scaleApp is a tiny JavaScript framework for scalable One-Page-Applications / Single-Page-Applications. The framework allows you to easily create complex web applications.
You can dynamically start and stop/destroy modules that acts as small parts of your whole application.
scaleApp is based on a decoupled, event-driven architecture that is inspired by the talk of Nicholas C. Zakas - "Scalable JavaScript Application Architecture" (Slides). There also is a little Article that describes the basic ideas.
A module is a completely independent part of your application. It has absolutely no reference to another piece of the app. The only thing the module knows is the sandbox. The sandbox is used to communicate with other parts of the application.
The main purpose of the sandbox is to use the facade pattern. In that way you can hide the features provided by the core and only show a well defined (static) API to your modules. For each module a separate sandbox will be created.
The core is responsible for starting and stopping your modules. It also handles the messages by using the Publish/Subscribe (Mediator) pattern
Plugins can extend the core or the sandbox with additional features. For example you could extend the core with basic functionalities (like DOM manipulation) or just aliases the features of a base library (e.g. jQuery).
- loose coupling of modules
- small (about 300 sloc / 9k min / 3.5k gz)
- no dependencies
- modules can be tested separately
- replacing any module without affecting other modules
- extendable with plugins
- browser and Node.js support
- flow control
- AMD & CommonJS support
- framework-agnostic
scaleApp itself is very small but it can be extended with plugins. There already are some plugins available:
mvc
- simple MVCi18n
- multi language UIspermission
- take care of method accessstate
- Finite State Machinesubmodule
- cascade modulesdom
- DOM manipulationstrophe
- XMPP communicationmodulestate
- event emitter forinit
anddestroy
util
- helper methods likemixin
,uniqueId
etc.ls
- list modules, instances & plugins
You can easily define your own plugin (see plugin section).
There are some API changes in version 0.4.x (see Changelog). Docs for v0.3.9 can be found within the tar/zip file.
git clone git://github.com/flosse/scaleApp.git
Link scaleApp.min.js
in your HTML file:
<script src="scaleApp.min.js"></script>
If you're going to use it with node:
npm install scaleapp --save
var sa = require("scaleapp");
or use bower:
bower install scaleapp
First of all create a new core instance:
var core = new scaleApp.Core();
core.register( "myModuleId", function( sandbox ){
return {
init: function(){ /*...*/ },
destroy: function(){ /*...*/ }
};
});
As you can see the module is a function that takes the sandbox as a parameter
and returns an object that has two functions init
and destroy
(the latter is
optional).
Of course your module can be any usual class with those two functions.
var MyGreatModule = function(sandbox){
return {
init: function(){ alert("Hello world!"); }
destroy: function(){ alert("Bye bye!"); }
};
};
core.register("myGreatModule", MyGreatModule);
The init
function is called by the framework when the module is supposed to
start. The destroy
function is called when the module has to shut down.
You can also init or destroy you module in a asynchronous way:
var MyAsyncModule = function(sandbox){
return {
init: function(options, done){
doSomethingAsync(function(err){
// ...
done(err);
});
},
destroy: function(done){
doSomethingElseAsync(done);
}
};
};
core.register("myGreatModule", MyGreatModule);
core.start("myGreatModule", { done:function(){
alert("now the initialization is done");
}});
After your modules are registered, start your modules:
core
.start( "myModuleId" )
.start( "anOtherModule", function(err){
// 'anOtherModule' is running now
});
You may also want to start several instances of a module:
core.start( "myModuleId", {instanceId: "myInstanceId" } );
core.start( "myModuleId", {instanceId: "anOtherInstanceId" });
All you attach to options
is accessible within your module:
core.register( "mod", function(sandbox){
return {
init: function(opt){
(opt === sandbox.options) // true
(opt.myProperty === "myValue") // true
},
destroy: function(){ /*...*/ }
};
});
core.start("mod", {
instanceId: "test",
options: { myProperty: "myValue" }
});
If all your modules just needs to be instanciated once, you can simply starting them all:
core.start();
To start some special modules at once you can pass an array with the module names:
core.start(["moduleA","moduleB"]);
You can also pass a callback function:
core.start(function(){
// do something when all modules were initialized
});
It's obvious:
core.stop("moduleB");
core.stop(); // stops all running instances
If the module needs to communicate with others, you can use the emit
and
on
methods.
The emit
function takes three parameters whereas the last one is optional:
topic
: the channel name you want to emit todata
: the data itselfcb
: callback method
The emit function is accessible through the sandbox:
sandbox.emit( "myEventTopic", myData );
You can also use the shorter method alias emit
.
A message handler could look like this:
var messageHandler = function( data, topic ){
switch( topic ){
case "somethingHappend":
sandbox.emit( "myEventTopic", processData(data) );
break;
case "aNiceTopic":
justProcess( data );
break;
}
};
... and it can listen to one or more channels:
sub1 = sandbox.on( "somthingHappend", messageHandler );
sub2 = sandbox.on( "aNiceTopic", messageHandler );
Or just do it at once:
sandbox.on({
topicA: cbA,
topicB: cbB,
topicC: cbC
});
You can also subscribe to several channels at once:
sandbox.on(["a", "b"], cb);
If you prefer a shorter method name you can use the alias on
.
A subscription can be detached and attached again:
sub.detach(); // don't listen any more
sub.attach(); // receive upcoming messages
You can unsubscribe a function from a channel
sandbox.off("a-channel", callback);
And you can remove a callback function from all channels
sandbox.off(callback);
Or remove all subscriptions from a channel:
sandbox.off("channelName");
var task1 = function(next){
setTimeout(function(){next(null, "one");},0);
};
var task2 = function(next){
next(null, "two");
};
scaleApp.util.runSeries([task1, task2], function(err, results){
// result is ["one", "two"]
});
var task1 = function(next){
setTimeout(function(){
next(null, "one", "two");
},0);
};
var task2 = function(res1, res2, next){
// res1 is "one"
// res2 is "two"
next(null, "yeah!");
};
scaleApp.util.runWaterfall([task1, task2], function(err, result){
// result is "yeah!"
