I'm trying to solve a problem that's been bugging me for awhile.
The Scenario:
The problem is when I use Gulp to start up my local server w/ Live Reload. It starts up my Angular app just fine, but when I make a file change Live Reload (page refreshes) breaks my app and gives me a "CANNOT GET" because my server.js (node server) file has a special way that it redirects the user to my "index.html" file. The reason for this is because I have "HTML5 mode" enabled in the Angular app (for pretty URL's) and I have to specify this in the server.js file for it to properly work.
Before I turned "html5 on" inside my angular app everything worked fine, but because of the special redirecting my Gulp.js file isn't written correctly to be aware of this.
If I run "node server.js" however, the angular app works as expected and gets page refreshes, it's just irritating to have this problem when I'm developing.
Questions:
- How can I write my gulpfile.js to run the server.js file correctly?
- Is there a better way to write my server.js file?
- Is it possible run multiple ports at once (development mode and production mode)?
(I've left out a few folders and files to make it easier on the eyes)
File Structure:
ROOT
- build (angular production app)
- front (angular development app)
- gulpfile.js (task runner)
- server.js (node server)
Server.js (node server)
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.use('/js', express.static(__dirname + '/front/js'));
app.use('/build', express.static(__dirname + '/../build'));
app.use('/css', express.static(__dirname + '/front/css'));
app.use('/images', express.static(__dirname + '/front/images'));
app.use('/pages', express.static(__dirname + '/front/pages'));
app.all('/*', function(req, res, next) {
// Sends the index.html for other files to support HTML5Mode
res.sendFile('/front/index.html', { root: __dirname });
});
var port = process.env.PORT || 8000;
app.listen(port);
Gulpfile ("connect" starts on line 67)
var gulp = require ('gulp'),
sync = require ('browser-sync'),
bower = require ('gulp-bower'),
htmlify = require ('gulp-minify-html'),
uglify = require ('gulp-uglify'),
prefix = require ('gulp-autoprefixer'),
minify = require ('gulp-minify-css'),
imgmin = require ('gulp-imagemin'),
rename = require ('gulp-rename'),
concat = require ('gulp-concat'),
inject = require ('gulp-inject'),
connect = require ('gulp-connect'),
open = require ('gulp-open');
// Bower Task
gulp.task('bower', function() {
return bower()
.pipe(gulp.dest('front/js/vendors'));
});
// HTML Task
gulp.task('html', function(){
gulp.src('front/**/*.html')
.on('error', console.error.bind(console))
.pipe(gulp.dest('build'))
.pipe(connect.reload());
});
// Styles Task (Uglifies)
gulp.task('styles', function(){
gulp.src('front/**/*.css')
.pipe(minify())
.on('error', console.error.bind(console))
.pipe(gulp.dest('build'))
.pipe(connect.reload());
});
// Scripts Task (Uglifies)
gulp.task('scripts', function(){
gulp.src('front/**/*.js')
.pipe(uglify())
.on('error', console.error.bind(console))
.pipe(gulp.dest('build'))
.pipe(connect.reload());
});
// Image Task (compress)
gulp.task('images', function(){
gulp.src('front/images/*')
.pipe(imgmin())
.pipe(gulp.dest('build/images'))
.pipe(connect.reload());
});
// Connect Task (connect to server and live reload)
gulp.task('connect', function(){
connect.server({
root: 'front',
livereload: true
});
});
// Watch Task (watches for changes)
gulp.task('watch', function(){
gulp.watch('front/*.html', ['html']);
gulp.watch('front/js/*.js', ['scripts']);
gulp.watch('front/css/*.css', ['styles']);
gulp.watch('front/images/*', ['images']);
});
// Open Task (starts app automatically)
gulp.task("open", function(){
var options = {
url: "http://localhost:8080",
app: "Chrome"
};
gulp.src("front/index.html")
.pipe(open("", options));
});
gulp.task('default', ['html', 'styles', 'scripts', 'images', 'connect', 'watch', 'open']);
Angular app
// App Starts
angular
.module('app', [
'ui.router',
'ngAnimate',
'angular-carousel'
])
.config(['$urlRouterProvider', '$stateProvider', '$locationProvider', function($urlRouterProvider, $stateProvider, $locationProvider) {
$urlRouterProvider.otherwise("/");
$stateProvider
// Home Page
.state('home', {
url: '/',
templateUrl: 'pages/home.html',
controller: 'homeCtrl'
})
// use the HTML5 History API
$locationProvider.html5Mode(true);
}])
Index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html class="no-js" ng-app="app" ng-controller="mainCtrl">
<head>
<title>Website</title>
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
<!-- Universal Stylesheets -->
<link href="css/stylesheet.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />
<!-- Sets base for HTML5 mode -->
<base href="/"></base>
</head>
<body>
<section class="row main" ui-view></section>
<!-- Javascript -->
<script src="js/scripts.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
Thanks in advance for your help!
Here is a fairly good solution :)
Here is what you should use:
This is the module i use for SPA development:
Also AngularJs has a neat solution for avoiding setting base href