Nodejs/apidocjs: How do I render the generated documentation at a specific url without a template

Question

I am writing apidocs for a nodejs project someone else wrote. I would like the documentation page to be displayed when someone visits "myurl.com/docs/api". My documentation directory is being placed under "app/public/app/docs/apidoc/" and I am trying to use routes to display it but gives me an error stating:

'Error: Failed to lookup view "/public/app/apidoc/index.html" in views directory "/Path/To/Project/app/views"'

Here is my routes.js entry:

app.get('/docs/api', function(req, res) {
   res.render('/app/apidoc/index.html');
});

I believe the project uses jade and ejs as they are listed somewhere in the configuration files.

This question doesn't really make sense. Why are you trying to "render" an HTML file? — Patrick Roberts, Jun 13 '16 at 19:22
Sorry, I'm trying to render it because its not static. The documentation that gets generated uses a bootstrap template which includes js and css. — shanahanjrs, Jun 13 '16 at 20:28
I think you might be misunderstanding how `res.render` works. See the docs: http://expressjs.com/en/guide/using-template-engines.html — Patrick Roberts, Jun 13 '16 at 20:32

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 03 '16 at 09:14

You can serve the documentation from the public folder by using this

app.use(express.static('public'));

And then generate the apidoc with this command

apidoc -e "(node_modules|public)" -o public/apidoc

Now you can access the documentation by navigating to http://{rooturl}/apidoc

Nodejs/apidocjs: How do I render the generated documentation at a specific url without a template

1 Answers1