Installation

Tools

• Install node.js (requires node.js version >= 0.8.4)
• Install global npm modules: npm install -g [email protected] [email protected]

App Server

• Install local dependencies:

  cd server
  npm install
  cd ..
  

Client App

• Install local dependencies:

  cd client
  npm install
  cd ..
  

Building

Build the client app

The app made up of a number of javascript, css and html files that need to be merged into a final distribution for running.

• Build client application: grunt build (or grunt.cmd build on Windows)

Configure Server

The server stores its data in a MongoLab database. You will need to create an account with them -it free: https://mongolab.com/signup/. Once you have signed up, you will be provided with an API key. Create a database to use for this application.

• Edit server/config.js to set the MongoLab API Key you received and the name of the database you created.
• Run the server/initDB.js file to initialize the database with a first admin user ([email protected] : changeme).

Running

Start the Server

• Run the server with node server/server.js
• Browse to the application at [http://localhost:3000]

Folders structure

At the top level, the repository is split into a client folder and a server folder. The client folder contains all the client-side AngularJS application. The server folder contains a very basic Express based webserver that delivers and supports the application. Within the client folder you have the following structure:

• build contains build tasks for Grunt
• dist contains build results
• src contains application's sources
• test contains test sources, configuration and dependencies
• vendor contains external dependencies for the application

Development Process

Default Build

The default grunt task will build (checks the javascript (lint), runs the unit tests (test:unit) and builds distributable files) and run all unit tests: grunt (or grunt.cmd on Windows). The tests are run by testacular and need one or more browsers open to actually run the tests.

• grunt or grunt.cmd (on Windows)
• Open one or more browsers and point them to [http://localhost:8080/__testacular/]. Once the browsers connect the tests will run and the build will complete.
• If you leave the browsers open at this url then future runs of grunt will automatically run the tests against these browsers.

Continuous Building

The watch grunt task will monitor the source files and run the default build task every time a file changes: grunt watch.

Build without tests

If for some reason you don't want to run the test but just generate the files - not a good idea(!!) - you can simply run the build task: grunt build.

Building release code

You can build a release version of the app, with minified files. This task will also run the "end to end" (e2e) tests. The e2e tests require the server to be started and also one or more browsers open to run the tests. (You can use the same browsers as for the unit tests.)

• Run grunt release
• Open one or more browsers and point them to [http://localhost:8080/__testacular/]. Once the browsers connect the tests will run and the build will complete.
• If you leave the browsers open at this url then future runs of grunt will automatically run the tests against these browsers.

Continuous testing

You can have grunt (testacular) continuously watch for file changes and automatically run all the tests on every change, without rebuilding the distribution files. This can make the test run faster when you are doing test driven development and don't need to actually run the application itself.

• Run grunt test-watch
• Open one or more browsers and point them to [http://localhost:8080/__testacular/].
• Each time a file changes the tests will be run against each browser.