Evolutility.js
Evolutility provides a set of generic Backbone Views to browse, edit, filter, export and chart Backbone models and collections of different structures. With it you can make web applications by configuring views with metadata instead of hand-coding templates, Javascript and CSS.
This version of Evolutility uses your browser localstorage to store its data. The server-side RESTful API is a work in progress at Evolutility-server using Node.js, Express, and Postgres.
Demo apps
Sample Single Page Apps made with Evolutility: To Do list, AddressBook, Wine Cellar, Graphic Novels.
Installation
You can use NPM to install Evolutility as an npm package:
# To get the latest stable version, use npm from the command line.
npm install evolutilityYou can also use Bower to install Evolutility.
# To get the latest stable version, use Bower from the command line.
bower install evolutility
# To get the most recent, latest committed-to-master version use:
bower install evolutility#master... or download it from GitHub.
Views
Evolutility's views have a Backbone model (to define the data) and also a UI-model (to define the UI to display the data and interact with it).
All views for a Backbone model and collection share a single UI-Model which defines of all UI elements across views in a simple declarative way.
Evolutility provides 3 types of view
- Views for a model: Browse, Edit, Mini (quick edit), JSON.
- Views for a collection: List, Cards, Bubbles, Charts.
- Views for actions on a model or collection: Filter, Export, Import.
A large part of the API (methods, options and events) is common to all views. Some views have additional API.
Views for One model
Browse
Shows all fields for viewing (read only). Fields are grouped in panels and tabs.
var vw = new Evol.ViewOne.Browse({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
model: myModel
});Edit
This view shows all fields for edition to create or update models. It automatically performs validation based on the UI-model and supports the Master-Details pattern (nested collections). Fields are grouped in panels and tabs.
var vw = new Evol.ViewOne.Edit({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
model: myModel
});Mini
Used for quick edits. Only shows important fields (required or showing as a column in grids). Fields are grouped in a single panel.
var vw = new Evol.ViewOne.Mini({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
model: myModel
});JSON
JSON representation of the data.
var vw = new Evol.ViewOne.JSON({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
model: myModel
});Views for a collection of Many models
List
Gives a tabular view of a collection with paging.
var vw = new Evol.ViewMany.List({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
collection: myCollection
});Cards
Shows records side by side as cards.
var vw = new Evol.ViewMany.Cards({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
collection: myCollection
});Bubbles
The "Bubbles" view displays the data as bubbles with controls to group them and set their color and size (this view uses D3.js). A tooltip with the Card view of the item show on mouse over.
var vw = new Evol.ViewMany.Bubbles({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
collection: myCollection
});Charts
Draws charts about the collection.
var vw = new Evol.ViewMany.Charts({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
collection: myCollection
});Views for Actions
Backbone Views for actions on a collection or a model.
Filter
View used to build a structured query to filter a collection.
var vw = new Evol.ViewAction.Filter({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel
});Export
View to define export options and preview the collection export in different data formats (CSV, TAB, HTML, XML, SQL and JSON).
var vw = new Evol.ViewAction.Export({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
collection: myCollection
});Import
View to import data from a CSVor JSON file. It is a work in progress.
var vw = new Evol.ViewAction.Import({
el: myElement,
uiModel: myUIModel,
collection: myCollection
});Live demo of these views.
UI-model
Views are not defined in templates but configured with a UI-model using a vocabulary with words like "field", "panel" and "tab" rather than "INPUT" and "DIV" to describe UI elements.
