Building SPA’s (Single Page App) with Backbone.js
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Transcript of Building SPA’s (Single Page App) with Backbone.js
Backbone js
Richard GriffinTwitter RichGee Email [email protected]
Where to start
• Consumerisation of technology has had a large impact on how we build apps
• Affordable portable devices means that consumers care more about mobility
• Customers desire their product to be available on a wide range of devices for consumers
Impacts on development
• Multi tenanted development teams
• HTML stack / .net stack / iOS stack / Java stack
• Management of source code, testing, maintainability, consistency
Snooze you loose
• Building x-platform x-device app
• Targeting wp7 and windows 7 tablet
• Performance problems with .net client side implementation
• Rebuilt in html and js
A time for change
• Build apps that meet these needs
• Touch based
• Mouse based
• Consumable on anything anywhere
• Development costs
Something's never change
• Software craftsmanship
• Still face the same problems
• Changing implementation language does not make it easier
• Actually some of the problems get bigger…much bigger!
• Browser inconsistency
Something's do change
Improvements in
• Browser performance• HTML• CSS• ECMA Script• Frameworks• Development tools
And so the journey begins
Client side Architecture
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
Client side Architecture
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
Async Communication
• Endpoints are REST based• Endpoints support JSON and Xml – JSON is preferred• jQuery $.ajax(query options)
$.ajax({ type: "POST", url: "some.php", data: { name: "John", location: “Birmingham" }}).done(function( msg ) { alert( "Data Saved: " + msg );});
Client side Architecture
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
MV* framework
• Extensive range of JS frameworks that support MVC, MVP and MVVM
• YAFS! – each week there seems to be a new one
• IMHO there should be more focus on scaffolding tools
• Confused! Try this out! http://todomvc.com/
MV* framework – KO js
I want something that will make it easy to build complex dynamic UIs with a clean underlying data model and declarative bindings. It should automatically update my UI on model changes using two-way bindings and support dependency tracking of model data. I should be able to use it with whatever framework I prefer, or even an existing app. It should also come with templating built-in and be easily extensible.
Resource: Addy Osmani
MV* framework – backbone js
I want something flexible which offers a minimalist solution to separating concerns in my application. It should support a persistence layer and RESTful sync, models, views (with controllers), event-driven communication, templating and routing. It should be imperative, allowing one to update the View when a model changes. I’d like some decisions about the architecture left up to me. Ideally, many large companies have used the solution to build non-trivial applications
Resource: Addy Osmani
Client side Architecture
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
Local Storage - amplify
• Amplifyjs http://amplifyjs.com/
• Simple to use as everything is all done via key value pairs
• Amplify works out what browser your app is running in and makes a choice which local storage option to use
Local Storage if available (latest browsers) Cookie in older browsers
Client side Architecture
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
Responsive layout
• As I eluded earlier supporting x-devices, x-browser means that we need to up our game
• We want to be pragmatic about it and thus avoid tumbling/cascading conditional blocks of code to handle the different browser
Responsive layout - bootstrap
• Bootstrap http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/
• Bootstrap provides everything that we need to build responsive web pages
• Provides a 12-column responsive grid
• Builds on CSS media queries to provide responsive functionality
• Uses LESS to help with maintainability of CSS from a Developer prospective
Client side Architecture
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
View Layout Management
• Layout Manager https://github.com/tbranyen/backbone.layoutmanager
• When building a complex UI there is always the issue of how we manage our views and also our sub-views
• Reusable views
• To be pragmatic we want to insure that we adhere to the DRY principle
• Backbone does not provide a formalised way for how we do templatingttps://github.com/tbranyen/backbone.layoutmanager
Single Page App Design
• Taking Ajax to the next level
• Provide a UX which is closer to an app or desktop app UX
• Our application UX all happens in a single page and is not spread across multiple pages
• Don’t think about a web site think about an app a web app experience
Ajax everything…
• Dynamically loading templates
• Html templates are defined on the server and loaded async when required
• Html templates are associated with the backbone view
• Layout manager provides a strategy for managing views
Everything ajax…
• Asynchronous Module Definitions
• Use Requirejs http://requirejs.org/• • Provides a mechanism for include/import/require• Ability to load nested dependencies
• Ease of use for developer but then backed by an optimisation tool that helps with deployment
Client side Architecture
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
Data Management
• Backbone paginator https://github.com/addyosmani/backbone.paginator
• Pagination of data
• Client side pagination
• Server side pagination
https://github.com/addyosmani/backbone.paginator
Client side Architecture
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
UI Interactions
• jQuery does everything that you need and more
• jQuery and Backbone play nice together
• jQuery Mobile
Client side Architecture
Bucket list
Async communication mechanism with server MV* framework Local storage mechanism Responsive web pages View management Data management UI interactions to enhance the experience
Tool up
• BDD / TDD
• Grunt
• Sublime Text Editor
• Development server
Tool up
• BDD / TDD
• Grunt
• Sublime Text Editor
• Development server
Jasmine
• Jasmine http://pivotal.github.com/jasmine/
• Does not depend on any other JS framework
• Does not require a DOM
• Given, When, Then syntax
• Works on windows 8!
