Usercontrol equivalent in html5 - angularjs

I am trying to find the equivalent of .Net usercontrol in the html5 SPA world. Does react component fall under this or angular directives. I want to create self contained sections of page made of multiple rendering components put together (grid,chart etc) that talks to a socket. And I want to reuse those by pointing to a different data source.
An example would be a chart and a grid (with underlying data) together with a button to flip between chart and grid. How will I make this as one component that can be used multiple times in same application and also shared to different applications.

Yes, You can use Reactjs or Angularjs, I would recommend Reactjs in case if the sections' state are changing many times, in reactjs every component have a state, Reactjs knows when to re-render the component because it is able to observe when this data changes. Dirty checking is slow regarding the reactjs.
In other word Reactjs can give you much better performance, but note that Reactjs is only for the UI, no routing or other like in Angularjs.
I hope that helps, good luck

I've done this exact thing with a simple combination of JS objects, jQuery and Handlebars. No need for Angular et al if you don't want them (and nothing wrong with them if you do). I've defined my components as JS Objects:
/**
* A data grid.
*/
function Grid(columns, $container) {
this.columns = $.extend([], columns);
...
this.render($container);
}
/**
* Render the grid into a container.
* #private
*/
Grid.prototype.render = function($container) {
Rendering the view is done with Handlebars:
<div class="grid">
<header>
<div class="label">
{{#each columns}}<div data-id="{{id}}" data-index="{{#index}}" style="width:{{boxWidth}}px">{{name}}</div><nav></nav>{{/each}}
</div>
The Model is obtained by ajax calls:
/**
* Handle a grid filter change.
* #private
*/
MasterCompanyList.prototype.onFilter = function(e, filter) {
App.loading.start();
App.ajax({
url: 'ws/admin/mcl',
data: filter.filter,
context: this,
success: function(json) {
this.grid.setData(json);
App.loading.done();
}
});
};
All at a simpler level than Angular etc (I've used Angular commercially for a few years), but I find this KISS approach gets me where I need to be without having to rely on a heavier framework - and if I want to manipulate something jQuery styles then off I go.

Angular and React can do this, but React is based on a component design, so it would be perfect for what you're trying to achieve.

Related

How to make "global" variable available in Laravel helper and view?

I'm working on a Laravel app that I'm transitioning to React using a microfrontend(-like?) approach. I defined a helper function in Laravel that receives a component name and array of props and outputs the server-side rendered React HTML. I then call this function inside my views where needed.
Each page in my application defines a few variables that might affect the rendering both of these React components and also the Blade templates. So I define the variables in the view and send them to JavaScript land through a global window variable. But I also need these variables in the SSR helper.
Right now I have two ideas on how to do this:
Pass the variables as props in each call to my helper function. I want to avoid this as the variables will never change throughout the request lifecycle and all the #includes and #extends
Set the values using config helper before rendering the view. This seems kind of unidiomatic, as I think config should be used with more "static" values (that apply for the whole application and not particular pages), but I'm not very well versed in Laravel-world so this might actually be acceptable.
So right now I'm more inclined to 2, but I was wondering if there was a better option?
Some code:
my-template.blade.php
//these are the variables that I want to access in my helper
#extends('master.index', [
"_PAGE_CONFIG" => [
"page" => "blog",
"header" => ["search" => true]
]
]);
#section('content')
#include('some-template.that-also-has.ssr-components-in-it')
{!! ssr('blog/Blog', ["posts" => $posts]) !!}
#endsection
master/index.blade.php
<body>
#if($_PAGE_CONFIG["header"])
<header>{!! ssr('header/Header') !!}</header>
#endif
#yield('content')
<script>
//here I pass my variables to (client) JS land
window._PAGE_CONFIG = #json($_PAGE_CONFIG);
</script>
</body>
my-SSR-helper.php
function ssr($component, $props = []) {
/*
here I call a node server or script that handles the rendering for me,
but I want to pass it $_PAGE_CONFIG, which will be different in each page.
I could pass it in each ssr call in the template but this is what I want to avoid
as this function might be called several times down the #include/#extend chain
and $_PAGE_CONFIG never changes in any one page
(but might be different for different pages).
*/
}
If each page always gets the same values, then you should set an array somewhere into your config where the keys are the pages and the values are the props received. By the way, you would get:
function ssr($component, $page, $props = []) {
$pageProps = config('somewhere.'.$page);
}
I'm glad to see people using micro-frontends to use React to server-side rendering in a non-javascript framework like Laravel.
I recommend you take a look at this article Universal Rendering in Laravel using Vue.js and Ara Framework. Ara Framework supports also React, I think the server-side include approach is the best option to overcome the limitations of Blade.
This article can give you context about how this approach works.
https://itnext.io/strangling-a-monolith-to-micro-frontends-decoupling-presentation-layer-18a33ddf591b

