CODE PAGE

EXPRESS

Express is a Node framework for serving apps
Express is the most popular Node package
Express has many features such as HTTP get and post
Express handles routing which is what to do with various inputs
Express can use middleware apps to provide added functionality

EXPRESS APP

We will make an app that asks for a year and shows a result page with the Chinese zodiac animal for that year. There will be a static index page and a dynamic template result page. Express will handle the routing of the data to serve the right pages. Thanks Wendi Jollymore for the prototype.

Follow the NODE INFO instructions to make an app called zodiac
Make sure you are in VS Code with only the zodiac directory
Make sure you have an app.js (empty is fine for now)
Make sure you do the npm init

Install Express. In the terminal type:

// Install Express:
npm i express

Note the packages added to node_packages
Note the change to the package.json
We will also use a package to get the Chinese Animal of the Year
And we will install nodemon for automatic refreshing

// Install Chinese-Year:
npm i chinese-year

// Install nodemon:
npm i -D nodemon

// in the package.json add the following to the scripts:
// "start": "nodemon app.js" 
// remember to add a comma on the line before this

TEMPLATING

We will use a Template Engine for our results page
This will take data and insert it into our HTML
There are different Engines - we will use EJS (Embedded JavaScript)

// Install EJS:
npm i ejs

INDEX AND CSS PAGES

Pay close attention to the folders we use as they change a few times!
Make a folder called public in your zodiac folder
Add an index.html to the public folder with the following code:

<!doctype html>
<html>

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Chinese Zodiac Animal</title>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="zodiac.css">
</head>

<body>
    <header>
        <img src="assets/zodiac.jpg" alt="Chinese Zodiac Animals">
        <h1>Chinese Zodiac Animal</h1>
    </header>

    <form action="getyear">
        <p>
            <label for="year">Enter Year:
                <input type="number" max="4000" value="2024" name="year" id="year">
            </label>
        </p>
        <input type="hidden" name="special" value="test special & normal characters!">
        <p><input type="submit" value="Get Zodiac Animal"></p>
    </form>

    <footer>
        <img src="assets/zodiac.jpg" alt="Chinese Zodiac Animals">
    </footer>

</body>

</html>

Add an assets folder to your public folder
Get the zodiac image from here ZODIAC JPG
And put the image in your asset folder
Add a zodiac.css page to your public folder with this code:

body {
    text-align: center;
    margin:20px;
    background-color:#b90b0c;
    font-family:'Lucida Sans';            
}
header {
    color:#eee;
    margin-bottom:30px
}
header img, footer img {
    margin:20px 0px 10px 0px;
    width:60%;
    min-width:400px;
    max-width:600px;
}
footer img {
    margin-top:40px
}
form {
    font-size:24px;
    background-color:rgb(255, 114, 114);
    display:inline-block;
    width:300px;  
    padding:20px 30px;
    border:thick solid #ddd;
    border-radius:30px;
}
input {
    font-size:24px
}
input[type=submit] {
    padding:20px 40px;
    background-color: rgb(207, 0, 0);
    color:white;
    cursor:pointer;
    border-radius:10px;
    border:none;
}
input[type=submit]:hover {
    background-color: red;
}

RESULT PAGE

Make a views folder in your zodiac folder NOT in the public folder
Add a result.ejs page to the views folder with this code:
Note the extension is ejs and not html and it is not in the public folder
This is an html page where data will be inserted in the <%=variable %>

<!doctype html>
<html>

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Results for Chinese Zodiac Animal</title>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="zodiac.css">
</head>

<body>
    <header>
        <img src="assets/zodiac.jpg" alt="Chinese Zodiac Animals">
        <br><br><br>
        <h1><%= year %> is the year of the <%= animal %></h1>
    </header>   

    <footer>
        <img src="assets/zodiac.jpg" alt="Chinese Zodiac Animals">
    </footer>

</body>

</html>

EJS TAGS

Here are the types of EJS tags for reference
There is no need to put them anywhere...

