EasyWeb - Lightweight HTTP Framework

EasyWeb is a lightweight and simple framework for building HTTP based applications on the .NET Framework and Mono.

The goal was to remove all the fat the other frameworks provide by implementing highly reusable and small modular components. This allows to quickly add/provide a simple Web GUI for new or existing C# applications.

The interface and structure is inspired by Go's net/http package.

Write Your Application

Sample main.cs (see demo/main.cs):

class Application
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        if(args.Length == 0)
        {
            Usage();
            return;
        }
        var config = ParseAppConfig(args[0]);

        var tmpl = new EasyWeb.View.TemplateEngine.Razor();
        tmpl.LoadFromPath(config.HtmlTemplateBaseDir);

        var memeStorage = new Storage.MemeFileStorage(config.MemeStorageBaseDir);

        var memeTemplateStorage = new Storage.MemeTemplate();
        memeTemplateStorage.Load(config.MemeTemplateBaseDir);

        var httpServer = new Server(new EasyWeb.Log.Console());

        var memeCtrl = new Controller.MemeGen(tmpl, memeTemplateStorage, memeStorage, config.MemeWebPath);
        var assetsServer = new Controller.AssetsServer(config.AssetsBaseDir);

        httpServer.Handle("/assets/(?<file>.*)$", new StripPrefix("/assets/", assetsServer));
        httpServer.Handle("/", new HandlerFunc(memeCtrl.IndexPage));
        httpServer.Handle("/select-template", new HandlerFunc(memeCtrl.SelectTemplatePage));
        httpServer.Handle("/create-meme", new HandlerFunc(memeCtrl.CreateMemePage));
        httpServer.Handle("/save-meme", new HandlerFunc(memeCtrl.SaveMemePage));
        httpServer.NotFound(new Controller.NotFound());

        httpServer.ListenAndServe(config.BindAddress);
    }
}

Sample handler (see demo/handler.cs):

namespace Controller 
{
	// [...]
	public void IndexPage(IResponseWriter response, IRequest request, IUrlParams urlParams)
	{
		response.WriteString(_template.Render("index.cshtml", new
        {
            PublicPath = _memeWebPath,
            Memes = Enumerable.Reverse(_meme.ListAll())
        }));
	}
	// [...]
}

Sample NotFound handler (see demo/handler.cs):

The NotFound Handler is a simple IHandler and therefore easily extendable. Example:

namespace Controller 
{
	// [...]
	public class NotFound : IHandler
	{
		public void ServeHttp(IResponseWriter response, IRequest request, IUrlParams urlParams)
		{
			response.WriteString("<html><body><h1>Website not found</h1></body></html>");
		}
	}
	// [...]
}

IHandler Interface (see EasyWeb/Net/Http/Handler.cs):

    public interface IHandler
    {
        void ServeHttp(IResponseWriter response, IRequest request, IUrlParams urlParams);
    }

Meme Generator Demo Application

The repository contains a demo application for creating and storing memes incl. some templates. Please check out the directory demo/ and run make to compile it and then run the demo app by make run.

Motivation, Author & License

I, Andreas Näpflin, created EasyWeb in order to learn more about the C# programming language. Although it's simple and lightweight it has not been used in production yet so I would highly recommend to use a battle-tested framework instead. For example Nancy.

The project is licensed under the MIT license. Please check out the LICENSE file.

TODO

Better test coverage
DELETE, GET, HEAD, OPTIONS, POST, PUT and PATCH request helpers
Better exception handling
Documentation
More features in general

Development status

I won't continue to develop this application because it was a "Learning project" only. If you find it interesting and would like to see more features or that I should continue to work on it then please create an issue (and I might consider to code for it again) :-)

dragonquest / easy-web