Microscope

Microscope is a simple static web server written in Elixir using cowboy.

Originally it was a part of Serum development server, but I decided to separate into the other project for better maintainability. Now it became a general purpose static web server suitable for testing your static websites or quickly sharing your files over HTTP.

Installation

Add microscope to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [{:microscope, "~> 1.0"}]
end

Using Microscope

Using in Your Module

Start Microscope using Microscope.start_link/3.

{:ok, pid} =
  Microscope.start_link("/home/user/www", [base: "/base/url", port: 8080])

The server will start listening on port 8080. Open a web browser and navigate to http://<your-host>:8080/base/url/path/to/file, and the contents of /home/user/www/path/to/file will be displayed.

You may request either a file or a directory. If you request a file, Microscope will try to serve the requested file, or respond with HTTP 404 if the file does not exist. And if you request a directory, Microscope will look for index.html or index.htm inside the requested directory and serve one if found.

As a Command-line Application

Microscope also comes with a Mix task which provides a way to launch a static web server right away.

For example, suppose you have generated docs for your project with ExDoc, and you want to see them before publishing to Hex. Then, simply type the command below:

% mix microscope doc

Now open a web browser and navigate to http://<your-host>:8080/ to see the docs. Easy and real quick! 🚀

Type mix microscope on your shell to see all possible startup options.

License