MiniMVC: Simple Code Organization

As Taken from the File...

The entire purpose of MiniMVC is to get out of the way. If you've selected your own router, template layer, etc, you may just want an easy way to organize the code. That's where MiniMVC comes in.

What MiniMVC is:

• Code Structure - directories for /controllers, /models, and /views
• Light - scans the file structure once on server start
• Convienent - quick access via MiniMVC.controller("Name", params)

What MiniMVC is not:

• A router (there's plenty of those around)
• Middleware (probably because I haven't learned Connect well enough yet)

How do I use it?

require("MiniMVC").boot(__dirname, function () {
  // directories scanned and loaded
  server = require("http").createServer(function(request, response, function) {
    // make some decisions about where to route
    // params is an object with additional key/values you create or take from a router
    require("MiniMVC").begin(request, response, params).controller("Root").index()
  });
});

• boot(directory, callback): Start the engine. Scans your controllers, models, and views directories, and once everything is ready, invokes callback()
• begin(request, response, params): Begins the MVC processing. request, response, and params are passed through and available in your models, controllers, and views via this.request(), this.response(), and this.params()
• .controller(name) this is a chained function. The "Root" controller is loaded, and returned. In this case, we're calling the index() method on it.

// and in controllers/rootcontroller.js
// if you aren't using coffeescript, you need to extend Controller, and call
// the super class' constructor()
Controller = require("MiniMVC").Controller
class RootController extends Controller
  index: () ->
    // the following methods are available
    // @request(): get the request
    // @response(): get the response (null for models)
    // @params(): get the params
    
    // @model(name): invoke a model
    // @view(name): invoke a view

// the export object defines what will be found under .controller(name)
// in this case, we're exposing "Root" as a callable item
exports.Root = RootController

That's it in a nut shell.