Lance

The alpha-strike web framework.
A framework with sane defaults, aiming to handle everything for you as automatically as possible.

API Stability: Semi-Unstable

Minimal API

• new Lance( config )
• lance.initailize()

What just happened:

• An HTTP server was started
• Compiled, minified, bundled and watched Stylus, CoffeeScript, CJSX, CSS, JS
  • Saved to the static directory
• Populated the static asset directory at ./static
  • Assets like img.png, robots.txt are copied over with their preserved directory structure.
• Set up request routing
• Began serving static assets from ./static
• Began utlizing a templating engine in ./views
• Began parsing http requests; forms, file transfers

All parts of Lance can be utilized outside of the config. Lance always utilizes promises for async operations.

See the ./config - effectively an API reference.

The minimal example:

Lance = require 'lance'

lance = new Lance {
	routes: [
		[ "GET", '/:api(a|b|c|d)', (o) ->
				console.log 'ayyy' if o.route.api is 'a'
				o.serve { body: 'woo!' }
		]
	]
}

lance.initialize().then -> # Server is up!

The full example:

###
The directory structure:
/project/
	/static/
	/views/
		index.jade
		style.styl
		app.coffee
		/images/
			image.png
	
	server.coffee (this)
###

Lance = require 'lance'

lance = new Lance {
	server:
		host: '0.0.0.0'
		port: 1337
		static: './static' # Automatically intercepts and serves static content
	
	templater:
		findIn: './views'
		saveTo: './static'
		
		###
		Bundle up all Stylus/Css or Coffee/Js dependencies into a single file
		by utilizing Stylus and browserify.
		###
		bundle:
			# destination	: source
			"my/css/here.css": "style.styl"
			"app.js": "app.coffee"
			
		templater:
			ext: '.jade'
			engine: require 'jade'
}

# Routes can be defined after instantiation, outside of the config, too
lance.router.get '/:api(a|b|c|d)', (o) ->
	###
	`o` is a special options object containing request information in a pre-parsed manner. `o` is passed to all route requests in place of `req` and `res`.
	
	More info on this later.
	###
	
	if o.route.api is 'a'
		console.log 'ayyy'
	
	# This will resolve to our ./project/views/index.jade file
	o.template.view = 'index'
	
	###
	o.serve() serves a response based on either arguements passed to it or depending on properties in `o`.
	
	if `o.template.view` is set, the template will be rendered
	if `o.redirect` is set, a redirection will occur
	if neither are set, Lance serves JSON by default.
	
	You may also instead call `o.serveTemplate()`, `o.serveHttpCode()`, `o.serveJson()`, `o.serveRedirect()` or a basic `o.respond()`
	###
	o.serve()
	
###
This will build the templates then start the server, all depending on the config. 
###
lance.initialize().then ->
	# we're ready

###
Alternitavely...

There is a choice between `lance.initialize()`, which initializes everything in order, and manually initializing aspects of lance for more control.
###

lance.templater.initialize().then ->
	# The bundles have been compiled to:
	#	./projectDirectory/static/style.css
	#	./projectDirectory/static/app.js
	# from the ./projectDirectory/views directory.
	# and will be watched for changes (and any of their dependencies)
	# then recompiled automatically

	lance.start().then ->
		# we're ready
		
###
The new directory structure:
/project/
	/static/
		/my/
			/css/
				here.css
		app.js
		/images/
			image.png
	/views/
		index.jade
		style.styl
		app.coffee
		/images/
			image.png
	
	server.coffee (this)
###

Requests

Requests from a http server normally use response and request parameters. Lance supplies an object as outlined below:

###
	Assuming you visited:
	GET http://yourdomain.com/b?test.a=1
###
lance.router.get '/:api(a|b|c|d)', 'aRouteName', (o) ->

