Setting up a local web server with Python

The best way to test your Three.js applications, or any JavaScript application for that matter, is to run it on a local web server. This way, you have the best representation of how your users will eventually see your Three.js visualization. In this chapter, we will show you three different ways in which you can run a web server locally. The three different ways to set up a local web server are:

• One way to do this is via a Python-based approach that you can use if you've got Python installed
• Another way is to do if you use Node.js or have already played around with Node.js, you can use the npm command to install a simple web server
• A third option is if you don't want to use the npm command or Python, you can also use Mongoose, which is a simple portable web server, that runs on OS X and Windows

This recipe will focus on the Python-based approach (the first bullet point).

Getting ready

If you've got Python installed, you can very easily run a simple web server. You will first need to check whether you've got Python installed. The easiest way to do this is just type in python on a console and hit enter. If you see an output as follows, you are ready to begin:

> python
Python 2.7.3 (default, Apr 10 2013, 05:09:49) 
[GCC 4.7.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

How to do it...

1. Once Python (http://python.org) has been installed, you can run a simple web server by just executing the following Python command. You will need to do this in the directory from where you want to host the files:

   > python -m SimpleHTTPServer
   

2. The following output shows the web server running on port 8000:

   Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000...
   

If you don't have Python installed, take a look at one of the following two recipes for alternative options.