Dojo Tooltip Attach to Multiple Nodes: Element Selector Works, but not Class Selector

I'm trying to use dojo Tooltips on a series of SVG elements that are tool buttons in my header. I'm using the method in the docs of attaching tooltips to multiple nodes like this:
new Tooltip({
connectId: query('.header'),
selector: 'svg',
position: ['below'],
getContent: function (e) {
return e.getAttribute('data-tooltiptext');
}
});
And that works, but if I use a selector of '.tool' (every SVG has a class of tool on it) my getContent function never gets called. 'svg.tool' doesn't work as a selector either. The docs an several examples around the net claim class selectors will work, but I've only been able to get element selectors to work.
I'm requiring 'dojo/query' and I've tried using 'dojo/query!css3' but that doesn't seem to make a difference. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I'm using dojo included with ESRI's ArcGIS JS API library, which reports a dojo version of 1.14.2.
I've experienced the same issue when using the selector attribute while creating a Menu. Within an SVG element, element selectors (even comma-concatenated ones) work, but class selectors do not. Outside of the SVG element, they worked just fine. You can play around with this by using dojo.query in your browser's console to see which elements get selected.
I was able to solve the issue by changing the selectorEngine in my dojo config. Using any of css3, css2.1, and css2 worked, so I think the issue may be in the acme engine. If you don't already have a dojo config, you can add it via a script tag:
<script>
var dojoConfig = {
selectorEngine: 'css3',
};
</script>

How are Javascript widgets made without iFrames?

I have a chat widget that I want to embed it other people's websites. It looks just like Intercom and all the other chat popups. I want to make the chat popup stick to the bottom-right hand corner of the screen regardless of where you scroll. However, when I import the chat app as an iframe and give it position: fixed; bottom: 0px; right: 15px;, the iframe does not go to where I expect it to go.
I realize that iframes are suboptimal for embedded JS widgets, and all the best embedded apps are importing .js files from file storage. After searching online for hours I have yet to find an explanation/tutorial on how to make those JS files that hook onto a and render the widget. How do you even make one of those pure javascript apps, and what are they called? (Not web components I assume, because there have been widgets for a long time).
Sorry if this question is kinda noob. I never knew this was a thing until I tried implementing it myself. Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to get started making JS web widgets? Thank you! (Maybe a ReactJS to VanillaJS converter would be super cool)
A pure Javascript App is called a SPA - Single Page Application - and they have full control over the document (page). But since you ask about embeding a widget, I don't think that is what this question is about (there are tons of info. on the web on SPAs).
I was going to suggest that going forward you do this using Web Components - there are polyfills available today that make this work on nearly all browsers - but since your question mentioned that you wanted to know how it is done without it, I detail below one of my approaches.
When creating a pure JS widget you need to ensure that you are aware that a) you do NOT have control over the global space and b) that it needs to play nice with the the rest of the page. Also, since you are not using Web Components (and are looking for a pure javascript (no libs)), then you also have to initialize the widget "manually" and then insert it to the page at the desired location - as oposed to a declaritive approach where you have an assigned HTML tag name for your widget that you just add to the document and magic happens :)
Let me break it down this way:
Widget Factory
Here is a simple Javascript Widget factory - the create() returns an HTML element with your widget:
const Widget = Object.create({
create(chatId) {
const wdg = document.createElement("div")
wdg.classList.add("chat-box");
wdg.innerHTML = `<h1>Chat: ${ chatId }</h1>`;
// Load your chat data into UI
return wdg;
}
});
To create a new widget (HTML Element) using the above you would:
const myWidgetInstance = Widget.create("chat-12345");
and to insert this widget into the page at a given location (ex. inside of a DIV element with id "chat_box", you would:
document.getElementById("chat_box").appendChild(myWidgetInstance);
So this is the basics of creating a Widget using the native (web) platform :)
Creating a reusable/embeddable Component
One of the key goals when you deliver a reusable and embeddable component is to ensure you don't rely on the global space. So your delivery approach (more like your build process) would package everything together in a JavaScript IIFD which would also create a private scope for all your code.
The other important aspect of these type of singleton reusable/embeddable components is that your styles for the Element needs to ensure they don't "leak" out and impact the remainder of the page (needs to play nice with others). I am not going into detail on this area here. (FYI: this also the area where Web Component really come in handy)
Here is an example of a Chat component that you could add to a page anywhere you would like it to appear. The component is delivered as a <script> tag with all code inside:
<script>(function() {
const Widget = Object.create({
create(chatId) {
const wdg = document.createElement("div");
wdg.classList.add("chat-box");
wdg.innerHTML = `<h1>Chat: ${ chatId }</h1>`;
// Load your chat data into UI
return wdg;
}
});
const myWidgetInstance = Widget.create("chat-12345");
const id = `chat-${ Math.floor((1 + Math.random()) * 0x10000).toString(16).substring(1) }`;
document.write(`<div id="${ id }"></div>`);
document.getElementById(id).appendChild(myWidgetInstance);
})();</script>
So you could use this in multiple places just by droping in this script tag in the desired locations:
<body>
<div>
<h1>Chat 1</h1>
<script>/* script tag show above */</script>
</div>
...
<div>
<h1>Chat 2</h1>
<script>/* script tag show above */</script>
</div>
</body>
This is just a sample approach of how it could be done. You would have to add more in order to support passing options to each widget (ex. the chat id), defining styles as well other possible improvements that would make the runtime more efficient.
Another approach
You could add your "script" once and wait for the rest of the page to load, then search the document for a "known" set of elements (ex. any element having a CSS Class of chat-box) and then initialize a widget inside of them (jQuery made this approach popular).
Example:
Note how data attributes can be used in DOM elements to store more data specific to your widget.
<div class="chat-box" data-chatid="123"></div>
<script>(function() {
const Widget = Object.create({
create(chatId) {
const wdg = document.createElement("div");
wdg.classList.add("chat-box");
wdg.innerHTML = `<h1>Chat: ${ chatId }</h1>`;
// Load your chat data into UI
return wdg;
}
});
const initWhenReady = () => {
removeEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", initWhenReady);
Array.prototype.forEach.call(document.querySelectorAll(".chat-box"), ele => {
const myWidgetInstance = Widget.create(ele.dataset.chatid);
ele.appendChild(myWidgetInstance);
});
};
addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', initWhenReady);
})();</script>
Hope this helps.
The best way to create Javascript widget without third-party library is to create Custom Elements.
The following link : Custom Elements v1 is a good introduction to this technology.
See a minimal example below:
class Chat extends HTMLElement {
connectedCallback () {
this.innerHTML = "<textarea>Hello</textarea>"
}
}
customElements.define( "chat-widget", Chat )
<chat-widget>
</chat-widget>