	# HTTP request object
	o.req
	
	# HTTP response object
	o.res
	
	# Response HTTP code
	o.code is 200
	
	# Response headers
	o.headers is { 'content-type': 'text/html; charset=utf-8' }
	
	# Fallback body to respond with if not template is used
	o.body is ''
	
	# Sent as JSON for JSON responses
	o.json is {}
	
	# Relative or absolute path to a template
	o.template.view is ''
	
	# Local variable for the template
	o.template.data is {}
	
	# Optional lance.Templater instance
	o.template.templater is o.lance.templater
	
	# Redirects to this as a path if set
	o.redirect is ''
	
	# Used as a GET response query if redirecting
	o.redirectQuery is {}
	
	# Parsed query, whether it be GET, POST etc.
	o.query is {
		test: {
			a: '1'
		}
	}
	
	# Any files
	o.files is {
		# Example file
		'exampleFile': {
			field      : 'exampleFile'
			filename   : 'file.txt'
			encoding   : 'utf8'
			mimetype   : 'text/plain'
			ext        : 'txt'
			
			# Temporary file path, saved to the OS's temp directory
			# Will be auto deleted after a timer
			file       : tempFilePath
			
			# Call this to delete the temporary file
			delete     : [Function]
			truncated  : false
		}
	}
	
	o.method is 'GET'
	o.route is {
		path     : { api: 'b' }
		splats   : []
		name     : 'aRouteName'
		callback : [ThisFunction]
		pattern  : '/:api(a|b|c|d)'
		regex    : /./ # Final regex from pattern
	}
	
	o.path is o.route.path
	o.splats is o.route.splats
	o.cookies is new require('cookies')( o.req, o.res )
	
	# These properties above are also passed into a template, accessable under the "o" property
	
	template = { view: './someTemplate', data: { woo: 1 } }
	template is o.template
	
	o.serve template
	o.serve()
	###
		When `o.serve` is called without parameters it will execute this logic:
		
		if o.redirect
			o.serveRedirect( o.redirect, o.redirectQuery )
		else
			if o.template.view
				o.serveTemplate()
			else
				o.serveJson()
	###

Templating

You can specify your own templater middleware. If none are specified, then Lance will default to checking whether ect is installed and will use that.

# Uses Jade
new Lance {
	templater:
		templater:
			ext: '.jade'
			engine: require 'jade'
			options: {} # Supplied to the engine on instantiation
}

# Uses ECT.js if `ect` is installed
new Lance {
	templater:
		templater: {}
}

Optional modules

For these features to become avaliable, simply make sure they're installed.

• browserify for bundling coffee/js
  • coffee-reactify for embedding JSX into Coffee
  • coffeeify only normal coffeescript
• ect fallback templater
• stylus
• coffee-script
• uglify-js for js compression
• lactate for static file serving

Stylus

Stylus is compulsary if you're going to bundle css assets; because Stylus can exist as pure css with the benefit of the @require() and @import bundling syntax. Any plain CSS file is concatenated, it is not resolved to an @import.

Static assets

Lance handles these mostly automatically:

• CSS and Stylus
• CoffeeScript, CJSX and Javascript
• Static assets such as images, json, robots.txt etc.

On initialization:

• Bundles are rendered to the static directory
• Bundles are watched for changes, then rerendered
• Assets files are copied over to the static directory
• Assets files are watched for changes, then resaved
• Directories are watched for new directories and files

By default all static assets that match the regexp (found in the config's templater.assets.match) will be copied over to the static directory.

• For some filetypes, such as images, this means they can also be optimized.
  • TODO: Impliment asset stream hooking

new Lance {
	templater:
		findIn: './views'
		saveTo: './static'
		
		###
		true by default, this causes `assets` to keep their directory structure inside the saveTo folder.
		###
		preserveDirectory: true
		
		bundle:
			# destination	: source
			"style.css"		: "style.styl"
			"app.js"		: "app.coffee"
}

The result is that the static directory will always have only what you want to make public, in one place, with a directory structure that will mirror your views.

Tests

Cloned via the github repo, tests are manual in nature at the moment. Due to the complexity of a web server, they consist of scenarios for which must be manually tested and interacted with in the browser, currently.

All dependencies have unit tests.

Upgrading from 1.x.x

• Replacements
  • clone.merge.hard to clone
  • clone.merge to clone
  • slugify to format.slugify
• Removals
  • toArray
  • helpers.promisify helpers.*

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