simplest way to have Express serve a default page?

Question

I\'m using this to have Node.js/Express setup as a rudimentary web server - it just serves a set of static pages without any other processing. I\'d like it to always serve /

Answer 1

I've added my own variation with some extra "meat" on it to demonstrate how you can even include routing. I put all the following code in a file called "routes.js":

var express = require('express'),
    painting = require('./controllers').Painting,
    gallery = require('./controllers').Gallery;

module.exports.initialize = function(appSvr, router) {
    router.get('/paintings', painting.list);
    router.get('/galleries', gallery.list);

    appSvr.use('/', router);
    appSvr.use('/', express.static(__dirname + '/../public', { index: 'index.html' }));
};

I then call this file in my "configure.js" file that will be required in my "server.js" file:

var routes = require('./routes'),
    express = require('express'),
    bodyParser = require('body-parser');

module.exports = function(appSvr) {
    appSvr.use(bodyParser.urlencoded());
    appSvr.use(bodyParser.json());
    routes.initialize(appSvr, new express.Router());

    return appSvr;
};

I haven't seen how best to handle routing, but this code seems to work for me.

Would love some feedback!

Answer 2

It's weird that no one mentioned redirection.

app.get('/', function(req, res){
    res.redirect('/default.html');
});

This -of course- assumes that you have your 'default.html' at the public path. You can set your public path by using:

app.use(express.static(relative_path_to_project_root));

Answer 3

I looked briefly for the best practices for serving a public folder and specifying the default page to serve. After reviewing the 'Express middleware' documentation, my solution looks like the following,

var express = require('express');
var app = express();

var options = {
  index: "coming-soon.html"
};

app.use('/', express.static('app', options));

var server = app.listen(8081, function () {
  var host = server.address().address;
  var port = server.address().port;

  console.log('my app is listening at http://%s:%s', host, port);
});

Answer 4

You could do something like this. Assuming its an html file that is relative to the .js file:

app.get('/', function(req, res){
    res.sendfile('default.html', { root: __dirname + "/relative_path_of_file" } );
});