Baxel

Baxel is a MVC web framework build on top of Koa.io framework, it born because there is no simple project that, IMO, doesn't is flexible and simple to use, and witch adopt the MVC architecture.

The intention of this framework isn't not to build new tools to do the job, just to be a glue of existing projects. There is too many projects that creates their own ORM, ODM or just database driver, instead of integrate some of the nice available out there.

Also it only will provide a structure, inspired on Ruby on Rails, that will allow you to organise better your projects, initialise your own or third party libraries, call in a easy way your models, helpers, etc.

Features

• MVC architecture project
• Helpers support
• ORM, ODM or DB driver independent
• Easy way to instantiate third party libraries
• Easy way to call models and helpers from the controllers
• Well organized configuration files and routes
• Template support
• Custom middleware support
• Built in socket.io support (koa.io)

Usage

Instalation

npm install -g baxel

Create a new Baxel project

baxel new blog
cd blog

Runinig Baxel for development, uses nodemon behind so the app will be restarted when changed made on the project

baxel run

Enable interactive mode

baxel run -i

Runing Baxel for production, its just like another nodejs app

node app.js

Interactive CLI, its only available when run the application with baxel CLI

baxel$ help

  Commands:

    help [command]          Provides help for a given command.
    exit [options]          Exits instance of Vorpal.
    paths [options] [ctrl]  Show paths
    env <env> [value]       Get / Set environment variable
    task <task>             Execute certain task
    model                   Enable model execution
    helper                  Enable helper execution (helper with generators not suported yet!)

This tool is not safe to use in production, it helps you to debug your application quickly, change environment variables and execute some files (models, helpers and tasks)

Custom middleware support

If you want to use i.e. koa-minify you need to setup their initialization file inside config/middlewares

module.exports = {
	dir: __dirname
}

Baxel internally will search this module in the root node_modules folder and will initialize with the above options.

If the module has more than one param, like koa-locales, can be used in this way:

module.exports = function(app, mod) {
	return mod(app, {
		dirs: [__dirname + '/locales', __dirname + '/foo/locales']
	});
}

This allows to use any koa middleware without the need to write a wrapper around it.

Another note, to use middlewares with specific subdomain you need to put inside a subfolder with the subdomain name

i.e. config/middlewares/koa-minify will be instantiated in the root and each subdomain i.e. config/middlewares/root/koa-minify will be instantiated only in the root i.e. config/middlewares/cms/koa-minify will be instantiated only in the cms subdomain

Controllers

Before action

• Helper: string or string array containing the helper middleware that will be aplied to each action
• Except: string array with excluded actions
• Included: string array with excluded actions

exports.before_action = {
	"helper": "authorization"
}

exports.before_action = {
	"helper": "authorization",
	"except": ["index", "details"]
}

exports.before_action = {
	"helper": "authorization",
	"only": ["delete"]
}

exports.before_action = {
	"helper": ["authorization", "set_locale"],
	"only": ["delete"]
}

Routes

Supports vhosts, root will be mounted on the root host, and subdomains in subdomain.host

{
  "root": {
    "index": {
      "get": "home#index"
    }
  },
  "api": {
    "subdomain":              [ "api", "api.dev" ],
    "index":                  "api/api#index",
    "message": {
                              "socket": "api/messages#index"
    }
  },
  "cdn": {
    "subdomain":              [ "cdn", "cdn.dev" ]
  }
}

For development or production you can disable or enable certain routes

export DOMAIN_MOUNT=home 		// will be mounted only home
export DOMAIN_MOUNT=home,api 	// will mount only 2 subdomains
export DOMAIN_IGNORE=cdn 		// will ignore cdn and only mount home and api
export DOMAIN_IGNORE=cdn,api 	// will ignore cdn and api, only will mount home

When only one domain it available to mount, the controllers will be mounted on the root koa app and can be accessed by ip or localhost

License

MIT