How can I include css files using node, express, and ejs? - css

I'm trying to follow the instructions to https://stackoverflow.com/a/18633827/2063561, but I still can't get my styles.css to load.
From app.js
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
In my .ejs, I have tried both of these lines
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/style.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/public/css/style.css" />
Neither loads the css. I've gone into the developer's console noticed the type is set to 'text/html' instead of 'text/css'.
My path looks like
.
./app.js
./public
/css
/style.css

Use this in your server.js file
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
and add css like
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/style.css" />
dont need / before css like
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/style.css" />

1.Create a new folder named 'public' if none exists.
2.Create a new folder named 'css' under the newly created 'public' folder
3.create your css file under the public/css path
4.On your html link css i.e
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/style.css">
// note the href uses a slash(/) before and you do not need to include the 'public'
5.On your app.js include :
app.use(express.static('public'));
Boom.It works!!

The custom style sheets that we have are static pages in our local file system. In order for server to serve static files, we have to use,
app.use(express.static("public"));
where,
public is a folder we have to create inside our root directory and it must have other folders like css, images.. etc
The directory structure would look like :
Then in your html file, refer to the style.css as
<link type="text/css" href="css/styles.css" rel="stylesheet">

For NodeJS I would get the file name from the res.url, write the header for the file by getting the extension of the file with path.extname, create a read stream for the file, and pipe the response.
const http = require('http');
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
let filePath = path.join(
__dirname,
"public",
req.url === "/" ? "index.html" : req.url
);
let extName = path.extname(filePath);
let contentType = 'text/html';
switch (extName) {
case '.css':
contentType = 'text/css';
break;
case '.js':
contentType = 'text/javascript';
break;
case '.json':
contentType = 'application/json';
break;
case '.png':
contentType = 'image/png';
break;
case '.jpg':
contentType = 'image/jpg';
break;
}
console.log(`File path: ${filePath}`);
console.log(`Content-Type: ${contentType}`)
res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': contentType});
const readStream = fs.createReadStream(filePath);
readStream.pipe(res);
});
server.listen(port, (err) => {
if (err) {
console.log(`Error: ${err}`)
} else {
console.log(`Server listening at port ${port}...`);
}
});

Use in your main .js file:
app.use('/css',express.static(__dirname +'/css'));
use in you main .html file:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/style.css" />
The reason you getting an error because you are using a comma instead of a concat + after __dirname.

In your app or server.js file include this line:
app.use(express.static('public'));
In your index.ejs, following line will help you:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/style.css" />
I hope this helps, it did for me!

IMHO answering this question with the use of ExpressJS is to give a superficial answer. I am going to answer the best I can with out the use of any frameworks or modules. The reason this question is often answerd with the use of a framework is becuase it takes away the requirment of understanding 'Hypertext-Transfer-Protocall'.
The first thing that should be pointed out is that this is more a problem surrounding "Hypertext-Transfer-Protocol" than it is Javascript. When request are made the url is sent, aswell as the content-type that is expected.
The second thing to understand is where request come from. Iitialy a person will request a HTML document, but depending on what is written inside the document, the document itsself might make requests of the server, such as: Images, stylesheets and more. This question refers to CSS so we will keep our focus there. In a tag that links a CSS file to an HTML file there are 3 properties. rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" and href="http://localhost/..." for this example we are going to focus on type and href. Type sends a request to the server that lets the server know it is requesting 'text/css', and 'href' is telling it where the request is being made too.
so with that pointed out we now know what information is being sent to the server now we can now seperate css request from html request on our serverside using a bit of javascript.
var http = require('http');
var url = require('url');
var fs = require('fs');
function onRequest(request, response){
if(request.headers.accept.split(',')[0] == 'text/css') {
console.log('TRUE');
fs.readFile('index.css', (err, data)=>{
response.writeHeader(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/css'});
response.write(data);
response.end();
});
}
else {
console.log('FALSE');
fs.readFile('index.html', function(err, data){
response.writeHead(200, {'Content_type': 'text/html'});
response.write(data);
response.end();
});
};
};
http.createServer(onRequest).listen(8888);
console.log('[SERVER] - Started!');
Here is a quick sample of one way I might seperate request. Now remember this is a quick example that would typically be split accross severfiles, some of which would have functions as dependancys to others, but for the sack of 'all in a nutshell' this is the best I could do. I tested it and it worked. Remember that index.css and index.html can be swapped with any html/css files you want.

I have used the following steps to resolve this problem
create new folder (static) and move all js and css file into this folder.
then add app.use('/static', express.static('static'))
add css like <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/style.css"/>
restart server to view impact after changes.

