Generator-flux-on-rails NPM

generator-flux-on-rails

Scaffolder of isomorphic/universal Flux app, backed by Rails API.

LIVE DEMO APP | App sources: Flux App & Rails API

What you'll get with just a few lines in console.

Isomorphic/universal SPA based on Flux architecture
Running on latest versions of redux and react-router
Written on ES6/ES2015 (transpiled by Babel)
Multiple bundles ready
Simple authentication mechanism
<head> generation and <title> updater
Development and production builds (using webpack & gulp)
Hot reloading in development
Google Analytics helpers
Rails API — up and running
Deployment scripts for Flux app and Rails API (using mina)

If you don't use Rails, you can skip its setup and use whatever JSON API back-end you like. For the Flux app it's just a JSON API somewhere in the outer space.

For further details please follow up this series of posts @medium

Technologies used

Flux app

React @ 0.13.3
Redux @ 1.0.0-rc as Flux implementation
React Router @ 1.0.0-beta3 as... Router
Express @ 4.x as front-end framework
Jade @ 1.x as template engine
Stylus as css preprocessor
Babel as ES6 -> ES5 transpiler
Webpack as assets bundler
Gulp as build engine
Eslint as js linter
Node as is

Rails API

Rails @ 4.x as back-end framework
rails_api gem as rails-json-api maker
Devise (with simple_token_authentication gem) as authentication engine
Postgres as database
RVM as rubies manager
Unicorn as production server

And

Mina as deploy engine
Nginx as front-end server

Node & NPM are required for Flux app.
RVM, Ruby & Postgres are required for Rails API.
Nginx is required for both.

Why we need Nginx on localhost — read in my post on @medium.

This generator will install latest versions of dependencies, so if some npm package or ruby gem will be updated to the next major version (and there will be breaking changes in its API) — something can be broken after installation. I think on the project's creation stage it's better to get an error and update code base to start with the newest available versions of libs, rather than locking dependencies and use outdated packages at the beginning. If you'll face such case, please let me know via issue or pull request. Thanks!

Getting Started

Let's create an app called my-blog.

This generator will scaffold 2 separate repos:

Flux app
Rails API

In case you don't have yo:

npm install -g yo

Get generator:

npm install -g generator-flux-on-rails

Make sure Postgres is up and running (if you plan to install Rails API) and initiate scaffolder:

yo flux-on-rails

# or specify name right here
yo flux-on-rails my-blog

myBlog or my_blog will be converted to my-blog for consistency.

Before scaffolder start process, you have to answer following questions:

Installation

Enter app name:
Specify app's name. Or hit Enter if you've already done this within yo command.
Choose parts to install:
Choose which parts of app you want to install — Node app & Rails API. Press space to toggle.
Configure remote repo on Github / Bitbucket?
Generator can configure for you remote repo on Github / Bitbucket. Hit Enter to accept it. If you'll choose no, scaffolder will start his work.
Github or Bitbucket?
Choose one with arrows keys.
Your username:
Your account on chosen service.
Push first commit to remote?
It can push first commit to remote for you. If you'll choose yes, check that you've created 2 repos on chosen service:
- Node app repo: git@github.com:username/my-blog-app.git
- Rails app repo: git@github.com:username/my-blog-api.git

After scaffolding is done, 2 repos will be created:

|- /my-blog
    |- /my-blog-api    # <------- Rails API
    |- /my-blog-app    # <------- Node app

Before we'll spin up these apps, setup your localhost environment. As a result our Flux app will be available at http://lvh.me and our Rails API will be available at http://api.lvh.me.

Install and setup Nginx (it's really easy).
Add lvh.me & api.lvh.me to your hosts file to get rid of unnecessary roundtrips (lvh.me already points to localhost, but browser have to make roundtrip to DNS servers to get that).

Here is the gist with my local configs.

Spinning up Rails API

Navigate to project folder:

cd my-blog/my-blog-api

We need to create users table in database, so Devise can handle users authentication.

Check migration at db/migrate/XXXXXXXXXXXXXX_devise_create_users.rb
Configure it and run the migration.

rake db:migrate

Now we can start local Rails server:

bin/rails s

To create a User, make POST request to /signup path, smth like this:

curl http://api.lvh.me/signup \
-X POST \
-H 'Content-type: application/json' \
-d '{"api_user":{"email":"some@email.com", "password":"123456789"}}'

And we're done.

Spinning up Flux app

Navigate to project folder:

cd my-blog/my-blog-app

Run dev server with hot reloading:

npm start

Point your browser to http://lvh.me. That's all!

Also:

# to start local server with production assets
npm run prod

# to compile production assets before deploy
npm run build
# or just
gulp

Further details about Flux app, Rails API, authentication and deployment I'll cover in this series of posts @medium.

If you'll find any errors or have a suggestions — issues and PRs are absolutely welcome. Special thanks to those who'll correct the grammar issues in this README.

TODO

Flux Add tests
Flux Remove /public stuff out of repo + symlink it to shared folder on production
Flux Add immutable.js
Flux Fix login form example (move its state from local state to global store)
Flux Switch to babel-node in development & production envs
Flux Add redux-devtools
Flux Improve error handling
Flux Rewrite meta generator: class -> function
Flux Add notifications from webpack server
Flux Add server-side retina detection
Flux Add I18n
Flux, Rails Switch to JWT authentication

Thanks

@gaearon for redux — awesome flux implementation
@mjackson & @ryanflorence for wonderful react-router
@erikras & @quangbuule for great redux examples
Rails team for the best backend framework ever.
And all the OS contributors, who made the stuff from Gemfile & project.json.