angular-seed — the seed for AngularJS apps with CoffeeScript

This project is an application skeleton for a typical AngularJS web app. You can use it to quickly bootstrap your angular webapp projects and dev environment for these projects.

The seed contains AngularJS libraries, test libraries and a bunch of scripts all preconfigured for instant web development gratification. Just clone the repo (or download the zip/tarball), start up our (or yours) webserver and you are ready to develop and test your application.

The seed app doesn't do much, just shows how to wire two controllers and views together. You can check it out by opening app/index.html in your browser (might not work file file:// scheme in certain browsers, see note below).

Note: While angular is client-side-only technology and it's possible to create angular webapps that don't require a backend server at all, we recommend hosting the project files using a local webserver during development to avoid issues with security restrictions (sandbox) in browsers. The sandbox implementation varies between browsers, but quite often prevents things like cookies, xhr, etc to function properly when an html page is opened via file:// scheme instead of http://.

Additions

Following are few additions added from the original angular/angular-seed project to make it more open to using smaller files and congregating some script/<<task>> commands into Rake commands.

Smaller Module Files

This differs from the original angular/angular-seed by breaking the different modules down into individual files for a given task. You can now write a HomeController.coffee and UsersController.coffee and not have to stick everything in one giant file.

CoffeeScript

Write you modules in CoffeeScript. There are few rake tasks MarkBorcherding/angular-tasks to assist in compiling the CoffeeScript into JavaScript, as well as guard file to automatically watch for changes and compile.

To automatically compile the CoffeeScript into JavaScript run guard.

$> guard

How to use angular-seed

Clone the angular-seed repository and start hacking...

Running the app during development

You can pick one of these options:

serve this repository with your webserver
install node.js and run rake webserver

Then navigate your browser to http://localhost:<port>/app/index.html to see the app running in your browser.

Running the app in production

This really depends on how complex is your app and the overall infrastructure of your system, but the general rule is that all you need in production are all the files under the app/ directory. Everything else should be omitted.

Angular apps are really just a bunch of static html, css and js files that just need to be hosted somewhere, where they can be accessed by browsers.

If your Angular app is talking to the backend server via xhr or other means, you need to figure out what is the best way to host the static files to comply with the same origin policy if applicable. Usually this is done by hosting the files by the backend server or through reverse-proxying the backend server(s) and a webserver(s).

Running unit tests

We recommend using jasmine and Testacular for your unit tests/specs, but you are free to use whatever works for you.

Requires node.js, Testacular (sudo npm install -g testacular) and a local or remote browser.

start scripts/test.sh (on windows: scripts\test.bat)
- a browser will start and connect to the Testacular server (Chrome is default browser, others can be captured by loading the same url as the one in Chrome or by changing the config/testacular.conf.js file)
to run or re-run tests just change any of your source or test javascript files

End to end testing

Angular ships with a baked-in end-to-end test runner that understands angular, your app and allows you to write your tests with jasmine-like BDD syntax.

Requires a webserver, node.js + ./scripts/web-server.js or your backend server that hosts the angular static files.

Check out the end-to-end runner's documentation for more info.

create your end-to-end tests in test/e2e/scenarios.js
serve your project directory with your http/backend server or node.js + scripts/web-server.js
to run do one of:
- open http://localhost:port/test/e2e/runner.html in your browser
- run the tests from console with Testacular via scripts/e2e-test.sh or script/e2e-test.bat

Receiving updates from upstream

When we upgrade angular-seed's repo with newer angular or testing library code, you can just fetch the changes and merge them into your project with git.

Directory Layout

app/                    --> all of the files to be used in production
  css/                  --> css files
    app.scss            --> default SASS stylesheet
    app.css             --> default stylesheet
  img/                  --> image files
  index.html            --> app layout file (the main html template file of the app)
  index-async.html      --> just like index.html, but loads js files asynchronously
  js/                   --> javascript files
    app.js              --> application compiled js
    app.coffee          --> application coffee prefix file
    app/                --> location of additional files to compile into app.js
    controllers.js      --> application compiled controllers js
    controllers.coffee  --> application coffee controllers prefix file
    controllers/        --> location of additional files to compile into controllers.js
    directives.js       --> application compiled directives js
    directives.coffee   --> application coffee directives prefix file
    directives/         --> location of additional files to compile into directives.js
    filters.js          --> custom angular filters compiled js
    filters.coffee      --> custom angular filters
    filters/            --> location of additional files to compile into filters.js
    services.js         --> custom angular services compiled js
    services.coffee     --> custom angular services coffee prefix
    serivices/          --> location of additional files to compile into services.js
  lib/                  --> angular and 3rd party javascript libraries
    angular/
      angular.js        --> the latest angular js
      angular.min.js    --> the latest minified angular js
      angular-*.js      --> angular add-on modules
      version.txt       --> version number
  partials/             --> angular view partials (partial html templates)
    partial1.html
    partial2.html

config/testacular.conf.js        --> config file for running unit tests with Testacular
config/testacular-e2e.conf.js    --> config file for running e2e tests with Testacular

scripts/            --> handy shell/js/ruby scripts
  e2e-test.sh       --> runs end-to-end tests with Testacular (*nix)
  e2e-test.bat      --> runs end-to-end tests with Testacular (windows)
  test.bat          --> autotests unit tests with Testacular (windows)
  test.sh           --> autotests unit tests with Testacular (*nix)
  web-server.js     --> simple development webserver based on node.js

test/               --> test source files and libraries
  e2e/              -->
    runner.html     --> end-to-end test runner (open in your browser to run)
    scenarios.js    --> end-to-end specs
  lib/
    angular/                --> angular testing libraries
      angular-mocks.js      --> mocks that replace certain angular services in tests
      angular-scenario.js   --> angular's scenario (end-to-end) test runner library
      version.txt           --> version file
  unit/                     --> unit level specs/tests
    controllersSpec.js      --> specs for controllers
    directivessSpec.js      --> specs for directives
    filtersSpec.js          --> specs for filters
    servicesSpec.js         --> specs for services

Rakefile    --> A collection of Rake tasks to help automatte tasks
Guardfile   --> A list of files to watch and automatically perform Rake tasks
Gemfile     --> A list of Ruby gems being used

Contact

For more information on AngularJS please check out http://angularjs.org/

MarkBorcherding/trigger-angular-seed