Use this in your server.js file
app.use(express.static('public'));
without the directory ( __dirname ) and then within your project folder create a new file and name it public then put all your static files inside it

Its simple if you are using express.static(__dirname + 'public') then don't forget to put a forward slash before public that is express.static(__dirname + '/public') or use express.static('public') its also going to work;
and don't change anything in CSS linking.

the order of registering routes is important . register 404 routes after static files.
correct order:
app.use("/admin", admin);
...
app.use(express.static(join(__dirname, "public")));
app.use((req, res) => {
res.status(404);
res.send("404");
});
otherwise everything which is not in routes , like css files etc.. , will become 404 .

The above responses half worked and I'm not why they didn't on my machine but I had to do the following for it work.
Created a directory at the root
/public/js/
Paste this into your server.js file with name matching the name of directory created above. Note adding /public as the first param
app.use('/public',express.static('public'));
Finally in the HTML page to which to import the javascript file into,
<script src="public/js/bundle.js"></script>

Related

Cannot load static css

started coding a couple of months ago and run into a problem I didn't find anything online. I have the following http requests
app.get("/courses", async (req, res) => {
const courses = await Course.find({});
res.render("courses/index", { courses, topic: "Μαθήματα" });
});
app.get("/about", (req, res) => {
res.render("courses/about", { topic: "Πληροφορίες" });
});
app.get("/courses/:id", async (req, res) => {
const { id } = req.params;
const course = await Course.findById(id);
return res.render("courses/show", { course, topic: course.title });
});
All of the rendered templates are in the same folder but when I try to render something from /courses/:id it can't find the appropriate css and js files. The problem appears only when I use /courses/something else. If I try the same thing with just /:id it loads fine, else I get these errors.
The paths I have in my include files are:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="static/stylesheets/footer.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="static/stylesheets/navbar.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="static/stylesheets/coursesIndex.css" />
I tried a ton of different possible paths by didn't have any luck. Thank you for your time
Try prefixing a / before the static paths, as follows:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/stylesheets/footer.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/stylesheets/navbar.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/stylesheets/coursesIndex.css" />
It might work, because, the other 2 routes are root level routes. So, when rendered, browser would look for static/stylesheets/... in the root directory. So, it worked.
But, when you rendered the same on /courses/:id path, the browser would look for static/stylesheets/... inside /courses/:id(actual would be like /courses/1, for example). That directory(1 in the example) does not exists in your root directory.
So, if you use absolute paths(these are the paths that starts with /), browser would look for them from the root of your website always. So, this would work.

How to link css to ejs templates in node

I am working on a beginner node js server. I am able to render dynamic html using ejs templates but i cannot link css styling to them
I have set up a public directory to store the assets like images and external css files. i have linked to the static contents to express using
app.use(express.static('/public', __dirname + '/public'));
my public folder has images(.jpg) which are rendered but the css in the public folder cannot be rendered.
file structure :
node_modules
models
views
public > app.css, hero.jpg
server.js
package.json
the express app is as below : server.js
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const ejs = require('ejs');
app.use('/public', express.static(__dirname + '/public');
app.set("view engine", "ejs");
app.set('views',__dirname+'/views');
app.get('/', (req,res) =>{
res.render('home',{
title: "HomePage",
date : new Date().getFullTYear()
}
app.listen(3000);
the home.ejs file has a head section as :
<head>
<meta charset = "utf-8">
<title> My Website <%= title %> </title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/app.css" type="text/stylesheet">
</head>
I expected the app.css to load like the in the home.ejs file. But its not working
Looking at your code, I could guess you are setting the static file folder to be /public.
Try modifing you css link to <link rel="stylesheet" href="/public/app.css" type="text/stylesheet">
or try setting the static file config like this:
app.use('/static', express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')))
and then <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/app.css" type="text/stylesheet">
You should declare your public folder this way
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
That means you can serve these files as if these were in the root folder. So you can link your css and images this way
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/app.css" type="text/stylesheet">
// in case of image
<img src="/hero.jpg">
When you declare public folder like this
app.use(express.static('/public', __dirname + '/public'));
you set a virtual path prefix for your files and in that case you have to add public in the url path of each file, like this <link rel="stylesheet" href="/public/app.css" type="text/stylesheet">
To use the absolute path of the directory that you want to serve as a part of public folder:
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
Create public folder under the root folder. Under that folder create css folder if you want. So, structure will be link public/css/style.css
You can access style.css like:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/style.css">

