mvc-webapp node module

A simple framework for MVC web applications and RESTful APIs.

Features

• Docker container ready
• Express 5 based HTTP handling and routes
• Familiar MVC folder structure and URL paths (controller per file, public folder for static content, etc)
• Optional shared session management using Redis
• CORS support (HTTP OPTIONS)
• Flexible logging formatting using Morgan (defaults to Apache style)
• Out of the box support for EJS templates in Views, and partials
• Use any Node based data access module for storage
• Custom error handling
• Tiny and clean; outside of NPM dependencies, the code is about ~200 lines

Setup and First Webapp

1. Follow these steps to get started with your first mvc-webapp:

mkdir test-app
cd test-app
npm init
npm install express@5 --save
npm install mvc-webapp --save
mkdir -p application/models
mkdir -p application/controllers
mkdir -p application/views
mkdir -p application/adapters
mkdir -p application/public

At some point this will be automated by a script, for now, it will involve some keystrokes.

2. Add an entry point app.js on the root folder. This contains your app options and can be configurable via env-vars for container usage:

#!/usr/bin/env node

const webapp = require('mvc-webapp')

webapp.run({
	applicationRoot: process.env.PWD,
	listenPort: process.env.PORT || '3000',
	sessionRedisUrl: process.env.REDISCLOUD_URL || undefined,
	sessionSecret: process.env.SESSION_SECRET || undefined,
	redirectSecure: true,
	allowCORS: false,
	viewEngine: 'ejs', // Optional: Pug, Handlebars, EJS, etc
	loggerFormat: 'common', // Morgan formats
	trustProxy: true,
	notfoundMiddleware: (request, response, next) => {
		response.status(404).json({
			code: 404,
			message: 'Sorry! File Not Found'
		})
	},
	errorMiddleware: (error, request, response, _) => {
		if (request.xhr) {
			response.status(500).json({
				code: 500,
				message: (error.message)? error.message : error,
				stack: request.app.get('env') === 'development' ? error.stack : ''
			})
		} else {
			response.render('error', {
				pageTitle: 'Oops!',
				status: 500,
				message: (error.message)? error.message : error,
				stack: request.app.get('env') === 'development' ? error.stack : '',
			})
		}
	},
})

This is the minimal amount of options you can give, sensible and secure default values are given for everything else:

#!/usr/bin/env node

const webapp = require('mvc-webapp')

webapp.run({
	// Mandatory
	applicationRoot: process.env.PWD,
	listenPort: process.env.PORT || '3000',

	// Optional Redis Session Management
	// sessionRedisUrl: undefined,
	// sessionSecret: undefined,

	// Optional Security Related
	// redirectSecure: false,
	// allowCORS: false,
	// trustProxy: false,

	// Optional Framework
	// viewEngine: undefined, // Pug, Handlebars, EJS, etc
	// loggerFormat: 'common', // Morgan formats

	// Optional Error Handling
	// notfoundMiddleware: undefined,
	// errorMiddleware: undefined,
})

The error handling can be customized to return plain JSON, HTTP codes or an EJS rendered page, your choice.

3. Add an initial controller, this will be automatically mapped to a path (login.js becomes /login//):

exports.actions = controller => {
	controller.get('/', (request, response, _) => {
		response.json({
			status: 'Sample status...',
			data: null,
		})
	})
	
	controller.get('/async', async (request, response) => {
		const hi = await Promise.resolve('Hi!')
		response.send(hi)
	})

	controller.get('/fail', async (request, response) => {
		await Promise.reject('REJECTED!')
	})

	controller.get('/denied', async (request, response) => {
		response.status(403).send('Not here')
	})

	return controller
}

This should be familiar to any Express user. A special exception is made for the index.js controller file, this is mapped to the root / folder. Additionally, any routes inside that controller, get appended as a method.

In order to render a view, invoke the view (file)name in the res.render call:

response.render('index', {
	title: 'Homepage',
	user: 'octopie'
})

4. Run using npm start or node app.js - added the env var DEBUG="mvc-webapp:*" to see what the framework is doing behind the scenes.

Docker Support

Add the following file to the root folder and docker build:

FROM node:latest

WORKDIR /app
ADD . /app

RUN npm install

CMD ["npm","start"]

Also Checkout

1. EJS Templates - this is what the views use
2. Express - this is what powers the HTTP communication