Chapter 8. Express
This chapter covers
- Starting a new Express application
- Configuring your application
- Creating Express views
- Handling file uploads and downloads
Things are about to get even more fun. The Express web framework (http://expressjs.com) is built on top of Connect, providing tools and structure that make writing web applications easier, faster, and more fun. Express offers a unified view system that lets you use nearly any template engine you want, plus simple utilities for responding with various data formats, transferring files, routing URLs, and more.
In comparison to application frameworks such as Django or Ruby on Rails, Express is extremely small. The philosophy behind Express is that applications vary greatly in their requirements and implementations, and a lightweight framework allows you to craft exactly what you need and nothing more. Both Express and the entire Node community are focused on smaller, more modular bits of functionality rather than monolithic frameworks.
Throughout this chapter, you’ll learn how to use Express to create applications by building a photo sharing application from start to finish. During the build, you’ll learn how to do the following:
- Generate the initial application structure
- Configure Express and your application
- Render views and integrate template engines
- Handle forms and file uploads
- Handle resource downloads
The final stock photo application will have a list view that will look like figure 8.1.