Material Design Lite rendering problems with Angular JS

I have some problems using Material Design Lite (getmdl.io). I followed the steps showed in the getmdl.io web in order to install it (actually I use bower), but I always have the same problem, when I change the ng-route in my web, some resources don't render properly, I need to reload the page to get it properly rendered, for example.
First I have this:
then when I reload, I get what I want:
What I cant understand is why other resources like google icons or buttons work correctly but the menu button on the nav bar and other resources like this one need to reaload the page in order to render properly.
I try to include the library using the hosted method and bower method.
Any idea what is going on?
i past in my code this function
angular.module('app', ['ngRoute']).
run(function($rootScope, xxxx, xxx){
$rootScope.$on('$viewContentLoaded', function(event, next) {
componentHandler.upgradeAllRegistered();
});
});
It worked perfect! Good luck..
Libraries like MDL work by waiting for the page to load using the DOMContentLoaded event, scanning the page for things like input elements and manipulating them with JavaScript so that they can inject the bits and pieces needed to work with their components. This works fine on static websites, but the DOMContentLoaded event only fires once, so when Angular performs a page transition, the DOM changes without MDL knowing about it.
Material Design Lite has a section in its FAQ about using MDL on dynamic websites:
Material Design Lite will automatically register and render all elements marked with MDL classes upon page load. However in the case where you are creating DOM elements dynamically you need to register new elements using the upgradeElement function. Here is how you can dynamically create the same raised button with ripples shown in the section above:
<div id="container"/>
<script>
var button = document.createElement('button');
var textNode = document.createTextNode('Click Me!');
button.appendChild(textNode);
button.className = 'mdl-button mdl-js-button mdl-js-ripple-effect';
componentHandler.upgradeElement(button);
document.getElementById('container').appendChild(button);
</script>
Of course, this probably isn't terribly easy to do in your case, since you'd have to manually find each new element and call upgradeElement on it.
Usually, instead of doing this sort of event-based DOM manipulation, Angular uses directives to initiate DOM changes. Consider using a library built to interoperate with Angular, instead, such as Angular Material.

