Structuring a Node.js and AngularJS application
angularjs, javascript, node.js
Solution
1) It usually does make some sense to make `saas/less` files public as you may want to use client-side less->css conversion when debugging (less.js does that). Not sure what your `_site` contains however (btw you should use lowercase folder for your project, especially for the public stuff).
2) It is usually a good practice to load AngularJS from Google CDN when in production, using only a local version for development, you could have two separate layouts depending on your environment.
3) Even if client-side rendering is the way to go, you may keep server side layout/views rendering, you will probably need it at some point (admin access, email rendering, etc.). However It can be helpful to use the `partials` name from AngularJS in the public folder to help avoid confusion between server-side `views` & client-side `partials`.
You should clearly go for what seems the most logical thing to do at the current time, you will probably move things around as you get familiar with express.
You should check existing express framework to see how they structure their app. For instance, TowerJS has a pretty clean `config` folder, however they mix up server-side & client-side code which I personally do not like.
Check this comparaison of NodeJS MVC frameworks to see how others do stuff. However, I would clearly start with vanilla express code in order to be in full control & to understand how things work before over-committing on any of theses frameworks.
Problem
I'm about to attempt my first AngularJS project, and it makes sense to use Node.js for the back end, even though it means learning both AngularJS and Node.js from scratch at the same time. The first thing I'm trying to get my head around is a good file structure. So far my pure HTML/CSS template has the following directory structure... ``` _site/ Fonts/ Javascript/ SASS/ Stylesheets/ Index.html ``` ( _site is a working directory for PSDs, etc.) I found an example directory structure for a Node.js/AngularJS app here.... ... which suggests the following directory structure. ``` app.js --> Application configuration package.json --> For npm public/ --> All of the files to be used in on the client side css/ --> CSS files app.css --> Default stylesheet img/ --> Image files js/ --> JavaScript files app.js --> Declare top-level application module controllers.js --> Application controllers directives.js --> Custom AngularJS directives filters.js --> Custom AngularJS filters services.js --> Custom AngularJS services lib/ --> AngularJS and third-party JavaScript libraries angular/ angular.js --> The latest AngularJS angular.min.js --> The latest minified AngularJS angular-*.js --> AngularJS add-on modules version.txt --> Version number routes/ api.js --> Route for serving JSON index.js --> Route for serving HTML pages and partials views/ index.jade --> Main page for the application layout.jade --> Doctype, title, head boilerplate partials/ --> AngularJS view partials (partial jade templates) partial1.jade partial2.jade ``` So, this looks quite good to me (except for the fact that I wouldn't use Jade). I still have the following questions... I want to keep all front-end and back-end files separate. This solution puts all the front-end files in the public/ directory which kind of makes sense because most need to be public, but does it make sense to put the SASS and _site folders here? I could just keep them there, but not upload them when I put them into production, but it seems wrong because they shouldn't be public. They also don't belong at root level with all the back-end stuff. Wouldn't it be better to load AngularJS from a CDN? Given that the server will only need to deliver one template (the main application template) and all other HTML will be constructed on the front-end wouldn't it make more sense to keep the index.html file static, delete the views folder and create a partials/ folder under public/ like the original AngularJS Seed application does? I realize that this is all a matter of opinion, and I could technically put them wherever I want, but I'm hoping somebody more experienced than me could advise me of the pitfalls of various directory structures.