CSS file not loading even after adding middleware

CSS files are not loading and on inspecting element(F12) and going to Networks, my CSS file is not visible.
I have added the middleware
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '/public')));
and also required path above it.
I have added the middleware, required it and npm installed it too.
My Folder Structure
-app.js
-package.json
-package-lock.json
-node_modules
-public
-stylesheets
-main.css
-views
-index.ejs
-partials
-header.ejs
-footer.ejs
My Header.ejs file has this and my body containing some text.
<link href="/stylesheets/main.css">
My app.js file is
var express = require('express');
var request = require('request');
var ejs = require('ejs');
var path = require('path');
var app = express();
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '/public')));
and my css file changes the color of backgorund, index.ejs file calls the header and footer respectively
<% include partials/header%>
My css code
body{
background-color: purple;
text-align: center;
}
My chrome console shows no error and still I am not able to upload my CSS.
Thanks in advance for your inputs.
You are using the link tag wrong.
You need to supply rel and type attributes for it to load the css and parse it properly. Check out the documentation of link tag to know more
The problem is with the link tag. You have to specify rel, type and href attributes in your link tag.
<link rel = "stylesheet" type = "text/css" href = "/stylesheets/main.css" />
The mater is that your are requesting stylesheet file given an url who will be completed by navigator with the current root path.
For instance, this is your link below.
<link rel="stylesheet" href = "/stylesheets/main.css" />
This is your NodeJS server code.
app.get("/your/root/path", (req, res)=>{
})
Your href link will correspond to /your/root/path/stylesheets/main.css
I think that it will be your problem.
If so, to correct it, set <base> url for static files or don't let your routes path who return views to be in the form /your/root/path but instead /your-root-path

CSS Issue with Node.JS / EJS

I know similar questions have been asked before, but I've had a good look through & unfortunately none of the answers are helping me.
My CSS file is being ignored in certain circumstances.
So in my app.js file I have this code, defining my view engine setup
// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
In my index.js file I have the following the code for UserList page
/* GET Userlist page. */
router.get('/userlist', function(req, res) {
var db = req.db; // (1) Extract the db object we passed to our HTTP request
var collection = db.get('usercollection'); // (2) Tell our app which collection we want to use
// (3) Find (query) results are returned to the docs variable
collection.find({},{},function(e,docs){
res.render('userlist', { "userlist" : docs }); // (4) Render userlist by passing returend results to said variable
});
});
Finally, my userlist.ejs page looks like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>User List</title>
<link rel='stylesheet' href='/stylesheets/style.css' type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
<h1>User List</h1>
<ul>
<%
var list = '';
for (i = 0; i < userlist.length; i++) {
list += '<li>' + userlist[i].username + '</li>';
}
return list;
%>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
But when I run my page the CSS file is not loaded. However if I exclude this code:
<%
var list = '';
for (i = 0; i < userlist.length; i++) {
list += '<li>' + userlist[i].username + '</li>';
}
return list;
%>
The CSS file is loaded and applied without issue. Can anyone tell me why this is please? Apologies for the newbie question, but I've been trying to figure this out for ages.
I should mention the 'h1' tags are ignored too. The only thing rendered is the list items.
Not sure if its relevant, but my app is connecting to MongoDB to return the user data.
Any assistance would be very much appreciated!
Thank you!
Make sure that your CSS file is either defined as an endpoint in your index.js file or make sure that public/stylesheets/style.css exists so it can be loaded through the app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public'))); command.

Page CSS will not load - simple html and js file

I'm creating a simple page to start to learn HTML, CSS and java script. I have my HTML file with the following link to my CSS file but for some reason none of CSS loads.
I running this on localhost via node.
html:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<link href='./css/styles.css' type='text/css' rel='stylesheet'>
</head>
my server.js file:
var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');
const PORT=8080;
fs.readFile('./index.html', function (err, html) {
if (err) throw err;
http.createServer(function(request, response) {
response.writeHeader(200, {"Content-Type": "text/html"});
response.write(html);
response.end();
}).listen(PORT);
});
I also get the error
"Resource interpreted as Stylesheet but transferred with MIME type
text/html: "http://localhost:8080/css/styles.css"."
Do I need to add another content-type for "text/css" into my server.js file?
Document tree:
You can add your scripts externally to your html page like this. It could be located inside of the head tags like your CSS definition.
<script type="text/javascript" src="../Script_folder/server.js"></script>
And be carefull about reaching files in the tree. ../ means one level up and ~/ points to root node. So, I wonder that your routing has a certain point with a single . in your CSS address.
<link href='../css/styles.css' type='text/css' rel='stylesheet'>
with two dots. ../
In href attribute you used only one dot instead of two. Your href should be like
<link href='../css/styles.css' type='text/css' rel='stylesheet'>

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