I would like to build a new web site using AngularJS. The idea is to build a server side API with Ruby on Rails that serve Json to a front-end AngularJS.
My question is: Is it better to create a full AngluarJS front-end or a standard ruby on rails front-end with some Angular ?
I know Angular can handle routing so a full application is possible but it looks like the default behavior is for single page app.
For example I wonder if it's not a problem to make some change in an angular page 1 that should modify a page 2. This page 2 will not be updated until an action is taken on the page or the user reload the page.
Is there something wrong in my approach ? What do you advise ?
Thanks for reading.
I have personally done variations of a number of angular apps, varying from SPA with 50K+ views to simply using angular as an extension of basic javascript for useful testing and modularization.
The answer to your question isn't actually all that technical but more has to do with the nature of your application and team (You're essentially trying to pick what type of screwdriver to use). As what you're trying to do is feasible on both the client and server side.
Important questions to ask:
Is your team more comfortable in Rails or Angular
How dynamic are your web pages expected to be
What browsers are you supporting
Is there a requirement for data latency and communication with the server
Are you also going to be reusing the server API for other applications
These questions will drive you towards use of Angular or Rails or the combination of the technologies to find the balance.
The routing mechanism in angular is only within a single window object.
If you have two windows you will have two angular applications. If you want to communicate between the windows object angular does not provide any special mechanism further than standard HTML and javascript.
I don't know what is the better approach for you, that depends in your business requirements and constraints.
Related
I am a Fullstack web-developer which also wants to create SPAs (single-page-applications). So I was wondering what is the best way for the client (browser for example) to communicate data with the server without the page reloading or having multiple pages for different parts of the website? I want to create dynamic websites as well as use that knowledge for mobile web apps later on. And instead of the old way of sending data and returning it with a response, what could be a more dynamic and better way of doing this?
It can be reached in many ways but I would recommend you to take a look to websocket protocol. If you want to build it from scratch, socketio could be a good option. If you want build it with a framework, there are some of them that use websocket, for example feather.js, for reactive rest apis, or meteor, that is more powerful and complex.
I recommend you use Angular 6 where you will be able to use component-based application, each page or part of the page is denoted by a component, you can then bootstrap your app to integrate all components for dynamically built app, it does not require page loading (post-back loading). angular 6
So I just spent the past 5 hours reading up on Angular JS. It seems like a lot of people are heavily associating this framework to single page applications especially when accommodated with a back-end MVC framework with nice API usage like Ruby on Rails or Laravel.
I have 2 main questions that have been boggling me:
How do you initialize such apps considering that the content is
dynamic in nature. When using something like RoR/Laravel, I'd prepare
the HTML with the dynamic data at the back-end and then serve the
initial pages. It seems like most people using Angular serve up a
basic skeleton of the HTML and then do a round trip to web server
again for some data. Is this really how its done? if not, please
suggest a the right way.
Secondly, I dont think I am about to embark on a project with a
single paged application in mind. Does that mean it would be overkill
to use AngularJS for my project. Does anyone have a use case that
they think is appropriate that would require AngularJS with non
single page application that jQuery cant handle easily?
we like to build a new web application. The requiremts are to provide portlet like "windows" in the browser, where each window could show content from different backends like a CMS, Business Data,...
The web app should be a Sing Page Application.
Currently we plan to build the web application with multiple REST based backends and a Javascript frontend framework like Angularjs, Angular 2 or React..
So here my questions:
Do you think that's possible with these techniques? Or do you think we need some kind of PortalServer?
One goal would be, to deliver some kind of API to the developers, where different developers could simpley create new portlets, without editing in one big html file. (So the developers should deliver only a partial html file which is rendered into a portlet.)
Would that be posible?
If you think, this will be posible, could you provide me link to some sample apps, which do this? And which JS framework would you prefer to take?
Many thanks for your help, and if the questions are to unspecific, feel free to tell me, to give you more input!
Regards,
Markus
I think this could be done (without a portlet container), not easily though.
First of all the Javascript Framework choice is important.
I am not an expert in Angular 2, but I think this could be the perfect choice. Why? Because in Angular 2 you have modules, where you encapsulate all the logic/dependencies/view, so this might mapp perfectly to your "portlet/window" approach.
No need to edit any HTML file, you just add the Angular 2 component each time you want to add a new portlet.
