Coding Train Node Demo

Determmining your Node version (v18.18.2 is used in the tutorial)

node --version

Creating a new Node project

• Make a new Directory
  mkdir coding-train-node-demo

• Opening / Changing Directories
  cd coding-train-node-demo - open the coding-train-node-demo directory
  . - this current directory
  .. - go back up a level
  code . - open up the VSC editor

Initializing a Node Project

npm init

The utility will walk you some questions--you can enter answers or just say yes.

Node packages

Node documentation

The File System package can be used to access local files on your computer, and is part of node system.

Importing packages

• CommonJS module
  const fs = require('fs');

• ES module
  import * as fs from 'fs'

Note: to load an ES module you must edit the package.json file to set "type": "module"

Finding Node Packages

• npmjs

Some package I will be using:

• discord.js
• canvas
• cowsay

npm install cowsay or npm i cowsay

This will add the package to the package.json as a dependencies. It will also add a new directory called node_modules.

Things to consider when you are looking for packages

• When was it created?
• Is it actively maintained?
• Look at Github repo - are there any recent commits?
• cowsay repo

Importing the cowsay package

• Importing everything from a package
  import * as cowsay from 'cowsay'

• Importing individual functions from a package
  import { say } from 'cowsay'

Downloading and installing an existing Node project

Discord-Bot-Examples

You must install the dependencies for the project.
npm install

Downloading and installing the Coding Train website

Livestream discussing installation of the Coding Train website

When updating the website, it is helpful to run the website locally in order to quickly see the changes made. Make sure you have Node.js version 18.x installed and then perform the following steps:

1. Clone down the repo to your computer and cd into the folder
2. Run npm install
3. Run npm run dev

This will start a local server and the website will now be accessible on localhost:8000. Changes to most files will be auto-updated in the browser while the website is running.

Note: In some cases, specially when updating loaded content, you need to restart the local server with npm run dev. And in some cases that may fail because of Gatsby's cache usage. If you run npm run clean before npm run dev, that should fix it.