benhall / express-demo

Static Assets Management in express-demo

Overview

express-demo is a simple Express.js application created by Ben Hall [1]. Static assets, such as CSS files and images, are managed and served from the public folder in this project.

What is Static Assets Management?

Static Assets Management refers to the process of serving and managing static files, like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and fonts, in a web application. In the context of express-demo, Express.js is used to serve these static files from the public folder [2].

Why is Static Assets Management important?

Effective Static Assets Management is crucial for delivering a fast, efficient, and visually appealing web application. By serving static files from a dedicated folder, such as public, you can:

  1. Separate static content from dynamic content, making it easier to manage and optimize each.
  2. Improve application performance by serving static files with a consistent response time.
  3. Simplify the development process by having a clear and consistent location for static files.

Insights

The following example demonstrates how static assets are referenced and served in the express-demo application.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
          <html>
            <head>
              <title>{{title}}</title>
              <link rel='stylesheet' href='/stylesheets/style.css' />
            </head>
            <body>
              {{{body}}}
            </body>
          </html>

In the example above, the link tag references the style.css file located in the public/stylesheets folder.

CSS

body {
            padding: 50px;
            font: 14px "Lucida Grande", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
          }
          a {
            color: #00B7FF;
          }

The CSS file, style.css, is located in the public/stylesheets folder and is served when the HTML file requests it.

[1] Ben Hall. (n.d.). express-demo. GitHub. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://github.com/benhall/express-demo [2] Express.js. (n.d.). Static File Serving. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://expressjs.com/en/starter/static-files.html