Lets create and start to make a simple node.js application with the following steps. For example, lets create this application MyApp
1. Create a folder where you want to create your application called MyApp$ mkdir myapp$ cd myapp
2. Open the folder with Vs Code or your favorite IDE. I will be using VS CODE for this tutorial.$ code .
3. You should have an empty project with no folders or fildes. Open the terminal in VS CODE (Control + `)
4. Create an empt file called app.js$ touch app.js
4. Initialize the project with this npm command:$ npm init -y
If you leave out the -y option, you will need to populate the following fields:
package name: (example1)myapp
version: (1.0.0)
description: Just a very basic nodejs app
entry point: (app.js)
test command:
git repository:
keywords:
author:
license: (ISC)
Is this OK? (yes) yes
5. Now you should have a file called package.json, open this file and add and add start to "scripts": { - The start object property should now look like this:
5. Add the following code to app.js
6. Now you can run the script in your console using Node.js with the following command:
$ node app.js
Done. BUT if you want to take a step further, run it as a server with auto refresh to render HTML, follow the next steps:
7. Install Nodemon to make your application automatically refresh when you make a change
$ npm i nodemon or (npm i --save-dev nodemon)
8. Change scripts in packages.json
FROM:
TO:
9. Start your development server with on App.js
$ npm run devStart
10. Open App.js and enter the following code:
You will see Hello World in the terminal.
[nodemon] clean exit - waiting for changes before restart
[nodemon] restarting due to changes...
[nodemon] starting `node App.js`
Hello World
[nodemon] clean exit - waiting for changes before restart
Done.