README of locapoc

Presentation

locapoc is a Proof-of-Concept for a nodejs application intended to be used locally (i.e. on your own machine) that serves a static content and a rest-api. The focus is on the User eXperience for a local user for running the app and deploying it.

locapoc is the contraction of local application Proof-of-Concept.

Getting started

In a bash-terminal, run:

git clone https://github.com/charlyoleg/locapoc
cd locapoc
npm install
npm run
npm run make_all
cp dist/locapoc_*.zip /tmp/
cd /tmp
unzip locapoc_*.zip
cd locapoc_*
./linux_starts_locapoc.sh
# you can distribute your local app as a zip!

If you want to use locapoc on a regular server, we recommend to following option values:

node build/locapoc.js \
  --directory=./webui \
  --brower=false      \
  --quitable=false    \
  --cors=true         \
  --port=80           \
  --host=0.0.0.0

For running only a static webserver on a regular server, you can also look at standStat or nginx.

Description

The purpose of locapoc is to create a nodejs application that serves a directory as static content. The generated application contents all its dependencies and doesn't depend on node_modules. This let you deploy a static content with its static web-server easily without having to run npm install. In other words, this small application is an alternative to nginx or apache used as static webserver.

locapoc is thought for running local application. If you want an efficient server that supports thousands of connections, nginx or apache-httpd are better choices.

If you want to run a static webserver while using npm, you will be better with http-server or serve.

Concept

The source file static-webserver.js is a small express-js web-server that serves a static content. esbuild is used to bundle this nodejs to make it standalone. Now, you are free to copy and run the static webserver locapoc.cjs just with nodejs i.e. without running any npm install.