Here is the UI-model used to configure all views for the "Graphic Novels" app demo:
Try it now: Download Evolutility.JS, make modification to the demo UI-models by adding and modifying fields and panels and see the demo apps become your apps.
var uiModels_comics = {
id: 'comics',
label: 'Graphic Novels',
name: 'graphic novel serie',
namePlural: 'graphic novel series',
fnTitle: 'title',
fnBadge: function(m){
var hNb=m.get('haveNb'),
sNb=m.get('serieNb');
return (hNb==sNb)?hNb:hNb+'/'+sNb;
},
elements: [
{
type: 'panel', label: 'Serie', width: 70,
elements: [
{
id: 'title', attribute: 'title', type: 'text',
label: 'Title', required: true,
maxLength: 255,
width: 62, inMany: true
},
{
id: 'genre', attribute: 'genre', type: 'lov',
label: 'Genre', width: 38, inMany: true,
list: [
{id: 'adv', text: 'Adventure'},
{id: 'conte', text: 'Fairy tale'},
{id: 'eros', text: 'Erotic'},
{id: 'fantasy', text: 'Fantastic'},
{id: 'hf', text: 'Heroic Fantasy'},
{id: 'hist', text: 'Historic'},
{id: 'humor', text: 'Humor'},
{id: 'nocat', text: 'One of a kind'},
{id: 'youth', text: 'Youth'},
{id: 'pol', text: 'Thriller'},
{id: 'sf', text: 'Science-fiction'},
{id: 'sh', text: 'Super Heros'},
{id: 'wwest', text: 'Western'}
]
},
{
id: 'authors', attribute: 'authors', type: 'text',
label: 'Authors', width: 62, inMany: true
},
{
id: 'language', attribute: 'language', type: 'lov',
label: 'Language', width: 38, inMany: false,
list: [
{id: 'FR', text: 'French'},
{id: 'EN', text: 'English'}
]
},
{
id: 'serie_nb', attribute: 'serie_nb', type: 'integer',
label: 'Albums', width: 15, inMany: false,
inCharts: false
},
{
id: 'have_nb', attribute: 'have_nb', type: 'integer',
label: 'Owned', width: 15, inMany: false,
inCharts:false
},
{
id: 'have', attribute: 'have', type: 'text',
label: 'have', width: 32, inMany: false
},
{
id: 'complete', attribute: 'complete', type: 'boolean',
label: 'Complete', width: 19, inMany: true,
labelFalse:'Incomplete', labelTrue:'Complete'
},
{
id: 'finished', attribute: 'finished', type: 'boolean',
label: 'Finished', width: 19, inMany: true,
labelTrue:'Finished', labelFalse:'Unfinished', css:'cBlue'
},
{
id:'amazon', type:'formula',
label:'Amazon', width:100, css:'evol-ellipsis',
formula:function(m){
var urlData=m.get('title')+' '+m.get('authors'),
link=m.get('language')=='FR' ?
'http://www.amazon.fr/s/ref=sr_nr_n_1?keywords='
:'http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=';
return '<a target="a" href="'+link+encodeURI(urlData)+'">'+
_.escape(urlData)+'</a>';
}
},
{
id: 'notes', attribute: 'notes', type: 'textmultiline',
label: 'Notes', maxLength: 1000,
width: 100, height: 6, inMany: false
}
]
},
{
type: 'panel', label: 'Cover', width: 30,
elements: [
{
id: 'pix', attribute: 'pix', type: 'image',
label: 'Cover', width: 100, inMany: true
}
]
}
]
};See UI-Model documentation for the UI vocabulary available (structure of UI-models or metamodel).
UI-Models for the demo apps: To Do list, AddressBook, Wine Cellar, Graphic Novels.
Stack and dependencies
Javascript, HTML5, CSS3, Backbone.js, Underscore.js, jQuery, D3.js, Bootstrap, Bootstrap-datepicker, Select2, Toastr.
Note: For convenience, all dependencies are minified together in a single file "dependencies.min.js". The dependencies list is specified in "Gruntfile.js".
Documentation
The (beginning of a) documentation is in progress: ui-models and views.
Previous incarnation
Evolutility.js is a re-write of Evolutility generic CRUD UI for ASP.net.
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Olivier Giulieri.
Evolutility.js is released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 GNU AGPLv3.