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B.E.N.M Boilerplate

Backbone.js, ExpressJS & node.js, MongoDB

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This boilerplate app features a complete backend using node.js with ExpressJS, a data layer using MongoDB with Mongoose, and a complete front-end application built using Backbone.js (with Marionette and Browserify). The front-end application is a simple Contacts manager. All of the code is fairly basic yet functional.

A detailed blog post covering this entire application can be found here: http://kroltech.com/2013/12/boilerplate-web-app-using-backbone-js-expressjs-node-js-mongodb/

Requirements

node 0.10+ (and npm), mongodb - visit nodejs.org and mongodb.com to download each.

$ sudo npm install -g grunt-cli
$ npm install
$ grunt init:dev

Grunt init:dev only needs to be run the first time to prepare the vendor.js files.

Running the App:

Start the server in DEV mode, with nodemon watching the app for a relaunch, watchers on scripts and less files for rebuild.

$ grunt server

Note: Windows users, for some reason the grunt shell task will not launch mongod during runtime (so the node server will crash). Be sure to launch mongod in another window before starting grunt server.

Front-end Tests/TDD:

Requires PhantomJS to be installed globally:

$ sudo npm install -g phantomjs

To run tests in TDD watch mode:

$ grunt tdd

To run tests once:

$ grunt test:client

Server Tests:

Server tests have been added using Mocha, Chai, and Proxyquire. To run the tests:

$ grunt test:server

Note:

$ grunt test

(will run all tests - both server and client)