Route to a static page in phoenix-framework

Question

I want to run an angularJS front end with a phoenix backend for my site. I would like my root route to direct the user to a pre-built page in the static directory which contains my angular client and then use phoenix to run the API. I have done this in the past with ruby on rails by route matching like this:

get '/', to: redirect('/foobar.html')  

Is there a way to do something similar with phoenix?

Answer 1

Not right now. You need to create a controller and then in the controller:

defmodule MyApp.RootController do
  use MyApp.Web, :controller

  plug :action

  def index(conn, _params) do
    redirect conn, to: "/foobar.html"
  end
end

Answer 2

In production, many people use nginx or other servers in from of their app and these servers should handle static assets. Finding the index can be done with a location rule such as:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/index.html @proxy;
}

Otherwise, here's a solution that maps a request to the root path to index.html with a short function plug that can be added to your endpoint.ex without involving controllers:

def redirect_index(conn = %Plug.Conn{path_info: []}, _opts) do
    %Plug.Conn{conn | path_info: ["index.html"]}
end

def redirect_index(conn, _opts) do
    conn
end

plug :redirect_index

# This is Phoenix's standard configuration of Plug.Static with
# index.html added.

plug Plug.Static,  
    at: "/", from: :phoenix_elm_starter_template, gzip: false,
    only: ~w(css fonts index.html images js favicon.ico robots.txt)

Answer 3

From Jose's answer, I would modify it a little so it serves the index.html file directly instead of sending a 3xx HTTP response.

defmodule MyApp.RootController do
  use MyApp.Web, :controller

  plug :action

  def index(conn, _params) do
    conn
    |> put_resp_header("content-type", "text/html; charset=utf-8")
    |> Plug.Conn.send_file(200, "priv/static/index.html")
  end
end