Client side Architecture
Tool up
• BDD / TDD
• Grunt
• Sublime Text Editor
• Development server
Grunt
• grunt http://gruntjs.com/
• Requires Node – install using npm grunt
• Provides the ability for developers to have a pseudo compilation mechanism
• MSBuild analogy where by developers can create a script that performs a series of actions
Grunt
Build Script• Run tests
• JSHint code• http://www.jshint.com/
• Uglification / Compression of code• https://github.com/mishoo/UglifyJS
• Bundling of code ready for deployment
Tool up
• BDD / TDD
• Grunt
• Sublime Text Editor
• Development server
Sublime text editor
• Nuget style package management console
• Support for backbone snippets
• Support for jQuery snippets
• Supports grunt build files
• Supports jshint configuration
Tool up
• BDD / TDD
• Grunt
• Sublime Text Editor
• Development server
Web Matrix
• Local Server for running web apps
• Awesome for deployment to Azure
• Has its own editor
Backbone
EventsModelsCollectionsViewsRouters
http://backbonejs.org/
router
view
collection model
events
events
Router
• Provides methods for routing client-side pages, and connecting them to actions and events
• Until recently, hash fragments (#page) were used to provide these permalinks, but with the arrival of the History API, it's now possible to use standard URLs (/page)
• For browsers which don't yet support the History API, the Router handles graceful fallback and transparent translation to the fragment version of the URL
Router
var Workspace = Backbone.Router.extend({ routes: { "help": "help", // #help "search/:query": "search", // #search/kiwis "search/:query/p:page": "search" // #search/kiwis/p7 },
help: function() {},
search: function(query, page) {}});
Events
• Events is a module that can be mixed into any object• Provides the ability to bind and trigger custom named events• Normally used in the view so that it can update when our
model changes
this.model.on("destroy", this.close, this);
this.model.on(“reset”, this.addAll, this);
this.model.on(“add”, this.addOne, this);
Models
• Models are at the heart of any js app
• Models contain interactive data as well as a large part of the logic surrounding it
• Models are databound to the html
• Models can also be extended to help contain common functionality
• By convention the initialise function gets called with the arguments passed into the constructor
Collections
• Collections are ordered sets of models
• Bind “change” events to be notified when any model in the collection has been modified
• Common change events to listen for Add Remove
Collections
Fetch()
• Call to populate collection with data
Collections
Sync(crud method, model, options callback)
• CRUD – Create, Read, Update or Delete
• Model – Model to be operated on
• Options – callbacks success and error
Collections
CRUD to REST
• Create -> POST /collection
• Read -> GET /collection[id]
• Update -> PUT /collection/id
• Delete -> DELETE /collection/id
Views
• More convention than they are code
• They don't determine anything about your HTML or CSS for you, and can be used with any JavaScript templating library
• Organize your interface into logical views, backed by models, each of which can be updated independently when the model changes, without having to redraw the page
• Bind your view's render function to the model's "change" event and now everywhere that model data is displayed in the UI, it is always immediately up to date
Backbone
router
view
collection model
events
events
View model
view
collection model
events
events
MVVM
Underscore
• http://underscorejs.org/
• 80 odd helper functions
• Works seamlessly with jQuery and Backbone
• Provides the ability to shape data similar to how we would use linq or lambda in .net
• Provides the ability to add script into our html templates
