Generator of Node.js Application Backed by MarkLogic

This is a Slush generator template that produces a skeleton MarkLogic application with the following components:

• AngularJS
• Gulp
• node.js: very thin layer, hosting the Angular code and proxying MarkLogic REST API requests
• Roxy Deployer: bootstrap MarkLogic databases, application servers, etc; scaffolding for MarkLogic REST API service extensions

Install Required Dependencies

To run this generator, you need:

• node.js v0.10+
• npm v2+: Built-in package manager for node (comes with node, but check to be sure you have latest version: npm install -g npm)
• gulp: Javascript task automation (npm install -g gulp)
• Slush: Application generation tool (npm install -g slush) - only needed if you are generating the initial code
• Bower: A package manager for front-end libraries (npm install -g bower)
• Git - Roxy depends on this version control system
• Ruby v1.9.3+ - Roxy depends on Ruby in order to run server configuration scripts

Note: the node command has been renamed to nodejs. Some dependencies still point to node, which is out of our control. You may need to manually alias those commands, or install the node-legacy package.

Microsoft Windows users should also read the Additional Microsoft Windows Requirements.

Install the Generator

The recommended way to install this generator is:

npm install -g slush-marklogic-node

To grab latest features under development you can use:

npm install -g git://github.com/marklogic/slush-marklogic-node.git

Run the Generator

Go to the directory under which your new project should be created (the parent), and run:

slush marklogic-node

Or:

slush marklogic-node <app-name>

This will ask you several questions, with some intelligent defaults. The end result should be a subdirectory with a name matching the app-name, containing all the application code.

Quick Start (for the Impatient)

On Mac or Linux:

cd <app-name>
npm install
bower install
gulp init-local
./ml local install
./ml local mlcp -options_file import-sample-data.options

On Windows:

cd <app-name>
npm install
bower install
gulp init-local
ml.bat local install
ml.bat local mlcp -options_file import-sample-data.options

Prepare your Application

Go to the generated application directory:

cd <app-name>

The generator installs NodeJS and JavaScript dependencies automatically, but if shared among colleagues, they likely need to run the following commands manually:

npm install
bower install

The generator also creates a local.json and a deploy/local.properties, but those are usually gitignored. Check if they exist. If they do, check the settings, most importantly the port settings to make sure they list available ports. If those files don't exist, then use the following command to create them:

gulp init-local

Note: you can use gulp init-dev and gulp init-prod to setup properties for the dev and prod environments.

Note: the deploy properties allow tweaking the MarkLogic side of the application in great detail. Look inside deploy/build.properties or the documentation of the Roxy deployer to learn more about this.

Note: consider editing the _loginMode variable in ui/app/login/login.service.js to change the login mode of the application. The default is set to full. The other options are top-right or modal.

Deploy your Application

Run the following Roxy commands to deploy the application to the chosen MarkLogic installation. It will create and configure databases, REST servers, users, and roles for you, and deploy the back-end application code.

./ml local bootstrap
./ml local deploy modules
./ml local deploy content

Or on Windows:

ml.bat local bootstrap
ml.bat local deploy modules
ml.bat local deploy content

Launch your Application

To launch the middle-tier, and open a browser tab automatically, you only need to run:

gulp serve-local

Note: this will also watch the ui/ folder for changes, compile them, and reload the browser fully automatically.

Note: to get more debug logging from Express, run with:

DEBUG=http,mail,express:* gulp serve-local

Note: it is possible to override settings on the command-line:

gulp serve-local --ml-host=<your-host> --ml-http-port=8234 --app-port=9234 --nosync

Note: --nosync will cause no extra browsersync reload proxy to get launched at 3000, and no browser tab will be opened automatically. In addition you have --verbose, and --ignoreErrors (for gulp build). A few more flags are documented at the top of gulpfile.js.

Loading Sample Data (optional)

The application comes with 3000 JSON documents generated by json-generator.com. They will allow you to explore all the features you get out of the box in a better way. You can load them with (MLCP)[https://docs.marklogic.com/guide/ingestion/content-pump] using Roxy.

Before you hit off, check if Roxy can find MLCP:

./ml local mlcp

Roxy will print the following message if it cannot find MLCP:

ERROR: MLCP not found or mis-configured, please check the mlcp-home setting.

Roxy looks for /usr/local/mlcp/ (or \usr\local\mlcp\) by default. It can be convenient to just install MLCP there, or create a symlink from /usr/local/mlcp to where MLCP is installed. Alternatively, edit your deploy/local.properties, and append a mlcp-home=/path/to/your/mlcp/ to the end of it. Repeating above command should show MLCP usage, not an ERROR.

Once MLCP works correctly, you can run:

./ml local mlcp -options_file import-sample-data.options

Or on Windows:

ml.bat local mlcp -options_file import-sample-data.options

Note: the detail controller, the part that handles showing your data, can not only handle JSON, but also XML, Binary, and Text data out of the box.

Deployment on Server

At some point you might want to deploy and run this as a service on some (demo) server. For details on that see INSTALL.mdown.

Next Steps

Documentation about the slush generator is provided on the Generator Wiki. It covers amongst others:

• Project folder structure, which describes the project directory as produces by the generator.

• Explaining the stack, which gives a brief description of the overall architecture.

• Core Tools and Components, which allows you to learn more about the various tools and components used by or for the application.

Last but not least, the landing page of the out of the box application provides many more links.