Is there any info about file structure or roles of files/folders in nodebb?

kalihman

Hi, I'm trying to get a hang of nodebb deeper so that I can start development and tweak. It seems that documentation lacks details about the info. Any suggestion or missing link that I am supposed to take a look? Thank you!

frissdiegurke

I think it's pretty straight forward:

/src   The javascript sources server-side
/public   Anything client-side
/public/templates    Basic HTML templates, most get overwritten within themes thought
/public/vendor    3rd party libraries in use at client-side
/public/src    The javascript sources client-side
/public/src/modules    Module sources of the client-side, some get used server-side too (especially the translator)

Worth mentioning are /public/nodebb.min.js and /public/acp.min.js, those get generated and are no place to change anything

yariplus

Yeah, i agree. The sources/folders are well-structured. No need for comprehensive docs in this case.

We would be glad to answer any specific questions though!

julian

As with the other responders, the folder structure is hopefully straightforward. When we started NodeBB, there wasn't really any consensus re: folder layout in Node.js, so we went with what seemed to make sense for us.

kalihman

@frissdiegurke Thanks a million! Very clearly demystified.

kalihman

By the way, then how those plugins work? I mean the hooks and template engines. I have never seen a template engine that uses tpl as file extension.

Sorry for asking some fundamental questions. I have very basic knowledge about express, nodejs, and mongodb, and I decided to get my hands dirty by start a project of building a community websites. I would like to contribute my work as much as possible.

pichalite

@kalihman the templating engine is custom built to be light weight

GitHub - benchpressjs/benchpressjs: ultralight javascript templating framework

ultralight javascript templating framework. Contribute to benchpressjs/benchpressjs development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub (github.com)

julian

@kalihman A primer on writing plugins can be found here: https://docs.nodebb.org/en/latest/plugins/create.html