SSPAF

Simple Single Page Application Framework

The idea here is to create a single page app with modern JavaScript. This is not a full featured framework but is a front end framework. There is no security and is intended for school, sample projects or quick prototypes.

Note this framework will only work on modern browsers

SSPAF is a CLI that will generate the files needed for a node based dev environment.

Installation

$ npm install -g sspaf

Quick Start

Generate the app by running sspaf followed by the folder name of your choice:

$ sspaf foo

Do not forget to enter the folder that was just created

$ cd foo

Quick Start Options

The command $ sspaf <file_name> will generate the base files needed to get started.

If no file name is entered it will just generate the files in the current folder

Use this command for more template options

$ sspaf --help

Option	Short Command	Full Command	Uses
Base Template	-b	--base	Base code no implementation
Crud Template	-c	--crud	Crud base code with no endpoint
Crud with json server Template	-j	--json	Crud base code with json server module(Working endpoint)
Full Demo Template	-d	--demo	Code with highlighted features and examples

The base template is the default option

To use a command just enter

$ sspaf -d foo

Project Start Guide

Once generated you can quickly begin development with the steps below.

Make sure to run the command that will install the dependencies

$ npm install

Now we can start the server with the following command to begin development

$ npm start

All changes made in app_client will picked up and update to the spa.min.js file.

index.html will run on http://localhost:3000/

Documentation

spa.js

This file is the core of the SPA. It's the director and manages the page. Nothing needs to be updated or added unless you would like to add or fix the functionality.

SSPAF supports

• Simple hash navigation
• Query Param handling
• Two way binding
• Auto Form two way binding when changes are made
• Http calls
• Http template calls NEW
• Event Listener binding
• Loading Screen
• Promise based
• Modern use of JavaScript (es6+)
• CSS class binding NEW

After each page is finished loading the spaRouteReady Event is dispatched

spa.views.js

The views are your page templates. When a hash triggers a page the view will be loaded.

The hash name must match the view name.

location #test must have

get home() {
    return Promise.resolve(html)
}

with the mixin extention fetch-html.js there is a feature to call in template HTML files

just the location of the html file

get form() {
    return this.fetchHTML('public/templates/form.html')
} 

Adding Links

Be sure to update the nav links on index.html for global navigation

Bind Info

Adding a data-bind-* attribute to html tags allows the simple framework to maintain the state of your page elements

Here is a list of bind attributes you can add

Attribute	Use
data-bind-model	Model key name
data-bind-callback	Model function called after bind-model update
data-bind-safe	Escape HTML before bind-model
data-bind-input="false"	Ignore two way binding for form fields
data-bind-event	Attach an event listener
data-bind-class	Add or remove class names based on a condition

These are reserved by the framework

Attribute	Use
data-bind-ready	framework has setup watch for element
data-bind-display	Element bind-model value is empty or not empty (visible or hidden)

Bind HTML (data-bind-model)

You can add the data-bind-model attribute to a tag to inject html from the model.

The value of the custom attribute will be tied to the model.dataBindModel object

<p data-bind-model="reviews"></p>

Inside of spa.model.js

this.dataBindModel.reviews = `<strong>Hello World</strong>`

If you would like to do a safe bind just include the attribute data-safe along with the data-bind-model attribute

<p data-bind-model="reviews" data-bind-safe></p>

Display State (data-bind-display)

when you bind HTML to a DOM element it will manage a custom attribute called data-bind-display. This gives you the flexibility to decide how empty DOM elements waiting for a value should be displayed

This attribute can be managed by CSS to either always display or use the visibility: hidden | display: none properties.

