static-now

"But I just want so serve up some files... why all of this setup". Have you ever said that to yourself.

Worry no more - static-now is here to help you. With a single line your web server is ready to roll, and you can focus on the static files instead.

require("static-now")();

This will start a Koa web server on port 3000 and start listening.

You can do it on two lines also for readability

var staticnow = require("static-now");
staticnow();

Starting the application

Koa uses generators from ES6 and require 0.11.9 or higher (actually higher... go 0.11.16 for now). You can run multiple versions of node by using n or nvm.

Start you application with the harmony features enabled:

node --harmony app.js

Or if you're using io.js leave out the flag:

node app.js

Here's a package.json node ready for you so that you can use npm start:

"scripts": {
    "start": "node --harmony app.js"
}

Configuration

There's just a few configuration options that you can use to control the behaviour of static-now.

Directory

var options = { directory : __dirname };
require("static-now")(options);

By default the directory that node is started in is used. Meaning if you go npm --harmony app.js in /Volumes/Users/marcus/demo the files in that directory will be exposed via the web server.

Port

var options = { portnumber : 3456 };
require("static-now")(options);

By default port 3000 is used, meaning that your web server is started at http://localhost:3000.

For hosting in Heroku, or other platform as a service providers, you can use a process parameter to get the correct port. Like so:

var options = { portnumber : process.env.PORT };
require("static-now")(options);

Autostart

var options = { autostart : false };
var app = require("static-now")(options);

You don't have to start the application right away, if you don't have too. The static-now function returns the Koa application so that you can start it yourself, when appropriate.

A good time when this can be handy is for testing, when usually the testing framework is starting the application up. Like this, using supertest

var supertest = require('supertest');
var staticNow = require('static-now');
 
describe('Starting app via supertest', function () {
    it('here is how', function (done) {
 
        var options = { autostart : false };
        var app = staticNow(options);
 
        // Let supertest start listening
        var request = supertest.agent(app.listen());
        request
            .get('/README.md')
            .expect(200)
            .end(done);
    });
});

Log message

var options = { log : true };
var app = require("static-now")(options);

static-now spits out some log messages showing you the current configuration etc. You can turn that off or on using the log option.

LICENSE

The MIT License