hatch_modules

Hatch.js modules

A module is an application which is mounted when the main Hatch.js process loads. It can contain a combination of:

• Code which is executed once at app load time.
• Model classes which can extend existing models or add new ones which will be available via the context object.
• Define it's own routes which are mounted at /do/{moduleName}/{route}.
• Define widgets which can be added to a page and interacted with by users.

Creating a module

A module in it's most basic form consists of one index.js file which is loaded by the main application.

var compound = require('compound');

module.exports = function (c) {
    // do initialisation stuff here
    ...
    
    // return the module to app
    return compound.createServer({root: __dirname});
};

Models

Model extension classes are loaded automatically. They must be placed in app/models within your module's folder.

Extending a model such as User.js works like this:

module.exports = function (compound, User) {
    // get the user's first initial
    User.prototype.getFirstInitial = function () {
        return this.firstName && this.firstName.substring(0, 1);
    };
};

Routes

Routes can be defined within your module by adding a routes file at config/routes.js and then 1 or more controller files in app/controllers.

A routes.js file looks like this:

exports.routes = function (map) {
    map.get('mynewroute', 'controller#mynewroute');
};

The URL for this route becomes /do/module-name/mynewroute and it can be accessed via the pathFor('module-name').mynewroute() helper within an HTML template.

The controller defining the method for this route might look like this:

function Controller() {

}

module.exports = Controller;

Controller.prototype.mynewroute = function (c) {
    // c is the active request context from CompoundJS
    
    c.render();
};

c.render() will render the view template with the same name within app/views/{controllerName}. In the above example it could be app/views/controller/mynewroute.ejs. Hatch.js supports any rendering engine supported by Express.