The default CSS used in public/style.css

*[data-bind-display=hidden]:not(input):not(select):not(textarea) {    
    opacity: 0;
    transition: opacity 0.3s, visibility 0.3s;
    visibility: hidden;
}
*[data-bind-display=visible]:not(input):not(select):not(textarea) {    
    opacity: 1;
    transition: opacity 0.3s, visibility 0.3s;
    visibility: visible;
}

DOM Events (data-bind-event)

Events can also be binded to html tags with the custom attribute data-bind-event like so

<input type="text" name="author" data-bind-event="keyup:updateAuthor" />

or

<input type="button" value="submit" data-bind-event="click:saveReviews" />

The first value is the event followed by the function to be called from the Model class

data-bind-event="event:function"

Must be a supported event in JavaScript. The function cannot pass any custom paramters but does pass the event object.

You can access the event object to get the target DOM Element.

<button data-id="${row._id}" data-bind-event="click:updatePage">Update</button>

In the spa.model.js file you can write the event like so

updatePage(evt){       
    const params = this.generateUrlParams({id: evt.target.dataset.id})
    window.location.href = `${params}#update` 
    return Promise.resolve()
}

Auto Bind for Input fields on change

All fields with a name attribute will auto bind the name as the key with the changed value to the model.dataBindModel object

Currently only input, select and textarea fields are supported

Other fields can easily be supported by updating the lib/spa.js file; function bindModelText() selectors and update twoWayFormBind() target.matches

<input type="text" name="reviewText" />

model.dataBindModel.reviewText // this value is available by the input[name] attribute

If you wish to ignore this bind either remove the name attribute or the data-bind-model. If it must have a name attribute you may add the following attribute

<input type="text" name="reviewText" data-bind-input="false" />

data-bind-callback

A callback can be used after element bind model has been updated.

The function must be in the Model class. It passes the element as the first parameter

<p data-bind-model="date" data-bind-callback="formatHTML"></p>

Not that the formatDate function is a mixin addon

formatHTML(elem) {
    const data = this.dataBindModel[elem.dataset.bindModel] 
    if ( data && data.length )
    elem.innerHTML = `<p data-bind-model="reviews3"></p> ${this.formatDate(data)}`
    return Promise.resolve()
}

data-bind-class

This allows you to add or remove a class based on a condition. All keys and values must have a single qoute(').

data-bind-class="{'class name' : 'condition'}"

The condition also allows for false states too by adding ! to the condition

data-bind-class="{'class name' : '!condition'}"

<p data-bind-class="{'is-info':'condition', 'is-warning':'!condition'}">Testing</p>

Full example

<p>  <input id="field_terms" type="checkbox" required name="terms">
    <label for="field_terms">I accept the <u>Terms and Conditions</u></label>
</p>
 
<p data-bind-class="{'is-info':'condition', 'is-warning':'!condition'}" class="is-spaced">Class change when the checkbox is checked</p>

The function in the Model class must return a boolean and must be a get variable not a function

get condition() {
    return this.dataBindModel.terms
}

spa.components.js

This file is to place component views that are injected after the page is loaded.

All functions should be static and must return a Promise

Data can be passed and processed to return the html for the view. To be properly injected you must update the dataBindModel from the Model class and also bind the text into the html view.

spa.views.js

<tbody data-bind-model="reviewTable"></tbody>

spa.components.js

static resultsData(data){
    if ( ! Array.isArray(data) ) return Promise.resolve('')
    return Promise.resolve(`${data.map(row=>                                         
                `<tr>
                    <td>${row.author}</td>
                    <td>${row.rating}</td>
                    <td>${row.reviewText}</td>
                    <td><button data-id="${row._id}" data-event="click:deleteReview">Delete</button></td>
                    <td><button data-id="${row._id}" data-event="click:updatePage">Update</button></td>
                </tr>`
            ).join('')}`)
}

spa.model.js

getTodoList() {
        return this.http.get(this.APIS.Todo)
                .then( data => {
                   return Components.todoTable(data).then(html => { return this.dataBindModel.todoTable = html })
                })
    }

spa.model.js

The Model is where all your business logic should be. Functions that will be executed from data-events or values that will be binded with this.dataBindModel are to be handled within the Model class.

