A Day Building Fast, Responsive, Extensible Single Page Applications

A Day Building Fast,
Responsive, Extensible
Single Page Applications
Chris Love
@ChrisLove
Love2Dev.com

Who Am I
• Front-End Web Dev MVP
• ASP Insider
• Internet Explorer User Agent
• Author
• Speaker
• Tweaker, Lover of Web, JavaScript, CSS & HTML5
• @ChrisLove
• https://love2dev.com

Slide Deck & Source Code
• Normal Slide Decks – http://slidesha.re/15YTrTT
• Today’s Slides - http://bit.ly/1m66Hu6
• Source Code – http://GitHub.com/docluv/movies

What Does A Modern
Web App Look Like?
What is Changing the
Definition of the Web?
What Does the Developer
Experience Look Like?

Defining the Modern Web Application

Its Not This
326 Http Requests
23 Style Sheets 80kb
84 Images 587kb
101 External Scripts 806kb
229 Primed Http Requests
76 seconds to fully load
Multiple Unminimized Resources
Speed Index 5949
12+MB of Content
Multiple 404s
Mostly Uncached Content

Performance
• Multiple Studies Show Correlation Between Conversions & Speed
• 57% Will Abandon a Slow Site After 3 Seconds
• We Have to Concentrate 50% Harder For Slow Sites
• 78% Have Felt Stress or Anger With Slow Sites
• 44% Say Slow Sites Make Them Anxious
• 4% Have Thrown Their Phone

Matt Cutts
"Also take a step back for a minute and consider the intent of this
change: a faster web is great for everyone, but especially for users.
Lots of websites have demonstrated that speeding up the user
experience results in more usage. So speeding up your website isn’t
just something that can affect your search rankings–it’s a fantastic
idea for your users.“
http://bit.ly/SPPB4k

Time is Money
• Faster Sites Have Higher Conversion Rates
• WalMart - http://bit.ly/S1fHSZ
• Google – http://bit.ly/WajJbB
• Amazon – http://bit.ly/S3UoAj
• ShopZilla - http://bit.ly/RIQMDM

WalMart
Folks at Walmart knew their pages were slow. As a for instance, initial
measurement showed that an item page took about 24 seconds to
load for the slowest 5% of users. Why? The usual culprits: too many
page elements, slow third-party scripts, multiple hosts (25% of page
content is served by partners, affiliates, and Marketplace), and
various best practice no-nos
http://bit.ly/WajJbB

Google’s ½ Second
Half a second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic. Half a second delay
killed user satisfaction.
The lesson, Marissa said, is that speed matters. People do not like to
wait. Do not make them.
http://bit.ly/TPPhUp

Performance
• Performance Matters
• It Must Be a 1st Class Feature in Any Application
• Not an Afterthought Right Before Deployment
• 80% of Performance Is In the Client, Not the Server
• Cellular Networks Make Page Load Even Tougher
• 500ms Inherent Delay
• Bandwidth Constraints

Modern Web
Applications MUST Load
Fast and Respond Fast

Mobile or Device Fragmentation

The Modern Web Hour Glass
HTML5
JavaScript
CSS3
ASP.NET.IIS
DB – SQL Server/NoSQL

(API + HTML5 + CSS3 + JavaScript +
Standards Compliant Browser) *
(Touch + Mobility + Performance)
=== Great Single Page Application

Introduction to Fluid Layouts
•Morph to Fill The ViewPort Space
•Rely on CSS
• Absolute Positioning

DOCTYPE
Replace This:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
With This:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

DOCTYPE
"DOCTYPEs are required for legacy reasons. When omitted, browsers tend to use
a different rendering mode that is incompatible with some specifications.
Including the DOCTYPE in a document ensures that the browser makes a best-
effort attempt at following the relevant
specifications." http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/syntax.html#the-doctype

Absolute Positioning
.site-header {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
right: 0;
left: 0;
height: 80px;
}

Responsive Web Design
• Introduced by Ethan Marcotte 2010 - bit.ly/178an9e
• Web Design Approach To Create An Optimal Viewing Experience
Across All Browser ViewPorts
• Fluid Layouts
• Media Queries
• Minimal if any JavaScript Required

“this unspoken agreement to pretend that we had a certain size. And
that size changed over the years. For a while, we all sort of tacitly
agreed that 640 by 480 was the right size, and then later than
changed to 800:600, and 1024; we seem to have settled on this 960
pixel as being this like, default. It’s still unknown. We still don’t know
the size of the browser; it’s just like this consensual hallucination that
we’ve all agreed to participate in: “Let’s assume the browser has a
browser width of at least 960 pixels.”
Jeremy Keith
bit.ly/1bhH6rw
Responsive Design

