Getting Started

This repository aims to assist you in beginning work on a MERN stack application with a solid file structure as a foundation. To get started make a copy of this template repo for your project teams.

Since this project will hold both the client application and the server application there will be node modules in two different places. First run npm install from the root. After this you will run npm run-script install-all from the root. From now on run this command anytime you want to install all modules again. This is a script we have defined in package.json .

This app can be deployed directly to heroku since there is a script defined in package.json which will automatically handle building and deploying the app. For more information on deploying to heroku reference the extra resources at the bottom of this file.

File structure

front-pms - Holds the client application

• public - This holds all of our static files

• src

  • components - This folder holds all of the different components that will make up our views

  • App.js - This is what renders all of our browser routes and different views

  • index.js - This is what renders the react app by rendering App.js, should not change

• package.json - Defines npm behaviors and packages for the client

back-pms - root - Holds the server application

• config - This holds our configuration files, like mongoDB uri

• routes - This holds all of our HTTP to URL path associations for each unique url

• tests - This holds all of our server tests that we have defined

• server.js - Defines npm behaviors and packages for the client

package.json - Defines npm behaviors like the scripts defined in the next section of the README

.gitignore - Tells git which files to ignore

README - This file!

Available Scripts

In the project directory, you can run:

Change http request link from client

Go to the client folder open package.json file that is front-pms/package.json and at the bottom change proxy : "http://localhost:5000"

node app.js

Head on to the root folder and write

node app.js

Runs just the server in development mode.

npm start

Head on to the front-pms folder and type

npm start

Runs just the client app in development mode.
Open http://localhost:3000 to view the client in the browser.

npm run build

Builds the app for production to the build folder.
It correctly bundles React in production mode and optimizes the build for the best performance.

If deploying to heroku this does not need to be run since it is handled by the heroku-postbuild script

See the section about deployment for more information.

Learn More

You can learn more in the Create React App documentation.

To learn how to setup a local MongoDB instance for testing, check out how to Connect to MongoDB.

To learn how to deploy a full-stack web app to heroku, check out this great guide.

To learn React, check out the React documentation.

npm run build fails to minify

This section has moved here: https://facebook.github.io/create-react-app/docs/troubleshooting#npm-run-build-fails-to-minify