π Start the Application
Go to the GitHub repository for the demo application. From there, you have two options to start the application.
Option 1: Run in a codespaceβ
π Express start: Click here to start a new codespace or resume your last one!
By far, the easiest way to start the application is to run it in a codespace. A codespace is a cloud-hosted, containerized development environment that you can connect to from Visual Studio Code. It comes pre-configured with all the tools you need to build and run the application.
In the case of this application, you can even use the online IDE to edit the code and see the changes reflected in the running application.
To start the application in a codespace, click "Code." Then, look for the Codespaces tab. Click "Create Codespace on main." This will create a new codespace for you and start the application.
Let it run for a few seconds as it prepares your environment. It will clone the repository, prepare the containers, and run the installation scripts. Once it's ready, you'll see an IDE, with a preview window that shows the running application.
Again, this might take a few minutes. It's a great time to grab a coffee. βοΈ
Expose the server portβ
To get the application working in that environment, there is one small change you need to make to the codespace. You need to expose the port where the server is running.
Look for the Ports tab at the bottom of the IDE.
Once you click on the tab, you'll see a list of ports. Right-click on the port Server (5000) row. Then, select "Port Visibility" and "Public."
You'll see the text in the Visibility column change to Public.
That's it! You're now ready to move to the next section.
π¦Έ Option 2: Run locallyβ
If you prefer to run the application locally, you can do so by following these steps. Keep in mind that the following steps of this lab will be using the codespace, so you might need to adapt some of the commands.
During the lab, we will use GitHub Codespaces. These instructions are here just in case you can't use Codespaces or you really, really, really want a local installation.
First, clone the repository to your local machine.
git clone git@github.com:mongodb-developer/library-management-system.git
Then, change to the library-management-system directory.
cd library-management-system
Now, go to each of the client and server directories and install the dependencies.
cd client
npm install
cd ../server
npm install
Start the server application.
npm start
And, in another terminal window, start the client application.
cd client
npm start
You now have the client running on http://localhost:4200 and the server running on http://localhost:5000.