conga

Conga.js is an MVC framework for node.js built on top of Express and is geared towards building anything from classic multi-page websites to more modern realtime and single page applications. It's architecture is heavy influenced by the Symfony2 framework for PHP, borrowing concepts such as built in dependency injection, annotations, and modular components (bundles) that can be used at will.

It's aim is to provide a solid foundation of components to ease the development of large-scale applications while providing the flexibility for you to extend it as you wish.

Some Highlights:

• Hierarchical configuration system using YML
• Annotation based routing/templating/security/etc.
• Dependency Injection Container
• Easy extensibility through bundles
• Built-in REST server
• Socket.io server
• Command line tools
• Integrated ORM/ODM through bass.js

Installation

Install the global Conga installation

> npm install -g conga

Usage

Create a new Conga project

Run the following command to generate a new project.

Note: This will automatically install all required npm dependencies, so it may take a little while to complete.

> conga create:project my-project

Run the server

Change into the new project directory and launch the application.

> cd my-project
> conga play

Note: The first time the server is launched, it will automatically install any bower dependencies that are configured for the project, so these will take a little time to install.

The "conga play" command uses node-supervisor to check for file changes in the project and will automatically restart the server when changes are detected.

Alternatively, the server can manually be launched using:

> node app/app.js

You can also specify an environment to use:

> node app/app.js --env=production

View the demo project

Open up http://localhost:3000

Project structure

|-- app
|   |-- app.js
|   |-- cache
|   |-- cli.js
|   |-- config
|   |-- logs
|   |-- public
|   |-- resources
|   `-- tmp
|-- src
|   `-- demo-bundle

The "app" directory contains all of the configuration files, logs, etc. for a single application. It is possible for your project to contain multiple application directories if you want.

The "src" directory contains all of the project specific bundles for your application. These bundles contain all of your application specific files such as models, templates, controllers, services, etc.

Bundle Structure

The following is an example structure of a bundle:

|-- demo-bundle
    `-- lib
        |-- controller
        |   |-- default.js
        |   `-- user.js
        |-- dependency-injection
        |   `-- configuration.js
        |-- model
        |   `-- user.js
        `-- resources
            |-- config
            |   `-- services.yml
            |-- public
            |   |-- css
            |   |   `-- styles.css
            |   `-- js
            |       `-- app.js
            `-- views
                |-- default
                |   `-- index.jade
                |-- includes
                |   `-- menu.jade
                `-- layout.jade

Creating a new bundle

> conga create:bundle my-cool-bundle

Register a bundle

To use a new bundle created in your project or one installed via npm, you will need to register it in your application. You can do this by simply adding the bundle name to the list in app/config/bundles.yml:

# app/config/bundles.yml

bundles:
    - my-cool-bundle

Create a controller

To create a controller, use the following command:

> conga create:controller my-bundle hello

This will generate the following file:

// src/my-bundle/lib/controller/default.js

/**
 * @Route("/hello")
 */
function HelloController(){};

HelloController.prototype = {

    /**
     * @Route("/")
     */
    index: function(req, res){
        res.return({
            message : 'Hello from HelloController!!!'
        });
    }

};

module.exports = HelloController;

Now, restart the server and open up: http://localhost:3000/hello

At this point you should see the JSON response from the index action!

The @Route annotation on the constructor defines the url prefix for all actions within the file. So, if you were to add another action such as the following:

/**
 * @Route("/world")
 */
world: function(req, res){
    res.return({
        message : "Hello World"
    });
}

This would be accessed by going to: http://localhost:3000/hello/world

By default, the @Route annotation will default to making an action respond to GET requests, but this can be changed by adding a "methods" attribute to the annotation, such as the following:

/**
 * @Route("/world", methods=["PUT", "POST"])
 */
world: function(req, res){
    res.return({
        message : "Hello World"
    });
}

Templates

If you want an action to render a template instead of returning a JSON response, you can simply use the @Template annotation on an action:

// src/my-bundle/lib/controller/default.js

/**
 * @Route("/hello")
 */
function HelloController(){};

HelloController.prototype = {

    /**
     * @Route("/")
     * @Template
     */
    index: function(req, res){
        res.return({
            title : "This is a template!!!"
            message : "Isn't cool?"
        });
    }