Underscore
Shaping data
• each
• map
• where
• sortBy, groupBy
Underscore
Templating
Works in the same way as other templating frameworks
<td> <%= typeof(model.get("foo")) !== 'undefined' ? model.get("foo").toPrecision(4) : '' %></td>
Putting it all together
router
domview
collection model
events
events
events
web reques
t
layout manager
pagination
local storage
Web Request
Initialise App Router Collection
ViewLayout Manager
Render PageFetch data
Sync On success Populate Collection
Notify UI that data changed
Render View
Web app
• News reader – uses Guardian API
• Router / Models / Views
• Pagination
• Local Storage
• View Management
Main layout
Main.html
Section List View
section/list.html
Section List Item View
section/item.html
Section Header View
section/header.html
Story List View
story/list.html
Story List Item Viewstory/
item.html
Section List View
section/list.html
Story List View
story/list.htmlStory List Item Viewstory/
item.html
<ul class="nav"></ul>
<a href="<%= model.get("id") %>"><%= typeof(model.get("webTitle")) !== 'undefined' ?
model.get("webTitle") : '' %></a>
<span><%= typeof(model.get("webTitle")) !== 'undefined' ?
model.get("webTitle") : '' %></span>
Section List Item View
section/item.html
<div class="nav-collapse sectionListView"></div><div id="sectionHeaderView" class="hero-unit sectionHeaderView"></div><div id="storyListView" class="storyListView"></div> Main
layoutMain.html
Section Header View
section/header.html
Section List View
section/list.html
Section List Item View
section/item.html
<div class="nav-collapse sectionListView"></div><div id="sectionHeaderView" class="hero-unit sectionHeaderView"></div><div id="storyView" class="storyView"></div> Story
layoutstory.html
Section Header View
section/header.html <p><img width="20%" src="<%= model.get('fields').thumbnail %>" type=""
media=""></p><h1><%= model.get("fields").headline %></h1> <div style="columns:100px 2; -webkit-columns:100px 2; -moz-columns:100px 2;"> <p><%= model.get("fields").body %></> </div>
Story List View
story/list.html
Winjs
• Provides access to winrt interfaces via javascript
• Uses the chakra engine same engine used in IE10
• Introduces some rather desirable programming concepts such as namespaces, data binding, background tasks and more
• Builds on ECMA script 5 such as promises
Winjs and backbone
• Use backbone for all our data
• Use winjs as our UI Framework
• Ability to integrate and weave the backbone types into winjs binding list types
• Ability to abstract backbone implementation behind more complex winjs implementations
Putting it all together
navigation
domview
collection model
events
events
events
appload
binding list
pagination
local storage
events
App Load Initialise App Navigation Collection
ViewProcess Fragment
Render FragmentFetch data
Sync On success Populate Collection
Convert to Binding List
Notify UI that data changed
Render Fragment
Winjs app
• Reader port to windows 8
• Changes to note
Change in User Experience impacts how and what data needs to be displayed
Removal views (css, html and js) and replaced with winjs ui controls Replacing jQuery $Ajax with winjs xhr Replacing router with winjs navigation Extending data list source to be used in conjunction with Backbone
collection
Looking back
• Overview of some useful js frameworks that allow us to create maintainable client side apps in js/html/css
• Building on our experiences with xaml and .net, databinding, composite UI and separation of view model controller designs
• Ability to reuse underpinning modules in browser and win8
Looking forwards
• Improvements in the frameworks and plugins
• Improvements in scaffolding for building apps
• Better tools to help manage larger client side apps
• Better support for winjs binding list
• Better support for jQuery