O2 Nurture is a simple web app, aimed at coaxing O2 business customers in to downloading apps that may help them improve their business.
Generally O2 customers will receive a phone call, then be SMS'd a link with a link to the site. Based on responses to questions asked during the phone call, the site will display content most suitable for the user.
The application is built using Node and Express.
Content is retrieved from Parse, and is selectively displayed based upon the query string in the url. If no query is string is present, page disposition is dictated by a "default query string", which is found in the settings data store in Parse. Speak to Jon Chandler for access to Parse.
Download the repo, install node dependencies
git clone git@bitbucket.org:mcsaatchi/o2_nurture.git
cd o2_nurture
npm install
To start the express server, run npm start.
The project uses Gulp to start the express server and restart on changes.
The project uses Express. Models/controllers and helpers etc are in the app/
directory. A basic library for retrieving data from Parse is in the
lib/parse/ directory. Tests are in the test/ directory. To test, run
npm test.
npm start sets the NODE_PATH environmental variable before starting the
server. This is so modules from certain directories can be required using
absolute notation rather than relative. EG instead of
require('../../lib/parse/parse'), require('parse') can be written. See
package.json for a list of paths set. These paths will need to be added
when invoking app code without using npm start. EG, to run the tests in a
single file,
NODE_PATH=./app:./app/adapters:./config:./lib/parse NODE_ENV=test mocha test/integration/test_index.js
View models are responsible for collating and exposing an interface for outputting all the data needed for a particular view. They should be instantiated from their relevant controller, and passed directly to res.render.
Helpers are for encapsulating domain specific logic related to a distinct set of tasks in order to keep controllers light.
Adapters are used as a convenience where a module is to be used as a singleton. IE where a module is instantiated with new Module(), but only one instance should be available application wide.
Front end code is located in the client/ directory. The project uses SCSS with the Bourbon mixin library, Jade templates and browserify to build JS.
SCSS is written using BEM notation. All changes to SCSS, including new files should trigger a livereload change event, and result in CSS being refreshed without page reload. This applies to the generation of the sprite sheet and the vector font.
Sprites are generated automatically from images placed in the client/images/ui-elements/ directory. Two spritesheets and accompanying SCSS are generated automatically whenever changes/additions are made to images in that directory. Images should be in retina .png format (2x size, with even width, height). Non retina images are generated automatically from the retina version. The SCSS generated is written to client/scss/base/_ui-elements.scss . All non sprite images should be put in the public/images/ directory.
All vectors should be built in to the SVG font. The font is automatically generated on changes/addition to the client/images/vectors directory. The font SCSS generate is written to client/scss/base/_vector-font.scss.
JS is built using Browserify, and is handled by Express middleware (as opposed to a Gulp task). Changes should trigger a live reload.
TODO