PlaceLeo
Open-source Node.JS web service for serving up placeholder images in either color or grayscale
Dependencies
- Node.JS
- Express
- Moment.js
- Imagemagick (Requires native imagemagick CLI tools)
- Consolidate.js
- EJS
- Mongolian DeadBeef
- New Relic (Optional)
Install with npm install express moment imagemagick consolidate ejs mongolian
Getting Started
- Make sure the directories
cache/
andimg/
exist, and are empty. - Fill up
img/
with the images you'd like to use. They can be any size, but the bigger they are the better they'll look. 600-800px seem to work best. - in
app.js
, go to theapp.listen
line and change it according to your needs. In most cases,app.listen(80)
will work fine. - In the project's directory root, run
node app.js
- Open up a web browser, and visit
http://[your IP]/update
to scan theimg/
directory and load the images' metadata into the database. Revisit this URL any time you add new images to the directory that you'd like to use. - You should be done! Configure DNS and HTTP routing as you normally would for a Node.JS app, and start embedding images on your sites.
Important Notes
- There's currently no cache management, request throttling, or any other security measures to prevent abuse. Someone could easily write a small script to fill up your cache directory with thousands of different resolution images and hog your CPU.
- Due to the bandwidth-intensive nature of this application, it is highly recommended that you use a CDN. CloudFlare is free, and works quite well.
/update
currently doesn't check for removed images. If you'd like to remove an image, you'll currently need to runuse leo
and thendb.images.remove()
from the MongoDB shell to wipe the database clean, and then request/update
again.- If you'd like more insight into what's going on, sign up for a free New Relic account and follow the instructions to install their Node.JS library. If the application sees New Relic's configuration file in its directory when it starts, it'll load the library and send data automatically.