Support/host node.js apps

[ryexley]

Would be really nice if Fenix supported hosting node.js based apps. For example, if/when I configured a new server, it could introspect the selected directory to see if it contains a package.json file, and inspect it for certain attributes, like either main or a start script definition or something like that. Nice thing would be that Fenix could be used for spinning up the app for development...and then, say if you're building a full-stack JS app on Express or something like that, I could use the Request Browser for introspecting requests and responses from the apps UI to a support API, like, requests to /api/.... Would be really nice for something like that.

[coreybutler]

I think what you're asking for is a visual way to start/stop/share the node.js server, just like the static servers. The server itself would be defined by the package.json file. You then want to pipe req/res to the request browser.

Did I get that right?

[ryexley]

I'm not totally sure if thats right or not, as I don't understand how the internals of Fenix work (haven't gone source diving at all). Just saying that, if I run the app in my browser, and click on something that triggers an ajax request to an API hosted in the app at something like /api/... it would be really nice to be able to view the details of those ajax requests in the Request Browser. Would ultimately kind of provide a similar view that the Network tab in Chrome dev tools provides.

But also, yes, a simple, visual means of starting and stopping node apps for dev would also be really nice as well...very minor...one less terminal tab open, but... shrug

[coreybutler]

Gotcha - the network tab idea makes sense.

I don't think native integration for this makes sense in Fenix. There are just too many variations to support.

That said, it's possible to extend the Fenix API to write entries to the request browser. If an endpoint like this were available, it would be a matter of writing middleware for things like Express to stream the output to the request browser (or the log for that matter).

I'll have to think about that a bit. I have another OSS node project this might be more relevant to, but I wasn't really planning on releasing anything until Node 1.0.