Backbone Marionette modules as Widgets similar to Twitter Flight

I'm reading up in choosing the correct client-side framework to segment/modularize my frontend code in Widgets.
Basically what I have/want is:
a complex website with multiple pagetypes, so no single-page application.
all pages are able to render a complete page WITHOUT the use of javascript. IOW: javascript is used as enrichment only.
Lots of pages have a very dynamic way in which widgets can be shown on screen. To overcome complexity at the server-side I've modularized my code into widgets (composite pattern), where each widget is responsible for it's own:
server-side controller code
server-side templating (using hogan/mustache)
routing endpoints, should it need to be called from the client
structural css (css converning the structure of the widget as opposed to the look&feel)
a server-side RegionManager ultimately decides which widgets are rendered and where they are rendered on screen. Endresults is that the RegionManager spits out the entire html (server-generated) as the composite of the rendering of all of it's widgets.
Now, some of these widgets DO have client-side logic and need rerendering on the client. Take a searchpage for instance, which needs to be able to update through ajax. (I've described this process, which uses DRY templating on client and server, here)
What I ultimately want is that, given I already use the composite pattern on the server, to extend this to the client somehow so that a Widget (1 particular logic block on the screen) contains all mentioned server-side code, plus all needed client-side code.
I hope this makes sense.
Would Marionette be suited to be used as a client side framework in this scenario? I'm asking since I'm not 100% sure if the concept of a Marionette Module is what I describe as being a Widget in above scenario. (I'm mentioning Twitter Flight in my question, since I believe this would be a fit, but it currently is so new that I'm hesitant to go with it at the moment_
I think basically what I'm asking is if anybody has some experience doing something along these lines.
I think just using Backbone.js is perfect for this type of application you are describing. You have probably already read this, but most of the backbone literature is focused around your views having associated server generated JSON models and collections, then using the View's render function to generate (on the client) the HTML UI that represents the model/collection.
However it doesn't have to be used this way. In fact there is nothing stopping you attaching views to existing elements that contain content already, which gives you all of the benefits of Backbone's modularity, events system and so on. I often use views that have no model or collection, purely because I like the conformity of style. I have also used an approach like I describe below in the cases where I have had to work with older, existing applications that have not yet got, or never will have a nice REST API, but they do provide content in HTML.
Firstly, lets assume the following HTML represents one of your widgets:
<div id="widget">
<div class="widget-title"></div>
<div class="widget-body">
<!-- assume lots more html is in here -->
Do something!
</div>
</div>
In this case, you could use backbone with a single Widget Model. This would be a very simple model, like this:
App.WidgetModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
intialize: function () {
this.url = this.options.url;
}
});
Take note of the fact the Widget receives a URL as a parameter to its constructor/initialize function. This widget model would represent many of your widgets (and of course you could adopt this general approach with more complicated models and pluck different data from the rendered HTML). So next for your views. As you probably know, normally you pass most views a model or collection when you instantiate them. However in this case, you could create the Widget model in your View's initialize Function and pass it a URL from the pre-rendered HTML as follows:
App.WidgetView = App.View.ComboboxView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function () {
this.model = new App.WidgetModel({}, { url: this.$("a").attr("href") });
}
// rest of the view code
});
So instantiating the view would be something like:
new App.WidgetView({el: $("#widget")})'
By doing all of the above you can do pretty much everything else that backbone offers you and its modular and encapsulated nicely, which is what you are after.
The end result of this whole approach is:
You have rendered the Widget UI as pure HTML which (I assume) is functional without JavaScript.
You attach a View to the existing HTML.
You pass into the View as options, content by extracted (such as a URL) from the rendered HTML with jQuery.
The View is responsible for instantiating the Model passing on the relevant options the model needs (such as a URL).
This means all dynamic server side content is intially contained in the rendered HTML and your View is a modular JavaScript component that can do stuff to it, which I think is the end result you're after.
So you mentioned that you would like to have AJAX functionality for your widgets and that fine with this approach too. Using this approach, you can now use the standard Backbone fetch and save functions on the Widget model to get new content. In this example it is from the URL retrieved from the rendered HTML. When you get the response, you can use the view's, render function, or other finer grained functions to update the HTML on the page as required.
A few points:
The only thing to look out for is that you'll need to change the content type of the fetch and save functions to "text/html" if that's what the server is providing. For example:
this.model.fetch({
type: "POST",
contentType: "text/html"
});
Lastly, the model I have proposed is instantiated with no content. However if your ajax calls are a content type of "text/html", you may need to play around with you model so it can store this content in its attributes collection properly. See this answer for more information.

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