PS-RACTIVE-ROUTER

This is a small module implementing a router to be used in RactiveJS applications. The routing management is implemented using the awesome PageJS module.

If you ever wanted to build a client-side application with ractive and needed a router system to help with client navigation, this module may help you.

This module plays with three main components:

• BaseApp: Your application entry point must extend this component
• BasePage: Every main view of your application must extend this component
• RouterManager: This is a helper which provides a navigation function when you need to navigate explicitly

ps-ractive-router can be used from your code globally or with amd or commonjs dependecy formats. If you use requirejs, define the path to Ractive with capital 'R' (Ractive).

There's a DEMO REPO where you can find a simple application implemented with this module to demonstrate how to use this library.
The application implemented in that repo can be visited live HERE.

IMPORTANT: This module is intented to be used by users who already know Ractive. If you haven't used that awesome library, you should check its tutorials site first and read its documentation.

Getting started

Install this module using NPM:

npm install ps-ractive-router --save

or Bower:

bower install ps-ractive-router --save

Your main application module must inherit BaseApp component. This is just a Ractive instance with some routing management logic. You must call BaseApp.extend to inherit from this module. The function accepts and configuration object you can populate with every single Ractive instance property and some custom attributes you can check below.

(function(APP) {
    'use strict';
 
    var BaseApp = PSRR.BaseApp,
        templates = APP.plugins.templates,
        routesConfiguration = APP.config.routes;
 
    BaseApp.extend({
        el: '#app',
        template: templates.getTemplate('app-tpl'),
        routesConfiguration: routesConfiguration,
        onBeforeNavigation: function() {
            this.set('loading', true);
        },
        onNavigationDone: function() {
            window.scrollTo(0, 0);
            this.set('loading', false);
        },
        showError: function(message, err) {
            console.log('What an error!!!', err.stack);
            this.set('errorMsg', message);
            setTimeout(function() {
                this.set('errorMsg', null);
            }.bind(this), 2500);
        },
        data: {
            loading: false
        }
    });
 
}(window.PodcasterApp));

This is an example template for the app:

<div>
    <div class="header clearfix">
        <h3 class="text-muted">
            <a href="/">
                Podcaster
            </a>
            <div class="spinner {{^loading}}hidden{{/}}">
                <div class="double-bounce1"></div>
                <div class="double-bounce2"></div>
            </div>
        </h3>
    </div>
 
    <div class="main-content">
        <Router />
    </div>
</div>

Notice the Router element component. This is the placeholder where the module will insert your page views in the template upon user navigation.

API

Here's a detailed description of each component:

BaseApp

This is the boilerplate component for your main application instance.

extend(options)

This function creates a Ractive instance which will hold your main application instance.

Arguments:

• options {Object}: All Ractive instances options plus these ones:
  • routesConfiguration {Object} (required): This is an object where its keys are pagejs like paths and values are the functions that should be onvoked upon navigation. More details below.
  • onBeforeNavigation {Function}: Callback to be invoked when a navigation has been requested
  • onNavigationDone {Function}: Callback to be invoked when a navigation has completed
  • showError {Function}: Callback to be fired when a navigation handler throws an error. Arguments:
    • message {String}: Error message
    • error {Error}: The error object
  • pagejsConfig {Object}: Underlying router engine configuration. Check all available options here.

BasePage

Your page view components should extend this one to allow easy navigation between your views.

extend(options)

This function creates a Ractive Component that will represent your page views.

Arguments:

• options {Object}: All Ractive component options plus these ones:
  • name {String} (required): The name for this component.
  • onRequestDone {Function}: This function will be invoked when your view page its about to be rendered upon navigation. Arguments: - request: This parameter represents the request object which required this page component to be rendered: - locals {Object}: Data provided by the navigation handler to populate this view. If you use navTo function from RouterManager (explained below) and provide some data to it, that data will be merged with the other coming from the router handler. - params {Object}: Request URL query string parameters
  • events {Object}: This is an object with the events your component should listen to. Keys are the names of the events and values are its handlers.

RouterManager

This component can be used if you need to explicitly navigate from one of your functions.

navTo(url, state)

Forces a client-side navigation.

Arguments:

• url {String} (required): The URL the app must navigate to.
• state {Object}: Data you need to associate to this navigation (will be available in the navigation handler).

Router configuration

When you create your application instance, you need to provide an object with the routing mapping. Every key in the object represents the path you want to intercept and its value is the navigation handler. The handler will be invoked when the router engine detects a navigation request. Every handler will be called with this parameters:

• context {Object}:
• next(error, pageComponent, data) {Function}: You must call this function when you're ready to display your page view. Here you will perform the logic to fetch data needed to populate your view.
  • err {Error}: If there's an error processing your logic inside this handler, you must call this function passing the error as the first parameter.
  • pageComponent {Object}: You must provide the page view component class the app must show when navigating to this route (an extension of BasePage).
  • data {Object}: Here you pass the data your page view component will receive in its onRequestDone callback.