meanSEED

A minimal client/server set-up for a MEAN project.

What is MEAN?

MEAN stands for:

• (M) MongoDB: A NoSQL database implementation.
• (E) Express.js: A fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js. We use Express.js to set-up a minimal server application.
• (A) Angular: A framework to develop mobile and desktop apps using code reusability. In particular, meanSEED uses version 2 of Angular.
• (N) Node.js: A JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine.

MEAN is a stack of components, all of them written in JavaScript. So, we can write server-side and client-side applications in just one language.

Requirements

Our basic requirements are Node.js, and a NoSQL database implementation (in this case, MongoDB).

In order to install Node.js (fundamental requirement to run a MEAN application), you can find installation guides here. Once installed, test

node -v

Node.js comes along with a Node Package Manager (NPM) where you can find great JavaScript tools to enhance current projects. We'll use it a lot!.

Now, it's time to download and install MongoDB. Here you have an official and simplified guide to do it.

Clone meanSEED

In order to begin to use and explore meenSEED, clone it:

git clone https://github.com/perezzini/meanSEED.git

Software Structure

When studying how to develop MEAN applications, I founded kind of "tricky" how to structure a client/server project. I structured meanSEED in the most minimalist and simplier way I could. So, let's take a look at some important folders and files.

Server-side

The server-side relies on Express.js. Express.js is a minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications. The server-side is basically configured in the app.js file. This sets up Express.js, among other packages. Express.js sets views (views/) and configures app routes (routes/). In this simple set-up seed are only configured two basic routes (feel free to add new ones!): the index route (routes/index.js) and the RESTful API route (routes/api.js).

The models/ folder is considered part of the server-side structure. Here you'll add your own project's schemas definitions using Mongoose. Mongoose is an elegant MongoDB object modeling for Node.js. Basically, a model is what you want a document to be inside a NoSQL database collection (learn more here).

We can consider the views/ folder as part of the server-side structure too: It contains the files (EJS files, in this opportunity) which, let's say, explain how to render information the files in routes/ contain. The index.ejs file in the views/ folder requires stylesheets and Angular config files to use Angular components. The "root" component in meanSEED is my-app.

Client-side

Here, all of our client-side logic are inside the client/ folder: The app/ folder is where all the Angular 2 "stuff happens". I've found appropriate to divide this folder into components/ (other components that the "root" component -- the app.component.ts) and services/ (here, task.service.ts is just a Angular service template).

Remember:

TypeScript is a super set of JavaScript. Angular finds convinient to write TypeScript code. So, when we start the client-side app, TypeScript code must be compiled into JavaScript code for "browser rendering" using tsc. Don't worry, meanSEED does this automatically when starting it.

Set-Up

meanSEED uses environmental variables to configure, basically, the database and server port.

Once cloned git repository, at the root folder, add a .env file with the following keys (add correspondent values of your choice, like PORT=3000):

PORT

DB_HOST
DB_PORT
DB_NAME

Node will automatically preload environmental variables at start, using dontenv library.

Installation

Notice

To execute the following commands you'll maybe need sudo permissions on Linux.

At the root folder, execute

sudo npm install

This will install dependencies (like Express.js, Mongoose.js, and more) declared in the package.json.

Then, to install client dependencies -- Angular dependencies --, execute the following command at the client/ folder:

sudo npm install

meanSEED uses Bootstrap to enhance front-end UI. To set it up we will use Bower, a front-end package manager. To install Bower globally:

sudo npm install bower -g

Now, redirect to the project's root folder and install Bootstrap using Bower

bower install bootstrap --save

The above command will locate a file called .bowerrc at the project's root folder to get the directory where to place modules (in this case, client/bower_components/).

Start meanSEED

To start server and client processes, at the root folder, execute:

npm start

npm start will automatically run server and client modules in parallel, using concurrently. When adding new server-side features, restart and then npm start again from the command line.

Now, open localhost:PORT (where PORT is the env variable defined lately) within your browser and should be able to see something like this:

Feedback

Please, feel free to distribute this set-up project as well as bring new ideas and features!

Remember, this is just a quickstart seed for implementing a MEAN project.