Explanation needed: WebPack and SSR, how to interop between server and browser

[IngwiePhoenix]

Hello!

I want to build an MVC framework (for my project) which will utilize Webpack for packaging the front-end for the browser, and that one may - or may not - include VueJS already.

Within the README, it is mentioned multiple times, that VueJS will be included off a CDN on the resulting HTML page - and that it can be disabled by setting version: false. However, why exactly is Vue needed in the browser, if the content is sent to the browser as already rendered content? I am personally new to Vue and personally come from Yii1 and Laravel (PHP) where there was barely any front-end needed, as everything was done on the server-side (except if you wanted some fancy additions - i never really used that much JS, except for an AJAX-based chat). So how come a copy of Vue is needed in the client?

Further, how exactly does the backend, prerendered Vue template interoperate with the browser? The state is being created and managed on the server - so, is it transfered to the client at all?

Sorry for asking within an issue ticket, I am not aware of any other discussion/Q&A channel for this project.

Kind regards,
Ingwie!

[choyg]

@IngwiePhoenix SPAs like Vue, React, and Angular render everything using JS. You could choose not to include Vue on the frontend when serverside rendering, but you lose the dynamic nature of SPA frameworks. Things like modals, dropdowns would likely not work.

If you only need to show content without any interaction, then you could get away with not using a SPA framework in the first place.

Initial state is serialized as a JSON object to frontend from the backend server. Any further interoperability has to happen with network calls to the backend or other services.

Let me know if you further questions.