Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
107 lines (78 loc) · 3.84 KB

README.md

File metadata and controls

107 lines (78 loc) · 3.84 KB
Raw

Overview

Jive is a MVC-ish web framework that runs completely in the browser. Like other MVC frameworks, it employs the use of models, controllers, and views (templates).

Jive uses jQuery to make DOM work less painful. If you don't know jQuery, you should. In fact, go there now and play with it. It's fun.

Jive is currently pretty alpha stuff. It's also developed by someone who does not claim expert status in Javascript, so be gentle on the pedantic stuff. Suggestions welcome, though.

Why Another Framework?

Jive is special because it exists wholly in Javascript. Most web frameworks are mostly server-side. Jive runs entirely within a single HTML file and still manages to provide an MVC-ish environment for the discerning programmer.

For data storage, Jive can make use of HTML5 DOM storage. If you need something more centralized/secure, you can make AJAX calls to a server-side backend of your choice. Since the backend only has to facilitate data management, it can be as simple as a data model with a thin RESTful dispatch layer.

You can also integrate Jive in pretty much any other server-side framework out there. Use Jive inside a view within your existing framework, and it can act as the governing framework for a complex web interface. Since it can run entirely within an HTML file, it doesn't get in the way of your boring server-side framework.

Jive tries to stay lightweight. It is easy to mix in other libraries to add functionality.

Contrived Examples

To view examples, look in the surprisingly-named "examples" directory.

  • Example 1: Hello World
    • Very simple while still illustrating the use of a Jive controller.
    • Renders content to the browser using basic template variable substitution.
  • Example 2
    • Shows use of the request object to retrieve action arguments.
    • Renders a template from an external URL.
  • Example 3
    • Shows how to submit a form through Jive and process the data.
  • Example 4
    • After running ex3, you saw that clicking the back button didn't work when you wanted to get back to the form.
    • Use history breadcrumbs (@ prefix) in front of controller/action calls when you want to be able to use the Back button to return to it later.
  • Example 5
    • Shows use of the base controller/model classes provided by Jive
    • Uses the base model's data validation routine.
    • Shows how multiple controllers coexist.

Real Life Examples

These programs are fully-functional, but not necessarily "production-grade." The user interfaces are probably a bit rough, but the apps illustrate the flexibility of Jive.

View the source code of these sites to see how Jive can be used.

  • Javascript Reference
    • A basic programmer's reference tool for the Javascript core language.
    • Uses a single XML file as the data source.
    • Note: The reference is useful, albeit incomplete. You won't find XMLHttpRequest in there, for example.
  • Twilight
    • A very simple Twitter client.
    • Lets you categorize all the people you're following, placing them into specific lists or "panels". This lets you manage the flow of information more easily, so infrequent twitterers' tweets are not drowned out by the more proflific ones.
    • Currently uses DOM storage, so there is no backend at all. This means your settings may be lost if your DOM storage goes bye-bye.
  • Coming Soon: Fiasco
    • A simple bug tracker with additional collab features.

See Also

Here are some Javascript frameworks that are much more featureful and mature.

Doc TODO

  • Events, Hooks

  • Base controller and model; validation, etc

  • Jive.store

  • Idioms