breachofmind/expressway

An extensible Node.js microframework, for prototyping or small web applications

Expressway (beta)

Expressway is an extensible, MEAN microframework for Node.js, designed to be completely modular. It is heavily influenced by Taylor Otwell's Laravel for PHP and Google's front-end framework, AngularJS.

npm install breachofmind/expressway --save
# Or, for cool kids:
yarn add breachofmind/expressway

Features

• Open source foundation. Like Laravel, Expressway believes in using well-tested open-source components to make up it's core code. Core components include Express, Mongoose, NodeMailer, Passport, Commander CLI, and many common Express middleware modules.
• Angular-style Dependency Injection. Also known as IOC (Inversion of control), Expressway allows you to declare services that can be injected into your functions and class methods.
• Cutting edge. Expressway is written in ES2015 using classes and inheritance. This makes it easy to extend core classes to overwrite or enhance existing functionality.
• Not opinionated. Developers are anal. Some like src, some like lib. Expressway is designed to be agnostic to your application's structure.
• Big or Little. Your project could be as simple as a couple routes or massive with many controllers and routes. Expressway can be as organized or disorganized as you want.
• Controller and Middleware classes. Separate your middleware stacks and business logic into composable and configurable modules.
• The Missing CLI. Need to quickly see your route stack, services and models? You need a CLI for that.

Dependency Injection

Quite possibly the most useful feature is Expressway's IOC implementation, which is borrowed almost exactly from AngularJS.

1. Define a service.
2. Add the service name to a function's arguments.
3. Call the function using app.call(function).
4. Profit.

app.service('profit', "No more require()!");

function myFunction(profit) {
    return profit;
}
app.call(myFunction); // "No more require()"!

This is a very simple example. Imagine how useful this is when it's available in your controller routes:

class MyController extends expressway.Controller
{
    /**
    * MyController.index route.
    * GET /
    */
    index(request,response,next,profit) {
        return profit;
    }
}

Services can be anything - strings, functions, objects, etc.

Usage

Yeoman generator

If you just want to get started with a sensible structure, the Expressway Yeoman generator is the way to go.

npm install breachofmind/expressway-generator -g
mkdir myApp && cd myApp
yo expressway myApp

Quick and Dirty

• Install the package using npm install breachofmind/expressway.
• Create an entry file:

// expressway.js
var expressway = require('expressway');
var app = expressway({
    rootPath: __dirname,
});

// Add some services.
function motivationalQuote() {
    return `A nation that separates it's warriors from 
    its scholars will have its fighting done by fools 
    and its thinking done by cowards.`;
}

app.service(motivationalQuote);

// Expressway apps have a "root" app.
// Any extensions you might add later are mounted to this root app.
app.root.routes = [
    {
        // Routes are added in a declarative manner.
        "GET /" : function(request,response,next) {
            return response.send("Hello World");
        },
        // Anonymous routes allow for dependency injection.
        "GET /quote" : function(request,response,next,motivationalQuote) {
            return response.send( motivationalQuote() );
        },
        // As your app gets bigger, you might want to add a controller.
        "GET /:model" : "ModelController.fetchAll",
        
        // You may want to stack middleware on a route.
        "POST /:model/:id" : [
            // The name of a middleware to pass through.
            "ModelRequest", 
            // An anonymous middleware.
            function(request,response,next) {
                console.log('middleware test');
                next();
            },
            // Add finally, the controller method I wanted.
            "ModelController.save"
        ]
    },
    // A simple "NotFound" middleware in case nothing is matched.
    'NotFound'
];

// Start the server.
app.start();

• Run the file: node expressway.js
• Build something interesting.

Documentation

The Wiki is where it's at.
I'll be adding more documentation very soon as the API smooths out.

Testing

mocha test