knotter

0.1.1 • Public • Published

knotter

knotter module is a nodejs middleware/microframework to create websites.

Why not using connect ? express ?

I really love ExpressJS and Connect. But what I wanted to do was to implement a pseudo WSGI-like system. The main goal is to bundle some of my prefered modules in one place:

  • sessions - simple session management
  • swig for template engine
  • use mimetype, underscore, etc...

How to use ?

At this time, you need to do some operation manually:

cd /path/to/yor/working/directory
npm install knotter

Then, you can implement your first appliction, create a "site.js" file:

 
/**
* Create your class that inherits from knotter.Handler
*/
function Page1Handler = (){
    knotter.Handler.call(this);
}
util.inherits(Page1Handler, knotter.Handler);
 
// define the route to respond (regexp)
// It is important that "route" is declared in prototype
Page1Handler.prototype.route = '/page1';
 
// Respond to "GET" requests
Page1Handler.prorotype.get = function (){
    // there you can get: this.sessions, this.response, this.request
    // and this.params.args (ordered from captured regexp if any)
    // and this.params.get (given by ?arg=value&arg2=value2...)
    // 
    // you can write response with this.end("Text to send to client");
    // or render a template: this.render('path to template', context_object)
    
    this.end("Welcome on page 1 !");
};
 
 
var server = knotter.Server({
  handlers : [Page1Handler], //list of handlers classes,
  statics : {
    statics : 'staticdir',
    images  : 'imgdir'
  }, // directories to be served statically, eg. /images/test.png serves imgdir/test.png
  // you can pass "address" option to set listening address
  // address : "0.0.0.0" to listen on every interfaces
});
 
server.serve(); //default listen on 127.0.0.1:8000 (open 127.0.0.1:8000/page1 to check result)

Note on Template Engine

in 0.0.2, knotter could implement swig template engine. But we removed this options to let user using its own prefered template engine. Knotter goals is not to be a "full framework" and should stay "lightwave"

Now template engines are managed by the "consolidate" module. We only tested "swig" as engine and it works as expected. To use swig:

 
var server = knotter.Server({
    //...
    engine: 'swig',
    templates: __dirname+"/templates",
    engineOptions: {
        root: __dirname+'/templates',
        allowErrors: true,
        autoescape: false,
        tzOffset: new Date().getTimezoneOffset(),
        cache: false
    }
});
 

Afterward, in handler, you can use:

 
//...
// test.html should be in __dirname/templates directory
// ctx is an object that handle some vars you can
// use in template
this.render('test.html', ctx);
 

We will prepare a framework based on knotter that will implement some module as:

  • blog
  • cms
  • comments

Changelog

0.1.1

  • Sessions are now fixed
  • handlers are classes, see example

0.1.0

  • Add session management and remove "sessions" external module
  • Sessions are shared in cluster implementation, you should use knotter.Cluster.addWorker(...)
  • Use consolidate module to implement several template engines
  • Remove "new knotter.Handler" notion, you should only set handlers as structure (this may change or be improved later)
  • new dependecy = uuid (to set cookie SESSID)
  • todo: set session TTL and SESSID name editable
  • Pleas use "this.write, this.end" and not "this.response.xxx" method now !

0.0.4

  • documentation is better
  • static files can now be mapped on other routes (see example)

0.0.3

  • remove swig template engine, to let developper use its prefered engine.

About File upload, forms...

At this time, I didn't found any "nice" way to setup a file uploader. "Nice" means:

  • having a simple interface to save file to a "upload" directory
  • having a method to give upload progress
  • no soucy with rights, mimetype, form encoding...

I guess I will implement "formidable" module to manage forms... One more time, I'm open to discuss about.

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npm i knotter

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0.1.1

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  • metal3d