About <img src="https://secure.travis-ci.org/1602/compound.png" />

CompoundJS - MVC framework for NodeJS™. It allows you to build web application in minutes.

Compound modules now available at https://github.com/compoundjs

Full documentation is available at http://compoundjs.com/ and using man(1).

Installation

Option 1: npm

sudo npm install compound -g

Option 2: GitHub

sudo npm install 1602/compound

Usage

# initialize app
compound init blog && cd blog
npm install

# generate scaffold
compound generate crud post title content published:boolean

# run server on port 3000
compound s 3000

# visit app
open http://localhost:3000/posts

Short functionality review

CLI tool

$ compound help
Usage: compound command [argument(s)]

Commands:
  h,  help                     Display usage information
  i,  init                     Initialize compound app
  g,  generate [smth]          Generate something awesome
  r,  routes [filter]          Display application routes
  c,  console                  Debug console
  s,  server [port]            Run compound server
  install [module]             Installs a compound module and patches the autoload file

compound init [appname][ option(s)]

options:
  --coffee                 # Default: no coffee by default
  --tpl jade|ejs           # Default: ejs
  --css sass|less|stylus   # Default: stylus
  --db redis|mongodb|nano|mysql|sqlite3|postgres
                           # Default: memory

compound generate smth

smth = generator name (controller, model, scaffold, ...can be extended via plugins)

more information about generators available here: http://compoundjs.github.com/generators

compound server 8000

equals to PORT=8000 node server - run server on port 8000

compound console

run debugging console (see details below)

compound routes

print routes map (see details below)

Directory structure

On initialization directories tree generated, like that:

.
|-- app
|   |-- assets
|   |   |-- coffeescripts
|   |   |   `-- application.coffee
|   |   `-- stylesheets
|   |       `-- application.styl
|   |-- controllers
|   |   |-- admin
|   |   |   |-- categories_controller.js
|   |   |   |-- posts_controller.js
|   |   |   `-- tags_controller.js
|   |   |-- comments_controller.js
|   |   `-- posts_controller.js
|   |-- models
|   |   |-- category.js
|   |   |-- post.js
|   |   `-- tag.js
|   |-- tools
|   |   `-- database.js
|   |-- views
|   |   |-- admin
|   |   |   `-- posts
|   |   |       |-- edit.ejs
|   |   |       |-- index.ejs
|   |   |       |-- new.ejs
|   |   |-- layouts
|   |   |   `-- application_layout.ejs
|   |   |-- partials
|   |   `-- posts
|   |       |-- index.ejs
|   |       `-- show.ejs
|   `-- helpers
|       |-- admin
|       |   |-- posts_helper.js
|       |   `-- tags_helper.js
|       `-- posts_helper.js
`-- config
    |-- database.json
    |-- routes.js
    |-- tls.cert
    `-- tls.key

HTTPS Support

Just place your key and cert into config directory, compound will use it. Default names for keys are tls.key and tls.cert, but you can store in in another place, in that case just pass filenames to createServer function: server.js

require('compound').createServer({
    key: fs.readFileSync('/tmp/tls.key').toString(),
    cert: fs.readFileSync('/tmp/tls.cert').toString()
});

Few helpful commands:

# generate private key
openssl genrsa -out /tmp/tls.key
# generate cert
openssl req -new -x509 -key /tmp/tls.key  -out /tmp/tls.cert -days 1095 -batch

Routing

Now we do not have to tediously describe REST routes for each resource, enough to write in config/routes.js code like this:

exports.routes = function (map) {
    map.resources('posts', function (post) {
        post.resources('comments');
    });
};

instead of:

var ctl = require('./lib/posts_controller.js');
app.get('/posts/new.:format?', ctl.new);
app.get('/posts.:format?', ctl.index);
app.post('/posts.:format?', ctl.create);
app.get('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.show);
app.put('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.update);
app.delete('/posts/:id.:format?', ctl.destroy);
app.get('/posts/:id/edit.:format?', ctl.edit);

var com_ctl = require('./lib/comments_controller.js');
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/new.:format?', com_ctl.new);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments.:format?', com_ctl.index);
app.post('/posts/:post_id/comments.:format?', com_ctl.create);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.show);
app.put('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.update);
app.delete('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id.:format?', com_ctl.destroy);
app.get('/posts/:post_id/comments/:id/edit.:format?', com_ctl.edit);

