Installation

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a basic web application with FoalTS. The demo application is a simple to-do list with which users can view, create and delete their tasks.

Requirements:

Node.js 18 or greater

Create a New Project

First you need to install globaly the Command Line Interface (CLI) of FoalTS. It will help you create a new project and generate files all along your development.

npm install -g @foal/cli

Then create a new application.

npx @foal/cli createapp my-app

note

Having trouble installing Foal? 👉 Checkout our troubleshooting page.

This command generates a new directory with the basic structure of the new application. It also installs all the dependencies. Let's look at what createapp created:

my-app/
  config/
  node_modules/
  public/
  src/
    app/
    e2e/
    scripts/
  package.json
  tsconfig.*.json
  .eslintrc.js

The outer my-app root directory is just a container for your project.

• The config/ directory contains configuration files for your different environments (production, test, development, e2e, etc).
• The node_modules/ directory contains all the prod and dev dependencies of your project.
• The static files are located in the public/ directory. They are usually images, CSS and client JavaScript files and are served directly when the server is running.
• The src/ directory contains all the source code of the application.
  • The inner app/ directory includes the components of your server (controllers, services and hooks).
  • End-to-end tests are located in the e2e/ directory.
  • The inner scripts/ folder contains scripts intended to be called from the command line (ex: create-user).
• The package.json lists the dependencies and commands of the project.
• The tsconfig.*.json files list the TypeScript compiler configuration for each npm command.
• Finally the linting configuration can be found in the .eslintrc.js file.

TypeScript

The language used to develop a FoalTS application is TypeScript. It is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. The benefits of using TypeScript are many, but in summary, the language provides great tools and the future features of JavaScript.

Start The Server

Let's verify that the FoalTS project works. Run the following commands:

cd my-app
npm run dev

You've started the development server.

The development server watches at your files and automatically compiles and reloads your code. You don’t need to restart the server each time you make code changes. Note that it is only intended to be used in development, do not use it on production.

Port 3001 already in use?

You can define in config/default.json which port the application is using.

Go to http://localhost:3001 in your browser. You should see the text Welcome on board.

Congratulations, you now have a server running!