Building A Real Time App Using Sail.Js

Introduction

Any active and involved developer who is highly using frameworks such as Django, Laravel or Rails would have surely come across Node.js. As a developer you might have got convinced with the characteristics of front-end libraries such as Angular and React java scripts and you would have thought why I need to change to Node.js unnecessarily? But there is a solid reason behind converting yourself to Node.js at this point of time. As the best website development company in Chennai, iStudio Technologies always deliver quality website for their clients using updated web app frameworks.
The world of Javascript has developed in an extraordinary rate and it is still growing its roots and branches across the technologies, its growing rate is gaining momentum day by day as it is the developers who need to speed up their learning process as of now. As a dedicated developer if you think your hard earned experience in node.js is getting unnoticed or wasted, you no need to worry as the Sails.js framework is there for the rescue mission. As the leading web development company in Chennai, iStudio Technologies always surpass their client’s expectations through delivering best website for their business.
Sails.js is a tailor made MVC based framework which is exclusively used for Node.js applications in a short period of time. This framework has some striking features like production-readiness and enterprise grade usage. Sail.js is completely derived from Javascript solution which is highly capable of supporting multiple databases and multiple front-end technologies. As aRails.js developer, it is very easy for you as a developer to learn sails as they have numerous similarities in their functions. As the top website development company in Chennai, iStudio Technologies provides complete website services to their clients in a better way.

Rudiments

Having a basic knowledge on framing any MVC architecture is highly mandatory to get to understand the working of sail.js. Possessing good experience in Node.js and Modern Javascript syntax will be highly helpful. To develop a real time app sail.js has utilized core library functionalities in majority of the sections in the development part. Some of the modern front-end libraries like React, Angular or Vuewon’t be discussed in this section. This application development won’t be requiring any database integrations instead, it will be using default, local-disk, file-based database for development and testing.

Intention Of Project

The ultimate aim of this write up is to show that the procedure to build a real time application similar to slack and gitter using sails.js. More number of blood and strain are invested in developing these kinds of applications which involves more number of features in it. Still these apps are built with basic features in their initial stage like:

Installation Of Sails.Js

Prior installation of Sails.js, it is highly mandatory to set up a proper Node.js environment. The current version of Sails.js v1.0.0 is readily available which is in beta form, so it cannot be used for any production purpose. According to the experts point of view the current stable version of node is to have access is v8.9.4, where the sails.js version of v0.12 won’t be working under it (i.e. with the latest LTS). A group of experts who are actively practicing sails.js have tested it with Node v.7.10 and found it is working very well. This is a good sign since, new ES8 syntax can be used in its code.

Being a javascript developer, you know that working with a single version of Node.js doesn’t works out practically. Therefore, the experts have recommended using the Node version Manager (nvm) tool in order to manage multiple versions of Node.js and NPM easily. If this activity is not carried out then, as a java developer first you need to eradicate your current Node.js installation, and then install nvm to utilize various versions of Node.js. During the installation process of sails.js there few folders which need to be kept in mind like:

API: Consists of controllers, models, services, and policies
Assets: Consists of images, fonts, JS, CSS, Less, Sass etc.
Config: Involves project configuration e.g. database, routes, credentials, locals, security etc.
Node_modules: Contains installed npm packages
Tasks: Consist of Grunt Config scripts and pipeline
Views: Pages can be viewed here like EJS, Jade or any template design applicable
.tmp: This section obviously holds the temporary folders in it used by sails framework in order to maintain the project in a developmental mode.

Before Starting To Create The Application Few Things Need To Be Revived Under Sails.Js. Framework

Updating EJS package: Developers who holds EJS 2.3.4 which is listed in package.json needs an update through transforming it to the version 2.5.5 immediately. Since the earlier version is to prone security threats an immediate update on its newest version is required. Doing an npm install, will help to complete the version update in a flawless way.
Hot reloading: In order to make the development process easier it is suggested to install sails-hook- autoreload to bring in hot reloading for sails.js. Framework.

Installing Front-End Dependencies

Creating and fixing the required user interface into the application manufacturing process is not a time consuming one according to sails.js. Here you can use any kind of CSS framework which makes your job much easier. Further, there are alternative ways through which you can install CSS libraries for sails.js. Here in this write up I have explained all three methods. As an innovative and best web development company in Chennai, iStudio Technologies rejuvenates your website and your thoughts to stand unique in the marketplace.

1. Manual Download

There is manual method available through which CSS files and JS scripts can be downloaded by developers themselves with the dependencies. Once the download has been completed it needs to be placed in the asset folder. Since, this method is time consuming it is not preferable and moreover, it is less effective too.

2. Using Bower

A file named .bowerrc needs to be created at the base of the project through pasting the following snippet under it.
{
“directory”: “assets/vendor”
}
Pasting this snippet will instruct the bower to install the asset folder through interchangingbower_components in it. After successful completion of pasting the snippet it’s time to install bower globally and front-end dependencies locally. Before getting to know about jsrenderit is important to complete the installation process at a single stretch. Since jQuery has also been installed it is highly dependent over semantic-ui. As the top website development company in Chennai, iStudio Technologies caters the most advance featured web app frameworks for your website.
While running sails lift, Javascript files will be inserted instantaneously intoviews.ejs files according to the command received from pipleline.js. At the same time the existing grunt setup will assist in inserting CSS dependencies.

3. Bringing In Npm+ Grunt. Copy

Here jQuery can be automatically installed since it is a dependency one on semantic-ui-css. After this the code needs to be positioned in tasks/Config/copy.js. Inserting this code will carry out the process of providing instruction to Grunt in order to copy the JS and CSS files using node_modules for the assets/vendor folder for us.

