Scaffold Utility for MERN E-commerce

MERN E-comm Scaffold is a scaffolding tool for MERN E-commerce by Mohamed Samara.

Description

Scaffold is a utility for scaffolding MERN E-commerce modules. The scaffold will create the DB Schema, the API routes, the Manager module, and the container module. Some manual installation is required but most of the repetitive tasks are fully-automated.

The scaffolded module is first staged in ./scaffold/stage/{moduleName}. You can inspect the module or make edits as needed. The scaffolded module is not a production-ready module. It is a starting point for your own module. Some basic fields are added to the various pieces of the module but it is up to you to build out the specifics for your needs.

Scaffold uses a two-step approach so that you are in complete control and no changes or overwrites are made to your existing code. You must first stage the module, then install it. If there is an existing module with the name you use, you cannot create the module. You must first manually remove the existing module (if it was not created with Scaffold), then you can use Scaffold.

CAUTION Scaffold does include a force feature but only to over-ride modules it created. If there is no module with the same name in Staging, it will not overwrite an exist module created by other means. It will however, overwrite whatever staged module you created & installed with the same name previously. Previously scaffolded modules, that have not been installed to the live code, can be overwritten by simply running Scaffold with the same name again.

Installation

NOTE I have not written an installer such as npm yet but will very soon. For the time-being, you will need to install Scaffold manually, but I promise, it is very simple.

• Clone this repo to the root folder of your MERN E-commerce project.
• Copy the generics folder to ./server/generics
• Copy the BaseManagerForm module to ./client/app/Components/Manager/BaseManagerForm

Scaffold includes a layer of abstrction that MERN E-commerce does not, however, this layer can be used right alongside the existing architecture and both will work. The changes are, specifically, an API Router superclass, a Schema superclass, and ManagerForm superclass. These additions are NOT breaking changes to MERN E-commerce and can be easily added or removed without affecting the existing code.

Scaffold will add the new module to your admin menu when you run the install step. You should be aware that Scaffold modifies the core MERN E-commerce code. If you are not familiar with the code, you should not run the install step. That said, you can always roll back the changes by running the uninstall command. The modified core code will be restored to its previous state.

The modified files

• Module actions is added to actions import to client/app/actions.js
• Module reducer is added to reducer in client/app/reducers.js
• Module route is added to routes in server/routes/api/index.js
• Module link added to client/containers/Dashboard/links.json
• Module import added to client/app/components/Manager/Dashboard/Admin.js

Usage

Scaffold is a two-step process. First, you stage a module by running:

Staging the Module:

$ node ./cli.js -m <modelName> -s

Installiong a Module:

Then install the staged module, after inspecting it by running:

$ node ./cli.js -m <modelName> -i

Un-installiong a Module:

Then install the staged module, after inspecting it by running:

$ node ./cli.js -m <modelName> -u

Dry Run:

$ node ./cli.js -m <modelName> -d

Args:

-m <string>    : The name of the module to create.
-d <void>      : Dry run (outputs to console, no files created).
-s <void>      : Stage the scaffold (created in temporary folder).    
-i <void>      : Installs an already staged module.
-c <void>      : Deletes a staged module staged module.
-u <void>      : Un-installs an already installed module.            
--force <void> : Over-rides an existing module.
-h <void>      : Show this help.

Configuration:

You can also provide a custom configuration file to define the model's schema and manager form fields. The configuration file should be saved in ./config/{modelName}.config.json. The configuration file is comprised of two sections: fields and schemaFields. The fields section defines the fields that will be added to the manager form. The schemaFields section defines the fields that will be added to the schema. The schemaFields follow the same rules as if you were editing the schema directly. The fields JSON objects have the following properties:

• name: The name of the field.
• type: The type of the field, i.e., any valid HTML input type.
• label: The label that will be displayed to the user.
• options: An array of options that will be displayed to the user if the fields is a select, checkbox, or radio button.
• required: A boolean value that determines if the field is required.
• default: The default value for the field.
• placeholder: The placeholder text that will be displayed to the user.

Preview Template Output

You can preview the output of any scaffold file by running

node ./preview.js -m <modelName> -t <templateName>.

The preview is written to the terminal but no files are created. This is for preview only.

Available preview commands:

• schema: The schema template.
• api-routes: The api routes template.
• actions: The module's actions React actions
• add: The module's Add container
• edit: The module's Edit container
• list: The module's List container
• constants: The module's constants
• container: The module's container index file
• reducer: The module's reducer
• add-$name: The module's Add Manager component. Replace $name with your module name
• edit-$name: The module's Edit Manager component. Replace $name with your module name
• list-$name: The module's List Manager component. Replace $name with your module name
• app-actions: The app's actions file
• app-reducers: The app's reducers file
• api-routes: The app's api routes file
• admin-dashboard: The app's admin dashboard file
• customer-dashboard: The app's customer dashboard file
• merchant-dashboard: The app's merchant dashboard file
• nav-links: The app's nav links JSON file

Roadmap

I will add more features to the configuration file in the future including more fine-grained control over fields including adding validators, and any supported HTML attributes.

Examples

You can view example output from Scaffold in the stage directory in this repo.

About Scaffold

Scaffold uses the Handlebars templating engine to generate the JavaScript and ReactJS files. The Handlebars templates are stored in the templates directory. I chose Handlebars because it is very easy to use and allowed me to write the templates in a way that is easy to read and maintain.

Supporting my Work

If you find my work helpful, you can thank me by making a donation to the critically-important work of the Borneo Orangutan Survival project

Credit

Scaffold is based on the wonderful work of Mohamed Samara and the MERN E-commerce project.