Simplify.Web

Simplify.Web is an open-source, lightweight, fast, and highly customizable server-side .NET web framework based on ASP.NET Core for building HTTP-based web applications, RESTful APIs, etc.

The framework can be used as:

• An API backend framework
• A mix of API backend + SPA front end (e.g., Angular)
• A traditional backend-generated website

Can be hosted:

• The same way as an ASP.NET Core MVC application (on IIS or as a console application)
• Inside a Windows service

Main features

• Comes as Microsoft.AspNetCore middleware
• Can be used as an API backend only with front-end frameworks
• Based on MVC and MVVM patterns
• Lightweight & fast
• Uses a switchable IoC container for itself and controllers, views constructor injection (Simplify.DI)
• Supports async controllers
• Supports controllers which can run on any request
• Localization-friendly (supports templates, strings, and data files localization by default)
• Uses a fast template engine (Simplify.Templates)
• Mocking-friendly
• Mono-friendly

Quick start

There is a templates package available at nuget.org for Simplify.Web. It contains a couple of templates which can be a good starting point for your application.

Install the templates package:

dotnet new -i Simplify.Web.Templates

Template	Short Name
Angular template	sweb.angular
API template	sweb.api
Minimal template	sweb.minimal
Windows service hosted API template	sweb.api.windowsservice

Use the short name to create a project based on the selected template:

dotnet new sweb.angular -n HelloWorldApplication

Then just run the project via F5 (it will download all required NuGet and npm packages at the first build).

Detailed documentation

API outgoing JSON controller v2 example

[Get("api/v1/weatherTypes")]
public class SampleDataController : Controller2
{
    private static readonly string[] Summaries =
    {
        "Freezing", "Bracing", "Chilly", "Cool", "Mild", "Warm", "Balmy", "Hot", "Sweltering", "Scorching"
    };

    public ControllerResponse Invoke()
    {
        try
        {
            return Json(Summaries);
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(e);

            return StatusCode(500);
        }
    }
}

API ingoing JSON controller v2 example

[Post("api/v1/sendMessage")]
public class SampleDataController : Controller2<SampleModel>
{
    public ControllerResponse Invoke()
    {
        try
        {
            Trace.WriteLine($"Object with message received: {Model.Message}");

            return NoContent();
        }
        catch (Exception e) when (e is ModelValidationException || e is Newtonsoft.Json.JsonException)
        {
            return StatusCode(400, e.Message);
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(e);

            return StatusCode(500, "Site error!");
        }
    }
}

public class SampleModel
{
    [Required]
    public string Message { get; set; }
}

Simple HTML generation controllers example

Static page controller v1 example

// Controller will be executed only on HTTP GET request like http://mysite.com/about
[Get("about")]
public class AboutController : Controller
{
    public override ControllerResponse Invoke()
    {
        // About.tpl content will be inserted into {MainContent} in Master.tpl
        return StaticTpl("Static/About", StringTable.PageTitleAbout);
    }
}

Any page controller v1 with high run priority example

Runs on any request and adds a login panel to pages.

// Controller will be executed on any request and will be launched before other controllers (because they have Priority = 0 by default)
[Priority(-1)]
public class LoginPanelController : AsyncController
{
    public override async Task<ControllerResponse> Invoke()
    {
        return Context.Context.Authentication.User == null
            // Data from GuestPanel.tpl will be inserted into {LoginPanel} in Master.tpl
            ? new InlineTpl("LoginPanel", await TemplateFactory.LoadAsync("Shared/LoginPanel/GuestPanel"))
            // Data from LoggedUserPanelView will be inserted into {LoginPanel} in Master.tpl
            : new InlineTpl("LoginPanel", await GetView<LoggedUserPanelView>().Get(Context.Context.Authentication.User.Identity.Name));
    }
}

View example

public class LoggedUserPanelView : View
{
    public async Task<ITemplate> Get(string userName)
    {
        // Loading template from LoggedUserPanel.tpl asynchronously
        var tpl = await TemplateFactory.LoadAsync("Shared/LoginPanel/LoggedUserPanel");

        // Setting userName into {UserName} variable in LoggedUserPanel.tpl
        tpl.Add("UserName", userName);

        return tpl;
    }
}

Example applications

Below is the list of sample applications showing different variations of Simplify.Web usage:

• Only as an API backend with Angular + Bootstrap UI SPA
• Kestrel-based application with backend HTML generation, localization, authentication

• Simple Kestrel-based application hosted as a Windows service

Contributing

There are many ways in which you can participate in the project. Like most open-source software projects, contributing code is just one of many outlets where you can help improve. Some of the things that you could help out with are:

• Documentation (both code and features)
• Bug reports
• Bug fixes
• Feature requests
• Feature implementations
• Test coverage
• Code quality
• Sample applications

Related Projects

Additional extensions to Simplify.Web live in their own repositories on GitHub. For example:

• Simplify.Web.Json - JSON serialization/deserialization
• Simplify.Web.Postman - Postman collection and environment generation
• Simplify.Web.Swagger - Swagger generation for controllers
• Simplify.Web.Multipart - multipart form model binder
• Simplify.Web.MessageBox - non-interactive server-side message box
• Simplify.Web.Templates - .NET project templates

License

Licensed under the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.