Doing anything in the terminal, git, etc multiplies my learning curve in attempting to quickly develop an app using CodeIgniter. I realize the need for a Javascript framework and would like to use AngularJS - is there any way around the terminal?
All you need to do is to download the AngularJS source files (.js files) and get coding. I am new to it too and am fairly impressed with it. However it seems to me that is is designed for different things than CodeIgniter.
Angular JS basically moves your MVC from the back end to the front end, my limited experience tells me that it is for simpler apps than what CodeIgniter would be for. You can certainly still have some logic in your MVC back end, but the idea is that Angular becomes the application and you use a back end primarily for data storage.
There may be a way to mix the two together by making limited scope Angular pages that are worked within a superstructure of the CodeIgniter MVC, but I have not figured this out yet.
AngularJS can certainly work with Code Igniter, and you don't need to use the terminal for either.
You're probably going to want to write a RESTful API with Code Igniter that AngularJS can communicate with. Check out this article for RESTful services with CI: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/working-with-restful-services-in-codeigniter-2/
(a little old, but the basic concept is the same)
Then, with AngularJS, you'd use $http to make requests back to the API you wrote with CI: http://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng.$http
Related
I've run into a problem that I'm sure many new/junior web developers are facing. Before I state the problem, it's best if I first list the events that drove me to the "issue".
Step 1 - The Front-End:
I followed tutorials which allowed me to create a Vue project using the vue-cli - I now have a nice front-end ready to go, albeit it is in a way "standalone". It sits in its own directory.
Step 2 - The Back-End:
I move on, I start to look at the back-end. Laravel plays well with Vue so I go with it. Once again I follow tutorials, I create a database and an API. Fantastic.
I now have the barebones core elements for a CRUD application. However, the way the back and front end are connected seems to be convoluted (although this may be due to my inexperience and improper understanding).
Solution 1:
Some tutorials insist that the Vue project is "re-created" within the Laravel directories so Laravel is in charge of rendering the views.
Solution 2:
Others, from what I can tell keep them physically separate and have the front-end interact with Laravels API only.
What are the best practices when it comes to stack architecture? Should we aim to bundle the stack together as proposed in solution 1? Is solution 2 even possible or is that due to my misunderstanding? If it is, how is deployment handled?
From my point of experience, both are correct and the answer depends on what you want to build 😀
First, if you have a simple website and you want to make the front-end of it in vue and it is only this one website, you can put it all together and make the frontend in Vue, which is handled by laravel in the backend and you are done.
Second, the step further, is for this case, that you can have several frontends for your project. Example: You have a website and several (native or universal) apps to display your data. In this case, you can build an API, that handles all the logic, all the business secrets, and this stuff, that no one should know in detail. After that, you are free to build any frontend (Vue, native, plain-HTML), whatever) you like, that's the only purpose is to display the data the API gives back (with some little logic in it, of the cause, but the secret business logic is hidden in the API). You can even outsource the generation of an app, so you build the website frontend in Vue and another one can build an ios-app with swift or an android app with kotlin.
Hope, you get the point, the answer is, as often: it depends 😉
I have very decent HTML and CSS skills and a basic understanding of JavaScript. I'm currently designing a system where different users can store an inventory list (a separate list for each user).
I started with plain Mongo, Express, Angular and Node Stack. But when researching about user authentication in MEAN-Stack I stumbled across Mean.io which seems to have a build-in user auth/management.
Is it usefull for a beginner to start with such a MEAN Framework or better to stay at the basics for a first try?
MEAN frameworks like MEAN.io or MEAN.js are great for structuring an app but you still have to understand how everything works. It may be better to go with tutorials from scratch to learn then use a framework once you want to actually build an app. Start with a node/express server using a simple html/js page to understand API creation then add angular to learn the frontend stuff. This will help you understand what MEAN.xx is doing with regards to the frontend vs backend. MEAN.js for example puts all the backend (E and N) stuff in the server/ folders and the frontend (A) stuff in client/ folders.
im trying to create a Single Page Website with DurandalJS in the frontend and Laravel as the Backend. Do you think this is a good Idea?
If yes how would I do the following:
What would your recommendation for the basic interaction between both frameworks be?
Would you rather have all the computation done in JS instead of Laravel sending calculated and styled returns?
How Do I setup Laravels controller in order to only get dynamic Data for, say a Div, instead of a whole page?
How can I adjust the browser URLs?
I hope I was specific enough, thank You in advance.
Laravel does not actually care about what framework you use to build the Frontend. Laravel is just a framework that helps you build your application with. It gives you great advantage with respect to the time spent and effort.
You can use any frontend framework that you want to build your app with. I have actually not used Durandal, but from the first look of it here is my opinion.
Durandal is built on top of jQuery, knockoutJS and requireJS. It also has a MV* architecture in place with support for eventing as well. So you could basically define routes on Laravel and initiate the communication between both the frameworks through events and ajax. Again this completely depends on the functionality that you are building.
In the overall flow of your app, consider Laravel as a Model that just gives data from a source to your app and Durandal as your views and controllers. This way, it will keep your data flow cleaner and easier to build. Computation of your functionality depends on how important and secretive the app is. If there are functionalities/implementations that you need to be secretive about, you can keep it on Laravel and just send computed data to Durandal. If its a web app that you are building, then keeping all implementation on the JS is just a right click away from knowing what and how you have built it. One can just see how the implementation is done just looking at the Javascript source of the web app. If you are building Mobile Device App, then the case is different.
Take a look at Restful Controllers. Will give you an idea on how to setup controllers to return only data. But if you need to return the div itself, then you can make use of the Basic Controllers of Laravel to perform them.