“The emergence of ideas like “responsive design” and “future-friendly
thinking” are in part a response to the collective realization that
designing products that solve one problem in one context at a time is
no longer sustainable. By refocusing our process on systems that are
explicitly designed to adapt to a changing environment, we have an
opportunity to develop durable, long-lasting designs that renew their
usefulness and value over time.”
Wilson Miner
bit.ly/1fbq5lB
Responsive Design

“Any attempt to draw a line around a particular device class has as
much permanence as a literal line in the sand. Pause for a moment
and the line blurs. Look away and it will be gone.
Let’s take the absolute best case scenario. You’re building a web app
for internal users for whom you get to specify what computer is
purchased and used. You can specify the browser, the monitor size,
keyboard, etc.”
Jason Grigsby
bit.ly/KzJH9G
Responsive Design

“How long do you think that hardware will be able to be found? Three
years from now when a computer dies and has to be replaced, what are
the chances that the new monitor will be a touchscreen?
By making a decision to design solely for a “desktop UI”, you are creating
technical debt and limiting the longevity of the app you’re building. You’re
designing to a collective hallucination. You don’t have to have a crystal ball
to see where things are headed.
And once you start accepting the reality that the lines inside form factors
are as blurry as the lines between them, then responsiveness becomes a
necessity.”
Jason Grigsby
bit.ly/KzJH9G
Responsive Design

Mobile First
• Determine The Most Important Information
• Expand From There
• Start Responsive Design Mobile First

Media Queries
@media (min-width:600px) {
/* Rules Here */
}
@media (min-width:800px) {
/* Rules Here */
}

Responsive Design Best Practices
•Start Small Screen First
•Forces Most Important Data First
•Easier to Adjust CSS Rules
•Let Data Drive Media Queries First
•Its Ok to Use Some JavaScript
•But Not Required

Touch Your Application
• Content Must Be Touchable
• Account for Fat Fingers
• Support APIs
• Mouse
• Touch (Apple)
• Pointer (MSFT & W3C)

• The Average Human Finger
is 11mm in Diameter
• Fingers Range from 8mm -
19mm
• Baby to Large Man

• Touch Points Need Margin
• Or Separation From
Neighbors

Touch Gestures
• Pan
• Pinch/Zoom
• Swipe
• Tap
• Tap + Hold
• Rotate

Touch-action
• CSS Property to Help Determine How Touch is Handled
• Auto
• None
• Pan-x
• Pan-y
• Can disable Auto-zoom
• Enable Scrolling

Scrolling Content
overflow: scroll;
-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;
-ms-overflow-style: -ms-autohiding-scrollbar;
-ms-scroll-chaining: none;
-ms-scroll-translation: vertical-to-horizontal;

DeepTissue
• Abstracts Touch & Mouse APIs
• Abstracts Input Modality Gestures
• http://deeptissuejs.com

INPUT TYPE=XXXX
• New Input Types Drive On-Screen
Keyboards
• Drives Native Validation
• Tel, email, url, number, etc

The Server-Side Story
• Provide Markup, CSS, JavaScript, Images
• API End Points
• Possible Legacy URL Redirects
• Deal with Search Engine Spiders and Legacy Browsers

SPAHelper Library
• Extends ASP.NET MVC
• Custom SPAWebViewPage
• SPAModel
• SPAHelper
• http://bit.ly/1dUYLGJ

SPAWebViewPage
• Must Use it as Base for MVC View
• Extends MVC’s WebViewPage
• SPARenderPage
• Causes only Changed Content to be Sent to Client
• Works in Concert with Backpack to Cache Markup in localStorage

SPAWebViewPage
• Must Configure View web.config file:
• <pages pageBaseType="SPAHelper.SPAWebViewPage">

SPAWebViewPage
@if (!Html.HasEscapeFragment())
{
@SPARenderPage("views/home-view.cshtml")
@SPARenderPage("views/movies-view.cshtml")
@SPARenderPage("views/movie-view.cshtml")
…
@SPARenderPage("views/notfound-view.cshtml")
@SPARenderPage("templates/_templates.cshtml")
}

SPAModel
• The SPAModel provides a base for an ASP.NET MVC single page
application model
• The model has properties for the application's Title and Description
• The SetRoute function parses a SPA route to isolate the primary
root

SPAHelper
• The SPAHelper class is a collection of static and static ASP.NET MVC
HTML Helper extension functions
• SPALink
• LastUpdated
• HasEscapeFragment
• HasForceReload

_escape_fragment_
• Google’s Specification for AJAX Applications
• http://bit.ly/117sTgL
• Allows Routes to be Sent to Server Via QueryString
• Server Sends Google Fully Rendered Markup
• Good Core Site Solution
• Legacy Browser Version
• Andy Hume of the Guardian - http://vimeo.com/channels/smashingconf

Cutting The Mustard
• Feature Detect to Determine Browser Capabilities
• Never Browser Sniff
if (!('querySelector' in document) //at least IE8
|| !('localStorage' in window) //at least IE8
|| !('addEventListener' in window) //at least IE8
|| !('matchMedia' in window)) {//at least IE10
} else {
}

