How to Build a Simple Blog Using Node.js

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to create a simple blog using Node.js and Cosmic JS. This is going to be the fastest and most light-weight blog you have ever created. Let’s get started. TL;DR View the demo Install the Simple Blog App on Cosmic JS View the codebase on GitHub Getting Started Make sure that you have and NPM installed on your machine, if not, to install the latest version. Node.js visit the Node.js website Make sure you have installed globally: Yarn npm install yarn -g Let’s start by creating a folder for our app. In your favorite terminal run the following commands: mkdir simple-blog cd simple-blog Now let’s add a package.json file to import all of our dependencies for our app: vim package.json Add the following to our package.json file: { "dependencies": { "cosmicjs": "^2.39.0", "express": "^4.15.2", "hogan-express": "^0.5.2", "nodemon": "^1.11.0" }, "scripts": { "start": "node app.js", "development": "nodemon app.js" } } It’s a pretty light dependency list for a pretty light app. So what we will install is: 1. The Cosmic JS Node Module to get our content from our Cosmic JS Bucket.2. Express for our web app framework3. Hogan for our template views4. Nodemon for development Our scripts are necessary for starting our app in production and development. Run the following command to install our dependencies: yarn Building Our Blog Next, let’s begin building our blog pages. Create a file titled app.js: vim app.js and add the following to app.js: const express = require('express') const app = express() const hogan = require('hogan-express') const http_module = require('http') const http = http_module.Server(app) app.engine('html', hogan) app.set('port', (process.env.PORT || 3000)) app.use('/', express.static(__dirname + '/public/')) const Cosmic = require('cosmicjs') const helpers = require('./helpers') const bucket_slug = process.env.COSMIC_BUCKET || 'simple-blog-website' const read_key = process.env.COSMIC_READ_KEY const partials = { header: 'partials/header', footer: 'partials/footer' } app.use('/', (req, res, next) => { res.locals.year = new Date().getFullYear() next() }) // Home app.get('/', (req, res) => { Cosmic.getObjects({ bucket: { slug: bucket_slug, read_key: read_key } }, (err, response) => { const cosmic = response if (cosmic.objects.type.posts) { cosmic.objects.type.posts.forEach(post => { const friendly_date = helpers.friendlyDate(new Date(post.created_at)) post.friendly_date = friendly_date.month + ' ' + friendly_date.date }) } else { cosmic.no_posts = true } res.locals.cosmic = cosmic res.render('index.html', { partials }) }) }) http.listen(app.get('port'), () => { console.info('==> 🌎 Go to http://localhost:%s', app.get('port')); }) There are a few things happening here: 1. We are importing our essential modules: Express, Cosmic JS, setting our PORT dynamically, etc.2. We are pointing to some partials: header and footer, you can .3. We view our app home page (‘/’) and query our Cosmic JS Bucket for Post Objects, set the friendly date, then return the index.html template.4. We are also adding our data to this page in the form of a global data store: cosmic. This data structure makes our template implementation super intuitive. reference these partials from the codebase on GitHub Adding Our Home Page Template Variables This part of the process is the most fun because it shows you the power of Cosmic JS combined with a declarative, logic-less template system like . Let’s create a folder called views and add our index.html file: Mustache mkdir views cd views vim index.html Add the following to index.html: {{> header }} {{# cosmic.objects.type.posts }} {{# metadata.hero.imgix_url }} {{/ metadata.hero.imgix_url }} {{ title }} by {{ metadata.author.title }} on {{ friendly_date }} {{{ metadata.teaser }}} Read more... {{/ cosmic.objects.type.posts }} {{> footer }} What’s happening here?1. We pull in our header file with the Mustache template variable.2. We pull in our Cosmic data using the Mustache variable {{ cosmic }} which has everything we need to layout our page’s dynamic data.3. We are looping through our {{ cosmic.objects.type.posts }} and rolling out our blog posts. What I like about this approach is that the template is completely logic-less aside from some boolean queries and array looping. It really does a great job of keeping our logic separate from our presentation (thanks !) Chris Wanstrath If you want to build out the rest of the application, and follow the README instructions. clone the GitHub repo Conclusion This is the abridged version of the available for download in the . The full codebase includes a single post page view as well as a page dedicated to each author’s posts. and deploy this app in a few clicks from your Cosmic JS dashboard by to your Cosmic JS Bucket. Simple Blog app Cosmic JS Apps page View the full codebase on GitHub installing the app I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, if you have any questions and . reach out to us on Twitter join our community on Slack