and "/foo/" are treated the same
    app.disable('strict routing');

    app.use(options.route, serveStatic(assetPath));

    return app;
};

server-config.json:

[
    {
        "type": "server",
        "route": "/simple",
        "server": "/path/to/your/project/simple/app"
    }
]

Run webappengine with --config to set multihost configuration file:

$ webappengine --config "/path/to/your/project/server-config.json"

or use the API:

var webappengine = require('webappengine');
var routes = require('./server-config.json');

webappengine({
    routes: routes
});

Visits http://yourhostname:8000/simple will serve index.html file as below:

<h1>WebAppEngine Test Page</h1>

Administration UI

The administration UI is currently under construction.

Dashboard

TBD

Change the display language

You can change the display language from the Settings menu, it will set the lang query string parameter: ?lang={locale}

Here is a list of currently supported locales:

Locale	Language
de	Deutsch
en	English (US)
es	Español
fr	Français
it	Italiano
ja	日本語
zh-cn	中文 (简体)
zh-tw	中文 (繁體)