Epiphany

Etymology

Simply due lack of a better name 'Epiphany' was chosen. It has no meaning and is pretty ambiguous. Sorry.

Introduction

Epiphany is a library that aims to greatly speed up the creation of simple websites with Node & Express. Epiphany is the result of realising the only important thing for an Express server is its routes. Thus, Epiphany intends to simplify setting up routes.

On top of basic Express setup Epiphany contains predefined middleware that can be required and used at will. It also contains several schemas for quick implementation of database models follwing schema.org specifications.

Epiphany is currently intended to be used with:

1. Node & NPM
2. Express
3. MongoDB & Mongoose
4. DustJS templates (from LinkedIn)

Require paths

In index.js, the /modules directory in the root project is added (using app-module-path]) to the array of paths search for node modules in require(). This is to make it easier to require modules from both Node and Browserify (the same path should thus also be added to your Browserify/Web-pack config).

Globals

Epiphany will setup two globals if they are not already set, namely PWD and ENV.

Initializing

If you want to edit the prewares and/or postwares (or anything else for that matter) before starting the Express instance, pass { start: false } to the Epiphany constructor, then call epiphany.start() when you are ready.

Configuration

There is a /sample-config directory that contains example configuration files. These should be copied into your project's /server/config directory and edited to suit your needs.

Preware & Postware

Preware are middleware functions loaded before the routes, and postware is loaded after all route specific middleware. Both are path-less, ie they are set up simply using

express.use([ middleware ]);

The prewares and postwares can be edited by manipulating the epiphany.prewares and epiphany.postwares arrays respectively. This needs to be done before starting the Epiphany instance.

Default prewares

this.prewares = [
	express.static(this.config.dir.static, ENV === 'production' ? { maxAge: '1 year' } : null),
	express.static(this.config.dir.uploads, ENV === 'production' ? { maxAge: '1 year' } : null),
	bodyParser.json(),
	bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended:true }),
	cookieParser(),
	session(this.config.session)
];

Default postwares

this.postwares = [
	require('./middleware/ensure-found'),
	require('./middleware/error-handler'),
	require('./middleware/responder'),
	require('./middleware/responder-error'),
];

Routes

A route is defined by an array with a path, an HTTP/Express method name and a middleware or an array of middleware.

Example:

var routes = [
	[ '/', 'get', mw.index ],
	[ '/admin', 'get', [ mw.isAuthenticated, mw.admin ]
];

These are setup in epiphany.start() with

var path = arr[0],
	method = arr[1],
	middleware = arr[2];

this.express[method](path, middleware);

Modules

One can use epiphany.module(module) to easily extend Epiphany. An Epiphany module is simply a plain object containing an array of routes, dust filters and/or dust helpers.

Example module:

modul.exports = {
	routes: [
		[ '/ball-sack', 'get', mw.fetchBallSack ]
	],
	filters: {
		camelCase: function(value) {
			return _.camelCase(value);
		}
	},
	helpers: {
		contains: function(chunk, context, bodies, params) {
			return _.contains(params.array, params.value) ? chunk.render(bodies.block, context) : chunk;
		}
	}
};

Adding modules should always be done before starting the instance.

Debugging

Epiphany (and most other server-side modules from TCB) uses the excellent Debug plugin.

To debug everything, simply set DEBUG=epiphany as an environment variable. To debug specific parts, set (for example) DEBUG=epiphany:loaders. Debuggable parts are currently:

• epiphany:loaders (template and page loading)
• epiphany:errorhandler
• epiphany:responder

Example server/server.js

// set up some globals (these are also set in Epiphany if not already set)
global.ENV = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';
global.PWD = process.env.PWD || process.cwd();

// modules > native
var p = require('path');

// modules > 3rd party
var requireDir = require('require-dir');
var passport = require('passport');

var server = new (require('epiphany'))({
	config: requireDir('./config', { camelcase: true }),

	pages: {
		'/admin': require('./pages-admin'),
		'/': require('./pages-public'),
	},

	routes: require('./routes'),

	modules: [
		require('dust-admin'),

		// hats > hats
		require('hats/membership'),
		require('hats/contact'),
		require('hats/content'),
		require('hats/errors'),
		require('hats/organization'),
		require('hats/news'),
		require('hats/employees'),
		require('hats/image-upload'),
	],

	start: false,
});

// set up passport and membership prewares and postwares
server.prewares.push(passport.initialize(), passport.session());
server.postwares.unshift(require('hats/membership/middleware/authorization').redirectUnauthorized('/login'));

if(ENV === 'development')
	server.prewares.push(require('epiphany/middleware/automatic-login'));

_.extend(server.express.locals, {
	site: require('./config/site'),
	lang: process.env.NODE_LANG || 'en'
});

// set organization from database to express.locals
require('hats/organization/middleware').get(null, { app: server.express }, null);

server.start();