});
There are some plugins available within the plugins
folder.
For more information look at the
plugin README.
A single plugin can be registered with it option object in that way:
core.use(plugin,options);
If you want to register multiple plugins at once:
core.use([
plugin1,
plugin2,
{ plugin: plugin3, options: options3 }
]);
It's easy:
core.use(function(core){
core.helloWorld = function(){ alert("helloWorld"); };
};
Here a more complex example:
core.use(function(core, done){
// extend the core
core.myCoreFunction = function(){ alert("Hello core plugin") };
core.myBoringProperty = "boring";
// extend the sandbox class
core.Sandbox.prototype.myMethod = function( /*...*/);
// define a method that gets called when a module starts
var onModuleInit = function(instanceSandbox, options, done){
// e.g. define sandbox methods dynamically
if (options.mySwitch){
instanceSandbox.appendFoo = function(){
core.getContainer.append("foo");
};
}
// or load a something asynchronously
core.myAsyncMethod(function(data){
// do something...
// now tell scaleApp that you're done
done();
});
};
// define a method that gets called when a module stops
var onModuleDestroy = function(done){
myCleanUpMethod(function(){
done()
});
};
// don't forget to return your methods
return {
init: onModuleInit,
destroy: onModuleDestroy
};
});
core.use(function(core){
core.Sandbox = function(core, instanceId, options){
var foo = function(){ /* ... */ };
var myEmit = function(channel, data){
core.emit(channel + '/' + instanceId, data);
};
// return your own public API
return {
foo: foo,
emit: myEmit
};
};
});
Usage:
core.myCoreFunction() // alerts "Hello core plugin"
var MyModule = function(sandbox){
init: function(){ sandbox.appendFoo(); }, // appends "foo" to the container
};
If you want scaleApp bundled with special plugins type
grunt custom[:PLUGIN_NAME]
e.g. cake custom:dom:mvc
creates the file scaleApp.custom.js
that
contains scaleApp itself the dom plugin and the mvc plugin.
scaleApp.VERSION
- the current version of scaleAppscaleApp.Mediator
- the Mediator classscaleApp.Sandbox
- the Sandbox classscaleApp.Core
- the Core class
// use default sandbox
var core = new scaleApp.Core();
// use your own sandbox
var core = new scaleApp.Core(yourSandboxClass);
core.register(moduleName, module, options)
- register a modulecore.use(plugin, options)
- register a plugincore.use(pluginArray)
- registers an array of pluginscore.boot(callback)
- initialize plugins (will be executed automatically on ´start´)core.start(moduleId, options, callback)
- start a modulecore.stop(instanceId, callback)
- stop a module
// create a mediator
var mediator = new scaleApp.Mediator();
// create a mediator with a custom context object
var mediator = new scaleApp.Mediator(context);
// create a mediator with cascaded channels
var mediator = new scaleApp.Mediator(null, true);
mediator.emit(channel, data, callback)
mediator.on(channel, callback, context)
mediator.off(channel, callback)
mediator.installTo(context)
// subscribe
var subscription = mediator.on(channel, callback, context);
subscription.detach
- stop listeningsubscription.attach
- resume listening
var sandbox = new scaleApp.Sandbox(core, instanceId, options)` - create a Sandbox
sandbox.emit
ismediator.emit
sandbox.on
ismediator.on
sandbox.off
ismediator.off
- added a
Core
class that can be instantiated (var core = new scaleApp.Core();
) - new plugin API (
scaleApp.plugins.register
moved tocore.use
)- support asynchronous plugins
- added
boot
method to initialize asynchronous plugins
- changed API
startAll()
is nowstart()
stopAll()
is nowstop()
- the API is now chainable (e.g.
core.use(X).register("foo",bar).start("foo")
) - removed
setInstanceOptions
- removed
unregister
andunregisterAll
- dropped
subscribe
,unsubscribe
andpublish
from Mediator API (useon
,off
andemit
instead) - the methods
lsModules
,lsInstances
,lsPlugins
moved to thels
plugin - the
destroy
method of a module is now optional - the
callback
property of the start option object was removed. Use themodulestate
plugin instead
- plugins
- new
submodule
plugin - improved
permission
andi18n
- new
modulestate
plugin to emit events on module state changes
- new
- cleaner code
Mediator
: do not clone objects any more (do it manually instead)- test with mocha, chai, sinon, karma and PhantomJS instead of buster.js
- grunt as build systemt
- added waterfall flow control method
- improved permission plugin
- improved state plugin (thanks to Strathausen)
- added xmpp (stropje.js) plugin
- added a simple clock module
- added bower support
- added this changelog
- bug fixes
- added support for async. callback of the
publish
method - added amd support
- bug fixes
- added permission plugin
- ported specs to buster.js
- support for global i18n properties
- support for async. and sync. module initialization
- simpified Mediator code
- bugfixes
- added
lsModules
andlsInstances
- improved README
- run tests with jasmine-node instead of JSTestDriver
- added travis testing
- improved README
- bugfixes
- improved Mediator
- ported to Coffee-Script
- removed jQuery dependency
- bugfixes
- improvements
- first release
npm test
WARNING: the demo is totally out of date!
You can try out the sample application that is build on scaleApp. Also have a look at the source code.
scaleApp is licensed under the MIT license. For more information have a look at LICENCE.txt.