};

module.exports = HelloController;

Then create the corresponding template file:

// src/my-bundle/lib/resources/views/hello/index.jade

html
  body

    h1 #{title}
    
    div.
      #{message}

Models

Create a new model using the following command:

> conga create:model my-bundle User --fields id:ObjectID,name:String,email:String

This will create the following file:

// src/my-bundle/lib/model/user.js

/**
 * @Bass:Document(name="User", collection="users")
 */
function User(){};

User.prototype = {

    /**
     * @Bass:Id
     * @Bass:Field(type="ObjectId", name="_id")
     */
    id: null,

    /**
     * @Bass:Field(type="String")
     */
    name: null,

    /**
     * @Bass:Field(type="String")
     */
    email: null

};

module.exports = User;

In order for Conga to locate your new model, you will need to make sure the application is configured to find models in your new bundle. To do this, simply add the path in the config.yml file under the bass->managers->[MANAGER]->documents section:

# app/config/config.yml

bass:

    managers:

        mongodb.default:

            documents:
                my-bundle: my-bundle:model

Creating REST Apis

Using the User model created above, we will create a controller that automatically creates all the REST actions to get/create/update/delete Users in the database.

> conga create:controller my-bundle user --rest User

This creates an empty controller file with the @Rest:Controller annotation:

// src/my-bundle/lib/controller/user.js

/**
 * @Rest:Controller(adapter="conga-bass:rest/adapter", model="User", documentManager="mongodb.default")
 * @Route("/user")
 */
function UserController(){};

module.exports = UserController;

Now after restarting the server, we can start issuing requests to the API:

# create
> curl http://localhost:3000/user -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name":"John","email":"[email protected]"}'

{
  "id": "51f56c1f1085439e1f000001",
  "name": "John",
  "email": "[email protected]"
}

# get all
> curl http://localhost:3000/user

[
    {
      "id": "51f56c1f1085439e1f000001",
      "name": "John",
      "email": "[email protected]"
    }
]

# get one
> curl http://localhost:3000/user/51f56c1f1085439e1f000001 -X GET

{
  "id": "51f56c1f1085439e1f000001",
  "name": "John",
  "email": "[email protected]"
}

# update
> curl http://localhost:3000/user/51f56c1f1085439e1f000001 -X PUT -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name":"John New","email":"[email protected]"}'

{
  "id": "51f56c1f1085439e1f000001",
  "name": "John New",
  "email": "[email protected]"
}

# delete
> curl http://localhost:3000/user/51f56c1f1085439e1f000001 -X DELETE

{
  "success": true
}

Model Validation

Conga.js makes it easy to provide validation of your model objects and is automatically handled in the REST controllers.

First we need to configure the application to look for validation annotations on our models:

# app/config/config.yml

validation:
    paths:
        - my-bundle:model

Now we can add the validation annotations to a model:

// src/my-bundle/lib/model/user.js

/**
 * @Bass:Document(name="User", collection="users")
 */
function User(){};

User.prototype = {

    /**
     * @Bass:Id
     * @Bass:Field(type="ObjectId", name="_id")
     */
    id: null,

    /**
     * @Bass:Field(type="String")
     * @Assert:NotNull
     * @Assert:Length(min=2, max=50)
     */
    name: null,

    /**
     * @Bass:Field(type="String")
     * @Assert:NotNull
     * @Assert:Length(min=2, max=50)
     */
    email: null

};

module.exports = User;

Finally, test out a POST request with invalid data:

> curl http://localhost:3000/user -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name":"a"}'

{
  "success": false,
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "This value must be between 2 and 50 characters long",
      "property": "name"
    },
    {
      "message": "This value should not be null",
      "property": "email"
    }
  ]
}

Managing client side dependencies

Conga.js allows you to easily manage your client side javascript dependecies through Bower by using the included conga-bower bundle.

To add a new dependency simply add it to the bower configuration in config.yml:

# app/config/config.yml

bower:

    directory: js/lib

    dependencies:

        jquery: 1.9.0

Now when the server is restarted, jquery will be installed through Bower into the app/public/js/lib directory.