// EJS tags:

<%  %>   // holds JavaScript but will not output
<%= %>   // outputs the value of content within 
<%- %>   // outputs the content but escapes HTML charcters (use to output HTML)
<%# %>   // is a comment tag or just add a # to other tags to ignore them    

// the JavaScript tags can go around HTML and will connect up
// which is nice for conditionals (seen below) and loops

<% 
const message = "oh well"; // or perhaps from form data...
const rand = Math.random();
if (rand > 0.8) { %>
    <h2>wow</h2>
<% } else { %>
    <h2><%= message %></h2>
<% } %>

APP PAGE

Add the following code to the app.js page in the zodiac folder

"use strict";

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

app.set("port", process.env.PORT || 3000);

// set where static files such as html, images, css pages are located
app.use(express.static('public'));

// set how we will render to template files
app.set("view engine", "ejs");

// bring in the chinese-year functionality
const chineseYear = require("chinese-year");


// ROUTING 
// Routing is choosing what to do for various urls 
// In Express you can app.use(function) which uses the function to do something 
// This can also be used to call (mount) middleware (from other packages)
// server requests can be routed with get(), post() - and others like all()
// which are special versions of use() that capture get or post data
// Route callbacks receive request (in), response (out) and next parameters
// We can make our own callbacks 
// and if we do, they are responsible for calling next()
// otherwise the flow will stop

app.use((req, res, next)=>{ 
    console.log(req.method + " request made to: " + req.url);
    // console.log(req.headers);
    next();
});

// PATH
// Here we pass a path of "/test" to use()
// This means, run this code if the URL is /test 
// To test, run the app and in a browser use http://localhost:3000/test
// this code will end the routing
app.use("/test", (req, res, next)=>{ 
    console.log("starting with test");
    res.send("<h1>TEST</h1>");
    res.end(); // do not go any further
});

// GET AND POST
// Below we check if we receive get or post data using routes that come with Express
// we do this for /getyear which comes from the action of the form
// (test by setting the form action=post to run the post code down below)
// we could route other urls to and through different functions

// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
// GET

app.get("/getyear", (req, res)=>{

    // get data can be collected with req.query
    // this is an object with properties that match the names of the form fields
    console.log(req.query);

    const year = req.query.year ? req.query.year : new Date().getFullYear();

    // get the animal from chinese-animal 
    const animal = chineseYear.getAnimal(year);

    // this would send some html to the client
    // but we want to load the template page instead
    // // res.send("<h1>"+animal+"</h1>");

    // just need result and not result.ejs
    // and pass it the data which is made available 
    // to JavaScript on the template page
    res.render("result", {year:year, animal:animal}); // or just {year, animal} in ES6

});

// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
// POST

// When using POST - the data is in the body
// Express's urlencoded method returns a function for the app to use
// that will receive request, response and next parameters
// then parse the data in the request, and add properties 
// that match the field names to the request body object
// and then it calls next()
app.use(express.urlencoded({extended:false}));

// if collecting post data then this route will run
app.post("/getyear", (req, res)=>{

    // note we collect the year in the body - not the query
    console.log(req.body);

    const year = req.body.year ? req.body.year : new Date().getFullYear();
    const animal = chineseYear.getAnimal(year);

    // use res.render() to render an ejs file
    res.render("result", {year:year, animal:animal}); // or  {year, animal} in ES6

});


app.listen(app.get("port"), ()=>{
    console.log("running on " + app.get("port"));
});

RUNNING THE APP

In the terminal (CTRL `) or pull up from bottom of VS Code
Run the following code:

// type the following and press Enter
node app

// or if nodemon is installed and in the "start" : "nodemon app.js" 
// is in the scripts of the package.json then type
npm start

Open the app in a browser at http://localhost:3000
Choose a year and submit the form
Note the comments in the terminal

FULL Sheridan Node documentation can be found in Wendi Jollymore's Lessons.