Microscopically small universal express implementation
npm install uexpresssh
npm install --save uexpress
`
require
`js
var uexpress = require('uexpress')
`
import
`js
import uexpress from 'uexpress'
`
use
my-server.js
`js
import express from 'express'
import uexpress from 'uexpress'
import myapp from './myapp' // myapp is a uexpress app
express() // the 'normal' express app
// .use(cookieParser) // .. express middleware
.use(myapp) // myapp is mounted in express
.listen(8080) // start the server
`
my-client.js
`js
import uexpress from 'uexpress'
import myapp from './myapp' // myapp is a uexpress app
uexpress() // uexpress works in the browser
.use(myapp) // myapp is mounted in uexpress
.listen() // start the client
`
After the call to listen, uexpress will attach an event handler to
window.history and route and dispatch a new request/response cycle
every time the URL changes, just like express does on the server.
why
express rocks! Too bad it's only
available on the server.
But why would you want to run a web server on the client?
I don't. But Express is much more than just a web server. In fact,
since it's just an extension to Node's native http server, it's
actually lots of things but a web server. It's an excellent router
for one and it has a great request/response pipeline with middleware.
It has, in short, the stuff we need when we are building a client-side
rendering app (a SPA perhaps). And even better, if we emulate it's API,
we will be able to take the universal/isomorphic part of our code a
whole lot further. We can define uexpress apps that can run standalone
on the client, but can also easily be mounted in an Express server.
The best of both worlds!
Microscopically small
The browser version of uexpress (which is bigger than the server version)
is ~3kB minified and gzipped.
It does have a few dependencies:
* uroute Microscopically small Express-like universal routing, ~1.9kB
* uevents Microscopically small version of Node's popular events` module, ~1.6kB