and you can more finely tune the resources to specify certain actions, middleware, and other. Here are example routes for [my blog][1]:

exports.routes = function (map) {
    map.get('/', 'posts#index');
    map.get(':id', 'posts#show');
    map.get('sitemap.txt', 'posts#map');

    map.namespace('admin', function (admin) {
        admin.resources('posts', {middleware: basic_auth, except: ['show']}, function (post) {
            post.resources('comments');
            post.get('likes', 'posts#likes')
        });
    });
};

since version 0.2.0, it is possible to use generic routes:

exports.routes = function (map) {
    map.get(':controller/:action/:id');
    map.all(':controller/:action');
};

if you have custom_controller with test action inside it you can now do:

GET /custom/test
POST /custom/test
GET /custom/test/1 // also sets params.id to 1

for debugging routes described in config/routes.js you can use compound routes command:

$ compound routes
               GET    /                               posts#index
               GET    /:id                            posts#show
   sitemap.txt GET    /sitemap.txt                    posts#map
    adminPosts GET    /admin/posts.:format?           admin/posts#index
    adminPosts POST   /admin/posts.:format?           admin/posts#create
  newAdminPost GET    /admin/posts/new.:format?       admin/posts#new
 editAdminPost GET    /admin/posts/:id/edit.:format?  admin/posts#edit
     adminPost DELETE /admin/posts/:id.:format?       admin/posts#destroy
     adminPost PUT    /admin/posts/:id.:format?       admin/posts#update
likesAdminPost PUT    /admin/posts/:id/likes.:format? admin/posts#likes

Filter by method:

$ compound routes GET
               GET    /                               posts#index
               GET    /:id                            posts#show
   sitemap.txt GET    /sitemap.txt                    posts#map
    adminPosts GET    /admin/posts.:format?           admin/posts#index
  newAdminPost GET    /admin/posts/new.:format?       admin/posts#new
 editAdminPost GET    /admin/posts/:id/edit.:format?  admin/posts#edit

Filter by helper name:

$ compound routes Admin
  newAdminPost GET    /admin/posts/new.:format?       admin/posts#new
 editAdminPost GET    /admin/posts/:id/edit.:format?  admin/posts#edit
likesAdminPost PUT    /admin/posts/:id/likes.:format? admin/posts#likes

Helpers

In addition to regular helpers linkTo, formFor, javascriptIncludeTag, formFor, etc. there are also helpers for routing: each route generates a helper method that can be invoked in a view:

<%- link_to("New post", newAdminPost) %>
<%- link_to("New post", editAdminPost(post)) %>

generates output:

<a href="/admin/posts/new">New post</a>
<a href="/admin/posts/10/edit">New post</a>

Controllers

The controller is a module containing the declaration of actions such as this:

beforeFilter(loadPost, {only: ['edit', 'update', 'destroy']});

action('index', function () {
    Post.allInstances({order: 'created_at'}, function (collection) {
        render({ posts: collection });
    });
});

action('create', function () {
    Post.create(req.body, function () {
        redirect(pathTo.adminPosts);
    });
});

action('new', function () {
    render({ post: new Post });
});

action('edit', function () {
    render({ post: request.post });
});

action('update', function () {
    request.post.save(req.locale, req.body, function () {
        redirect(pathTo.adminPosts);
    });
});

function loadPost () {
    Post.find(req.params.id, function () {
        request.post = this;
        next();
    });
}

Generators

Compound offers several built-in generators: for a model, controller and for initialization. Can be invoked as follows:

compound generate [what] [params]

what can be model, controller or scaffold. Example of controller generation:

$ compound generate controller admin/posts index new edit update
exists  app/
exists  app/controllers/
create  app/controllers/admin/
create  app/controllers/admin/posts_controller.js
create  app/helpers/
create  app/helpers/admin/
create  app/helpers/admin/posts_helper.js
exists  app/views/
create  app/views/admin/
create  app/views/admin/posts/
create  app/views/admin/posts/index.ejs
create  app/views/admin/posts/new.ejs
create  app/views/admin/posts/edit.ejs
create  app/views/admin/posts/update.ejs

Currently it generates only *.ejs views

Models

Checkout [JugglingDB][2] docs to see how to work with models.

CompoundJS Event model

Compound application loading process supports following events to be attached (in chronological order):

configure
after configure
routes
extensions
aft

Compound

Install / Use

README