CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptnode.jsangular
J4N
J4N

Reputation: 20697

Angular2: How to go from an "ng serve" hosting to a Node.Js hosting

I've made my first Angular2 application, while using ng servefor hosting. Now I've to add some backend(because I need some small server logic).

I've found this who basically explain me how to host an angular 2 app on nodeJs. But ng serve was doing a lot of things, checking the changes, bundling the differents JS/CSS files, injecting angular into my template, getting my dependencies.

I cannot just "generate" angular web site and then, since I've to update the angular part to get the data from the web api and work with it.

So what should I do to switch from ng serve to an nodeJS?

EDIT: Viewing the answer, I must not have been clear enough. My angular JS is not an application that will on client ONLY, I've done some part of it(navigation, some form, ...) but now I need to host a server with web service and websocket to continue the work. It's not about deploying this to a productive server. It's about to moving to an environnement that allow me to work on the server and the client side.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 19738

Answers (6)

Adam Butler
Adam Butler

Reputation: 3037

I know this is an old question but I am just having this same concern and I found ngserve proxy option useful. In development you can run node on another port then calls to /api get redirected through to node.js.

https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/blob/master/docs/documentation/stories/proxy.md

package.json gets: "start": "ng serve --proxy-config proxy.conf.json",

then make a proxy.conf.json file like this { "/api": { "target": "http://localhost:3000", "secure": false, "pathRewrite": { "^/api": "" } } }

Upvotes: 9

Dmitry Gusarov
Dmitry Gusarov

Reputation: 1629

I'm not sure if this is still relevant, but this might help others get a quick start:

  1. Run your NodeJS server part e.g. like this

nodemon server.js

  1. Open 2nd terminal (in VSCode Ctrl+Shift`) and start client part build & watch

ng build --watch

They will continue to work in parallel, each doing it's own job. This is not exactly the same as ng serve, e.g. this will not reflect your changes immediately inside the page, you still have to hit F5 (which you most probably did anyway before Angular). But this is fast, free and much easier than becoming web-pack guru. And you are still able to switch between terminals to check for any output / errors.

Upvotes: 3

AngularChef
AngularChef

Reputation: 14077

I think I finally understood your question:

  • Instead of using the devserver bundled with angular-cli (ng serve), you want to use your own Node.js-powered server.
  • Also, you DON'T WANT TO STATICALLY BUILD your app (ng build). You want to serve the live build (which has to be generated automatically by the server).

Here's how you can do it:

1) Watch, transpile, bundle...

Webpack is perfect for that.

Create a webpack config file with the right settings for an Angular app. Here's an example from angular2-webpack-starter: webpack.dev.js.

The example is bit verbose. Just keep in mind the config file is where you tell webpack how to handle .ts files, what bundle(s) it should generate, etc.

2) Serve the bundle(s) generated by webpack with a Node.js server

I see two options, depending on how much control you want:

2a. Use webpack-dev-server (not a lot of control)

webpack-dev-server --config config/webpack.dev.js --watch src/

You can see that the webpack-dev-server uses the config file previously mentioned.

Again, you can see an example of the full command to run in angular2-webpack-starter's package.json file.

2b. Create your own server (a lot of control)

You could create a Node.js/Express server using the webpack-dev-middleware, to which you would feed the config file created in step #1.

The middleware is the magic link that will let you serve the files emitted from webpack over the Express server.

Example of a Node.js/Express server which uses the webpack-dev-middleware: srcServer.js.

Does that answer your question?

Upvotes: 11

ndkcha
ndkcha

Reputation: 175

run ng build --prod to build your application.

After building the application, you will find your final dist code in dist directory.

Now, use this code in your server.js file in Node.js.

(function() {
    const express = require("express");
    const app = express();

    app.use(express.static(__dirname + "/dist"));

    app.listen(80);
    console.log("port" + 80);
})();

Upvotes: 6

Martin
Martin

Reputation: 16292

ng serve is only for development. It is not intended as a production web server.

ng build --prod --aot --no-sourcemap will bundle your application ready for production and place it in your dist/ directory.

If you want to use Node.js you can use Express with the static file middleware. You will probably also want a RewriteRule middleware to support serverside HTML5 Pushstate.

In reality you don't need NodeJS to serve your built site as it will just be flat files. Nginx, Apache or IIS with rewrite rules to support HTML5 Pushstate will be enough.

Upvotes: 2

Bruno João
Bruno João

Reputation: 5525

Angular app is a HTML 5 app. So you just need to serve it as a static file in NoeJs.

How

Build your app

ng build --prod

This command will create a folder named dist. The folder content is your HTML app.

Serving your app

Just serve it with your NodeJs app pointing to the index.html file.

Upvotes: 2

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