You can setup cleaner routes for the browser URL's. Take a look at Laravel Routing
I am developing a RESTful backend using Spring framework. All the services are accessible through HTTP request methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).
Could you please tell me what can the best combination of frameworks for front end?
Is it best to use SpringMVC or some other framework like Backbone is good enough?
If I am using SpringMVC for REST backend and also SpringMVC for front end then won't it be extra work doing same things again first for backend then for front end?
And most important I am confused about how can do the session management using front end?
Any help will be appreciated!
If you are looking into to make a SPA (Single Page App) make sure that you take a look at AmpersandJS -> http://ampersandjs.com/
Templates
Since you said "server-side" GUI, maybe you are thinking more along the lines of a template engine for creating HTML? This isn't really restful, but can be MVC like if you are forwarding from your Controller classes.
But PLEASE keep in mind that it would be a very BAD idea to try and generate XML or JSON data for consumption by RESTful clients (ajax) with either of these. Just say no to JSON creation from a template engine!
JSP is pretty much the standard for Java EE at the moment, or is most widely used. All you need is a compliant server, such as Tomcat/Jetty.
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaee/jsp/index.html
Thymeleaf It looks a lot cleaner than JSP, and has the added benefit of not allowing all the pitfalls that can happen with a JSP (and there are a lot).
http://www.thymeleaf.org/
JavaScript:
When you say you are creating a RESTful backend, most people would make the conclusion (and rightfully so) that you are trying to develop a JavaScript MVVM client/GUI.
Kendo UI has a complete set of GUI widgets and MVVM framework that is specifically designed to work with a RESTful backend. But it's a paid for API.
http://www.telerik.com/kendo-ui
YUI3 (Yahoo User Interface) has a variety of widgets as well, and I've seen a lot of jobs requesting this. It has the advantage of being free/OSS as well. Older version are deprecated.
https://github.com/yui/yui3/wiki
knockout.js has been my favorite for MVVM engines that I've actually had experience working with. And it's simple to learn, in my opinion.
http://knockoutjs.com/
Angular.js Also free/oss, and works well with other GUI APIs.
https://angularjs.org/
I would suggest you to consioder Sencha Ext JS for front-end, it is one of the best framework and will work with RestFul back-end.
this is a good question, but I don't think there is a server-side framework out there specifically built to use a REST server backend. I think you could use Spring-MVC / Spring-Boot to get a good headstart, but you might also want to look into Rails or other Ruby any other modern web framework technology.
I am trying to find the optimal architecture for an ajax-heavy Django application I'm currently building. I'd like to keep a consistent way of doing forms, validation, fetching data, JSON message format but find it exceedingly hard to find a solution that can be used consistently.
Can someone point me in the right direction or share their view on best practice?
I make everything as normal views which display normally in the browser. That includes all the replies to AJAX requests (sub pages).
When I want to make bits of the site more dynamic I then use jQuery to do the AJAX, or in this case AJAH and just load the contents of one of the divs in the sub page into the requesting page.
This technique works really well - it is very easy to debug the sub pages as they are just normal pages, and jQuery makes your life very easy using these as part of an AJA[XH]ed page.
For all the answers to this, I can't believe no one's mentioned django-piston yet. It's mainly promoted for use in building REST APIs, but it can output JSON (which jQuery, among others, can consume) and works just like views in that you can do anything with a request, making it a great option for implementing AJAX interactions (or AJAJ [JSON], AJAH, etc whatever). It also supports form validation.
I can't think of any standard way to insert ajax into a Django application, but you can have a look to this tutorial.
You will also find more details on django's page about Ajax
Two weeks ago I made a write up how I implement sub-templates to use them in "normal" and "ajax" request (for Django it is the same). Maybe it is helpful for you.
+1 to Nick for pages displaying normally in the browser. That seems to be the best starting point.
The problem with the simplest AJAX approaches, such as Nick and vikingosegundo propose, is that you'll have to rely on the innerHTML property in your Javascript. This is the only way to dump the new HTML sent in the JSON. Some would consider this a Bad Thing.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of a standard way to replicate the display of forms using Javascript that matches the Django rendering. My approach (that I'm still working on) is to subclass the Django Form class so it outputs bits of Javascript along with the HTML from as_p() etc. These then replicate the form my manipulating the DOM.
From experience I know that managing an application where you generate the HTML on the server side and just "insert" it into your pages, becomes a nightmare. It is also impossible to test using the Django test framework. If you're using Selenium or a similar tool, it's ok, but you need to wait for the ajax request to go return so you need tons of sleeps in your test script, which may slow down your test suite.
If the purpose of using the Ajax technique is to create a good user interface, I would recommend going all in, like the GMail interface, and doing everything in the browser with JavaScript. I have written several apps like this using nothing but jQuery, state machines for managing UI state and JSON with ReST on the backend. Django, IMHO, is a perfect match for the backend in this case. There are even third party software for generating a ReST-interface to your models, which I've never used myself, but as far as I know they are great at the simple things, but you of course still need to do your own business logic.
With this approach, you do run into the problem of duplicating code in the JS and in your backend, such as form handling, validation, etc. I have been thinking about solving this with generating structured information about the forms and validation logic which I can use in JS. This could be compiled at deploy-time and be loaded as any other JS file.
Also, avoid XML. The browsers are slow at parsing it, it is a pain to generate and a pain to work with in the browser. Use JSON.
Im currently testing:
jQuery & backbone.js client-side
django-piston (intermediate layer)
Will write later my findings on my blog http://blog.sserrano.com