Note the this.dataBindModel object resets after a new page is loaded

The Base Model comes with code to store API endpoints, the dataBindModel object, http calls with fetch, and support for url query/search params

Fetch calls

All Fetch calls return the data as a JSON object. The data passed in must be a json object. It will be converted to a payload for a backend service.

Payload Data

const data = {
    author : this.dataBindModel.author,
    rating : this.dataBindModel.rating,
    reviewText : this.dataBindModel.reviewText
}

Functions available

• this.http.get(url)
• this.http.post(url, data)
• this.http.put(url, data)
• this.http.delete(url)

Endpoints

You can add a list of endpoints or json files to the variable this.APIS. Since the endpints are normally static they can be added in the constructor function of spa.model.js

constructor() {
    super()
    this.APIS = {
        Reviews : 'http://localhost:3001/api/v1/reviews/',
        Todo : 'public/todo.json'
    }
}

I recommend if you want to resolve a url with different ports on localhost to use this method instead.

this.APIS = {
    Reviews : `//${window.location.hostname}:3001/api/v1/reviews/`
}

Don't forget to use the back-tick instead of the single quote

URL Query(Search) Params

Search params are known to be ?id=123 that is added to the url. Use the function this.urlParams to get a JS standard new URLSearchParams() object

this.urlParams().get('id')

For more info: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URLSearchParams

To build query/search params use the function this.generateUrlParams(params = {}).
The function takes in a json object of key value pairs.

const params = this.generateUrlParams({id: '123'})

Note that the nav links that are on the index.html page have the query/search params removed on each view update.

Working with dataBindModel

The data model is maintained by each page. So the #home page and the #form page has its own data.

You can set a key with a value like so

this.dataBindModel.author = 'Gabriel'

You can also set multipule values too

this.dataBindModel = {author: 'Gabriel', review: 'Cool Guy'}

if you want to clear all the keys for a page you use the clearDataBindModel() function

The function will know what page you are on and only clear the bind model data on the current page only

add() { 
    this.Model.clearDataBindModel()
    return window.Promise.resolve()
}

Here are some samples on how to create functions.

You can chain your promise functions by returning a value.

Add a .then() after a catch to act as a try, catch, finally

deleteReview(evt) {
    const url = `${this.APIS.Reviews}${evt.target.dataset.id}`
    return this.http.delete(url)
           .then( ()=>{
               return this.dataBindModel.deleteResultMsg = 'Review Deleted'                                
           }).catch( err => {
                return this.dataBindModel.deleteResultMsg = 'Review NOT Deleted'                                 
           }).then( () => {
               return this.getReviews()
           })
}

spa.controller.js

Like the view, each controller function must match the hash name used to generate the page.

location #test must have test() { return Promise }

home() {
    return this.model.getReviews()
}

If the page does not need to process any data from the model before the view is rendered you can simply just do

add() {                   
    return Promise.resolve()
}

A promise must be returned

Mixins

You can extend the functionality of this framework.

To add a function to the framework prototype you can simply do the following:

Object.assign(BaseModel.prototype, {
    redirect(route = window.location.hash.slice(1).split('?')[0], params = {}) {
        const query = this.generateUrlParams(params)
        window.location.assign(`${query}#${route}`)
    }
})

Any files added to the mixins folder of the project will be packed within spa.min.js This should allow for drop n use functionality. With the above example we are extending the Model class. The redirect function will be available within the Model class

Mixins may become a point of conflict if they overwrite native class methods

this.redirect('home')

so this updatePage function:

updatePage(evt){
    const params = this.generateUrlParams({id: evt.target.dataset.id})
    window.location.href = `${params}#update`
    return Promise.resolve()
}

can be rewritten like so

updatePage(evt){
    this.redirect('update',{id: evt.target.dataset.id})
    return Promise.resolve()
}

If you want to skip a default paramater in JS just pass undefined in its place

this.redirect(undefined,{id: evt.target.dataset.id})

More JavaScript Guides

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML/Forms/Form_validation