Testing Phase

Irrespective of the method which you have chosen, it is necessary to get confirmed that the required set of dependencies will be loaded. In order to carry out this process it is highly essential to replace the code in view/homepage.ejs. Post insertion and saving the file carry out the sails lift process to get a proper view of your home page. As theleading web development company in Chennai, iStudio Technologies always surpass their client’s expectations through delivering best website for their business.

View Creation

While developing the project it would be an easy task if we start with the UI designing part. Hence it is insisted use the Embedded JavaScript Template in order to create a better view of the application. It highly acts as a templating engine which is installed in a default way through Sails.js Project. But, as a developer you must be highly aware that it has only few functionalities and it is no more in the development phase.

Designing Home Page

In order to understand the complete functionality and the UI elements used in the code of home page design it is highly essential to refer the semantics which belong to UI documentation listed below about:

The custom styles are well used in this project for app creation and it involves the process of resetting the styles which are driven from the Semantic UI library. Following this library the next update used is assets/styles/importer. less
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Since the navigation menu will be shared by multiple view files it is created as a partial natured one. The navigation menu needs to be created inside the view folder, in order to create them in a partial way. After that you need to create a file named view/partials/menu.ejs and then paste the respective codes in it.

Profile

As a developer you should have got familiarized with header and grid UI elements while entering into the Profile menu. At the base we can find acontainer element holding the description of various functionalities.

Chat Room Layout

The chat room layout functionality will be broadly classified into three different sections:

Chat Users

Holds the total list of users

Chat Messages

Holds the record of all the message conversation carried out

Chat Post

Kind of a form where you can post new messages

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Routing

Routing in sails.js can be done in a most flexible way as there lot of methods through which routing can be defined based on the prevailing scenario. The routing of sails.js sticks on with the most basic version of mapping the URL view. Your page needs to be refreshed if it is still running in the background of sails app. In the initial stage, there will be no link between home page and others and it will be created in the later part of the process. Building an authentication system is a basic approach which will carry out the function of redirecting the users who have logged into the application towards the chat bar.

User API Creation

Sails.js command-line utility is used here to generate an API here; you will be getting a message like” Created a new api” where the User.jsmodel and UserController.js is created exclusively for generating the API. By using relevant codes the sails.js framework gets accustomed with a local disk database by default which is basically a file located in the .tmp folder. To carry out app testing it is essential to have some users and the easiest method to get users is through installing sails-seed package.
Post installation of this package you can figure out the file named Config/seeds.js which has been created for the usage of developers. Post creation of API it’s time to Config it through bringing in migration policy file named Config/models.js. Sails.js used to follow particularly three main strategies in order to rebuilt the database whenever required

The chat room layout functionality will be broadly classified into three different sections:

Safe

The chat room layout functionality will be broadly classified into three different sections:

Alter

Migration needs to be done, through maintaining the existing data

Drop

Drop all the current existing tables and re-built from the beginning

It is highly preferred to use the drop option for development process in order to extract more information. In case if you need to maintain the existing files then you can use the alter option. As the top website development company in Chennai, iStudio Technologies caters the most advance featured web app frameworks for your website.

Profile Form

Incorporate the TODO based codings into theview/profile.ejs file to obtain the complete profile form; this TODO code will be a pre-existing one that will be available in the file list. Here in creating the profile form the semantic-UI form is utilized to construct the form interface. While, deeply inspecting the form’s action value i.e./user/update/’+data.id, you’ll realize the usage of blueprint route. Once the user strikes the update button the blueprint update will take place. Uploading of user data is done through the custom actions in the User Controller. The action value api/controllers/UserController is used in the coding part.

In the coding part the syntax async/await is used to procure the user data from the database. Another way is to use callback, which is not a readable one by the developers. The default user account can also be hardcoded for time being. This can be altered afterwards while setting up the basic authentication while changing it in order to load the currently logged in user. Finally, it is essential to alter the route profile in order to start the newly created UserController, through making updates in the Config/routes settings. As the leading web development company in Chennai, iStudio Technologies always surpass their client’s expectations through delivering best website for their business.

Some Of The Client-Side JavaScript Codes Used In Creating The Profile-Form Are Explained Here:

LoadUsers():

While initially loading the page the Sails.js socket library is used which carry out the functionality of executing GET request for users. The request will be handled and executed by the Blueprint API. Finally the received data will be transferred to renderChatUsers (data) function.

The LoadUsers ()

Function is used and theio.socket.on function is registered for listeners. Here we need to listen for events which can be incorporated into the model user. Once it gets notified send it to user again and replaces the existing HTML output.

RenderChatUsers (Data)

The script which needs to carry out the process can be obtained here through using the user Template id with the help of jQuery templates () function. We need to notice the type of syntax here in order to carry out the process and execute the same properly. Hence the notice typetext/x-jsrender is used here. Through mentioning the particular custom type, the browser can ignore it (if needed) and entirely skip over the section if it does not have a proper idea about it. Now we can use the template.render () function to combine the template with data. This in turn produces a HTML output which can be used to insert the HTML document.

The template used to write the scripting is profile.ejs was delivered on the Node server, which is later sent to the browser as HTML. In case of chat-users it is highly necessary to carry out the client-side rendering. This helps the chat users to view on new users joining their group without the necessity of refreshing the browser. Before getting into the testing phase, it is important to update theviews/chatroom.ejs in order to frame new chat-users partial and replace it with[TODO chat- users].
This scripting requires the usage of functionality loadUsers () in it where, it is necessary to confirm its working and perform a sails lift and guide them to the proper URL.
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