Overview

Lantern is an isomorphic web application built with “Universal JavaScript” and modern technologies. It aims to provide a quick and easy way to create projects with basic functionality, a fundamental design, and a workable architecture. The architecture design of Lantern is already set up for isomorphic rendering, allowing views and frontend components implemented with React to be rendered on both the server-side and client-side using the same configuration of routes. One of the major advantages of Lantern is that developers familiar with flux pattern don’t need to learn any anti-pattern flux framework (e.g., redux) for isomorphic rendering. Additionally, Lantern utilizes the generator feature of ECMAScript (JavaScript) for flow control, reducing the presence of callback hell. The backend uses generator with the Koa web framework, while the frontend uses generator in the flux framework. The UI design of Lantern is also noteworthy, as it leverages the Semantic UI framework to provide a fantastic frontend user interface.

Features

• Fast to setup and easy to customize: Lantern provides a quick and easy setup process, allowing developers to customize their projects effortlessly.
• UI is pretty cool and fantastic: The UI design of Lantern, powered by the Semantic UI framework, offers a visually appealing and user-friendly interface.
• Widely uses ES6 and ES7+: Lantern makes extensive use of ES6 and ES7+ features such as generators, classes, and decorators, enabling developers to leverage the latest JavaScript features and syntax.
• Provides a lot of universal JavaScript solutions for development: Lantern offers various universal JavaScript solutions to assist developers during development.
• Isomorphic Architecture (React server-rendering using universal JavaScript): The architecture of Lantern is designed for isomorphic rendering, allowing for efficient server-side rendering and enhancing overall performance.
• Provides useful extensions to speed up development: Lantern includes several helpful extensions to accelerate the development process.
• Efficient server rendering: Lantern adopts an efficient server rendering mechanism to improve performance and reduce the impact on Node.js event-loop performance.
• Supports permission management: Lantern includes support for permission management, allowing developers to easily manage user access and permissions.
• Supports user database system: Lantern supports integration with a user database system, facilitating user authentication and authorization.
• Supports Hot loading without webpack-dev-server: Lantern enables hot loading without the need for webpack-dev-server, allowing for faster development iterations.
• Supports i18n for multiple languages: Lantern provides support for internationalization (i18n), enabling developers to easily localize their applications for multiple languages.
• Supports third-party Authorization (Facebook/Github/Google/LinkedIn): Lantern offers built-in support for third-party authorization providers such as Facebook, Github, Google, and LinkedIn.

Installation

To install Lantern, make sure you have Node.js 0.12+ or io.js installed on your machine. Once you have the required environment, follow the steps below:

1. Install the required modules via NPM:

npm install

2. Compile and combine all frontend source code using webpack:

webpack

3. Start the web service:

npm start

Summary

Lantern is an isomorphic web application framework that leverages “Universal JavaScript” and modern technologies to provide developers with a fast and efficient way to create projects. It offers a range of features such as a customizable UI, extensive use of ES6 and ES7+ features, universal JavaScript solutions, and support for isomorphic architecture. Lantern also includes efficient server rendering, permission management, user database system integration, and support for hot loading and i18n. With its comprehensive feature set and easy installation process, Lantern is a powerful tool for web developers.