The Client-Side Story
• Things You Used to Do On the Server Now Live In the Client
• Routing
• Rendering
• Data Caching
• Need to be Conscience of How Browsers Work
• Critical Rendering Path
• Memory Management
• Leverage HTML5 Features
• Storage
• Animations

Press # For More
• Routes Are Not Sent to Server
• No Request/Response Iniated
• Must Respond to Route in the Client
• #! Is the Defacto Standard

Press # For More
window.addEventListener("hashchange", function (e) {
//swap the View Here
});

What About These Guys?
•Angular
•Ember
•Backbone
•Durandal

Common Problems
•Too Large
•Try to be everything to everybody
•Memory Leaks
•Many Brittle Practices
•Routing
•Virtualize Native Functionality

The Love2SPA Way
• SPAjs
• Backpack/Mud Bath *
• DollarBill**
• Caching AJAX Layer
• HTML Template Engine
• Deeptissue
• Toolbar, Panorama, Other Small UI Libraries
* Under Development ** jQuery Compatible

The Love2SPA Way – Typical Stats
• 35-80kb minified, not gzipped JavaScript
• 20-35kb minified, not gzipped CSS
• 5-35kb minified, not gzipped HTML
• 3 Core Http Requests
• < 1 second Load Time

The Love2SPA Way
• Extensible
• Scalable
• Maintainable
• Testable
• Deployable
• Have Tangible ROI

SPAjs
• Responsible for Routing
• View Switching
• Executes Animations
• Relies on Animate.css - http://bit.ly/1hayo4s
• Executing View Onload and Unload Functions

Backpack
• Stores View Markup & Templates in localStorage
• 1st Implemented by Google & Bing
• http://bit.ly/117puyn
• Implements an API expected by SPAjs
• MudBath a work in Progress
• Implements Same API
• Used IndexDB

AjaxPrefilter
• Caches Data in localStorage with a TTL
• 1st Implement by Paul Irish
• http://bit.ly/117p7E9
• Can be Used with Any AJAX Implementation
• Eliminates Unnecessary HTTP Requests

JavaScript Templating
• Merges JavaScript Objects with Markup
• Many Libraries
• Micro-Templating
• MUSTACHE
• Handlebars
• Generated Markup Appended to DOM

JavaScript Templating
<script id="MoviePosterGridTemplate" type="text/x-mustache-template">
{{#movies}}
<div class="movie-target">
<a href="#!movie/{{id}}/{{title}}">
<img alt="{{title}}" src="{{poster}}" class="movie-grid-poster">
<figcaption class="demo-photo-caption">{{title}}</figcaption>
</a>
</div>
{{/movies}}
</script>

Create Modular, Extensible JavaScript
Application
• Functions 1st Class in JavaScript
• Functions are Objects
• var foo = {};
• All Objects have a Prototype
• new Keyword creates a new Object
• Many popular Patterns

Extensible
Core
Module
Module
Module

Think Like jQuery
• The jQuery Module Pattern is Familiar
• Not Hard to Implement
• Allows for Extensibility

A SPA Application Module
App
View
View
View

Building Web Applications
• Just Like C# Applications
• Release
• Debug
• The Web Needs a Compiler
• 2 Great Options
• Grunt
• Gulp

Building Web Applications
• Grunt & Gulp Are Node Modules
• http://gruntjs.com
• http://gulpjs.com
• Both have great eco-systems
• Add To package.json
• Run npm install
• Create gruntfile.js
• Grunt.cmd

Going Offline
• Leverage the AppCache
• Create a Manifest File
• Don’t Let it be a Handicap
• http://bit.ly/117q27A
• Makes Sure Your App Will Work Without Connectivity
• Good for Caching Images and Resources
• Makes the Browser look Local Before Going to the Server

Developing with AppCache is a PITA
@{if (HttpContext.Current.IsDebuggingEnabled)
{
@:<html lang="en">
}
else
{
@:<html lang="en" manifest="app.cache">
}
}

Manifest File
• CACHE
• lists all resources that should be downloaded for offline use
• NETWORK
• identifies any URLs that require the device be connected to the network
• FALLBACK
• lists replacement URLs for network URLs to be used when the device is
offline

How AppCache Works
• When the browser reads the manifest file it downloads the
specified resources locally
• Those resources are referred too instead of making a
request to the server
• Resources are refreshed if the manifest file has been
updated

High Performance Single Page Web
Applications
• Responsive Design
• Touch
• Mobile First
• SPA
• Extensible, Scalable Architecture
• Web Build and Workflow
• Goes Really Fast!
• ~395 Pages
• 20 Chapters
• $9.99 http://amzn.to/1a55L89

A Day Building Fast, Responsive, Extensible Single Page Applications

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