You could also try Angular 1.x and implement each "portlet" as a directive, giving the template as a parameter, as well as the depencies, so the developer could customize each portlet.
You can get the windows user experiencie with Javascript, even with Jquery
http://jqueryui.com/sortable/#portlets
so this is manageable.
Good luck
I've built a REST API backend using Django and am now at the stage of designing a client facing frontend. Though, I can't seem to understand how this client frontend should be structured and which languages it should use.
PHP is server-side, and is usually used as the language for building backends. When coupled with a framework such as Codeigniter, it can also be used to play around with sessions, route URLs, and decide which templates to use. Though, I don't believe it can be used to call my REST API to fetch resources (might be wrong here, correct me please if I am).
Javascript is client facing but is used only once the webpage has been fetched from the server. AngularJS is great, but from what I've read, it seems it only helps add very dynamic functionality into already rendered static pages.
I am really open to any ideas, suggestions, and advice based on your experiences creating client frontends. So, back to my original question, how does one structure a REST client frontend, which language is best for this goal, and if which frameworks should one consider to use?
Update 1
Someone asked whether this client frontend will be run in a browser -- the answer is yes, it will. I am trying to build a Twitter-like web client frontend that interacts with a Twitter-like REST API backend. Basically, everything you see there when you go on Twitter's website.
Since it is a browser frontend I would go with HTML/JavaScript only. No need to use PHP or any server side language IMHO. This has the advantage of being extremely portable.
I would also use a JS framework for that purpose ( the trend nowadays seems to be angular).
REST really, really isn't new. It's been a part of HTTP at least as far back as HTTP 1.1
Have a look at this question: Backbone.js frontend with RESTful Rails backend? the top answer lists 20 possible frameworks for building a front end.
Thanks for your help, everyone. Found exactly what I was looking for here:
http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/
A nice little library for Python that allows me to basically make calls to a REST backend from within a Django application, which serves as my frontend.
AngularJS will also be used for to make the static pages that Django returns more dynamic. Why? Because AngularJS by itself can be the complete solution only if your whole site consists of one page. If you have multiple pages where each one has it's own set of dynamic elements, you need a combination of Django and AngularJS.
Apparently REST is still quite new and it seems there aren't many people that have stumbled upon this very fundamental question like I have.
Once again, thanks!
We currently have an asp.net webforms web application, which needs updating in terms of look and speed. I think its time to redevelop it and was thinking about creating a webApi and change the website to asp mvc. But then i started using AngularJS and loved it, now i am thinking about redeveloping our site using AngularJs and a webApi.
Am i right in thinking that using AngularJs + ASP MVC is pointless, as they are nearly the same thing (although 1 is clientside and 1 is server side)
Also i have a couple questions about using angularJs on a website.
On the mobile apps that i have used angularJS i have used the routeProvider and stateProvider to change the page. This adds #/SOMETHING to the url and angular loads the correct content accordingly. Does this work ok with search engines like google?
Should the whole web application be 1 app within angular, or should it be broken down into app modules and each be a separate "app", even though it is 1 website? I am wondering about performance. Say i have a website where the user can look at companies, contacts, projects. Each module may have 10 different pages, can angular handle this? In our app we would have over 20 modules, each with maybe 10 pages+.
Is this something i should avoid? Would ASP MVC + webApi be better?
Any other views and opinions are greatly welcome, i want to get as much information as possible before making my decision and developing.
Thanks in advance
Let me try to address some of your concerns.
ASP.Net Partial views can still be used even if you decide to use AngularJS and WebAPI. Have a server view has some advantages. For example if your view has element that are only accessible to authorize users in a specific role, then better to not emit that view content from server, rather than hiding it on client side using AngularJS.
I have not done mobile development using AngularJS so i cannot answer your bullet point 1. But as far as SEO goes every client side framework has the same challenge. Google SEO techniques for Angular and you may find something interesting.
Regarding bullet 2, all depends. Multiple SPA apps can be created if the functionality is tangential. For example user side of app and admin side of the app can be different SPA but they can be a single SPA too. I think it all depends upon on scenario and there is no hard and fast rule.
For bullet 3, this is too broad question. I can only say AngularJS is a very capable framework and can do everything that MVC+ WebApi can achieve. There is a learning curve involved and it takes some time to do stuff the Angular way but i believe it is well worth.