angular-seed-coffee — the seed for AngularJS apps in CoffeeScript

This project is a CoffeeScript port of the application skeleton for a typical AngularJS web app. This port also fixes a number of issues and bugs in the original angular-seed and should be ready for use straight away. 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://.

How to use angular-seed

Clone the angular-seed-coffee 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 coffeescript then run scripts/web-server.coffee

Then navigate your browser to http://localhost:<port>/app/test-index.html to see the app running in your browser. If you prefer asynchronous loading, navigate to http://localhost:<port>/app/test-index-async.html instead.

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.

Since CoffeeScript shouldn't generally be distributed publicly, a small build script is included that will join the CoffeeScript files, compile them to JavaSscript and minify the result. To try it out, run cake build and navigate to http://localhost:<port>/app/index.html

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.coffee 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.coffee
• serve your project directory with your http/backend server or node.js + scripts/web-server.coffee
• 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 angular-seed-coffee's repo is upgraded 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.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 coffeescript files asynchronously
  coffee/            --> coffeescript files
    app.coffee          --> application
    controllers.coffee  --> application controllers
    directives.coffee   --> application directives
    filters.coffee      --> custom angular filters
    services.coffee     --> custom angular services
  js/                --> where compiled javascript will be put by the build script
  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/coffeescript/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.coffee  --> 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.coffee --> 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.coffee  --> specs for controllers
    directivessSpec.coffee  --> specs for directives
    filtersSpec.coffee      --> specs for filters
    servicesSpec.coffee     --> specs for services

Contact

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