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https://github.com/autplayed/ldf

LDF - Lightweight Dynamic Framework for making Single Page Applications
https://github.com/autplayed/ldf

framework frontend javascript simple

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LDF - Lightweight Dynamic Framework for making Single Page Applications

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README 

        
# LDF - Little Dynamic Framework for making Single-Page Applications



Tired of giant frameworks like Angular? 



Trying to avoid complicated stuff like MVC, Typescript or JSX and just want to create a website in good old plain JS HTML CSS?



Want to make a small website feel 100x better because it's a Single-Page Application?



Then this is the framework for you!



## Table of Contents



- [Features](#features)

- [Getting started](#getting-started)

- [Configuration](#configuration)

- [Component Swapping](#component-swapping)

- [Non-Hash url](#non-hash-url)

- [Quickstart with java server](#quickstart-with-java-server)

- [Final Notes](#final-notes)



## Features



Navigating your website with `a` tags like this



```html

Login

```



will, instead of fully refreshing the page, dynamically load the requested content (in this case`login.html`), and switch out the old content with the new one.



Additionally, LDF will wait for external resources (like stylesheets or images) to load before displaying the page. Demonstration with a throttled connection and cpu:



![demo](https://i.imgur.com/G9FTMYu.gif)



The script will also change the browser's navigation bar via the History-API, so that the page can be refreshed and browser-features like back and forward will work.



If you want to navigate your page via Javascript, all you have to do is call the `nav` function of the global `ldf` object like this, with the parameter being the page you want to navigate to:



```javascript

ldf.nav("login");

```



You can include css and js in your html files just like normal, they will also be dynamically loaded.



For a small demonstration, check out the `demo` directory, [or check it out live.](https://ldf.js.org/demo/)



**Notes:**



If you dynamically add `a` tags via Javascript (not by changing the page with `ldf` but with for example `document.createElement`), you'll have to invoke `ldf.updatePageLinks()` in order for `a` tags to not reload the page.



## Getting started



Just include the script in your index page like this:



```



```



You also have to add a div element with the id "ldf"(configurable) in your `index.html` where you want your content to be like this:



```



```



LDF expects a folder structure like this (directory name can be configured):



```

index.html                                    required

pages/                                        required

├── index/                                    required

│   ├── index.html                            required

│   ├── index.css

│   └── index.js

└── examplepage/

    ├── examplepage.html

    └── styles.css

```



Each folder in the `pages` directory represents a page (duh) and will be loaded if a user navigates to the route named after the folder. So, for example if a user clicks on an `a` tag with `href="examplepage"`, LDF will attempt to load `pages/examplepage/examplepage.html`.

The page `index` is required, and is the default content you'll see without any navigation.



## Configuration



LDF currently allows for some configuration.



```javascript

// The selector for which content should be switched out on page change

ldf.mainselector = "#ldf";

// The content displayed when LDF receives a 404 from the server while requesting a page

// Set this to undefined if you want LDF to display the error page it received from your server

ldf.notfound = "
Page not Found
";

// The directory your pages are stored on the server, default is /pages

ldf.pagedir = "/pages";

// A base url that is prepended for every navigation

// Used in my case for github pages since that has a required base url

ldf.baseurl = "";

// The css selector string LDF will wait on before displaying the page.

// By default it waits for all stylesheets and all elements with a src attribute (like images), but not scripts.

ldf.waitselector = "link[rel='stylesheet'],:not(script)[src]";

// Use hash urls, by default it's true. Hash urls look like this: domain.com/#login

// The advantage of these is that you don't need a web server to handle refresh events, but the url doesn't look that good.

ldf.hash = true;

```



## Component swapping



You can also use the functions provided by ldf to load pages into other elements like demonstrated here: ![demo](https://i.imgur.com/xessGiQ.gif)



Methods you can use:



```javascript

ldf.load(selector, location, \query);

ldf.load("#header", "/header", "?fancy=true");

```



```javascript

// external content will be waited on before the content is changed just like switching pages

ldf.change(selector, htmlContent);

ldf.change("#footer", "
new footer
");

```



If you want to have an example that shows the potential uses for this, you can find one [here](https://github.com/AUTplayed/ldfSampleLogin)



## Non-hash url



If you don't want to use hash urls (more info a few lines above), then here's the instruction for you:



In order for the refresh function to work, you will have to include a special case in your web server.



You have to look at the request if it's not `/` but a request to a page, and send back your `index.html`. But you can't just always send back `index.html` when the requested file isn't found, unless you want your site to break if a user visits a missing page, since LDF relies on getting an error from a request to a missing page.



A small implementation of this I used in the demo/example project (with nodejs and express) looks like this:



```javascript

// Static resources

app.use(express.static(__dirname));

// Special case, always sends back index.html if the request is only 1 level.

// This works because requests to resources are 3 levels deep (pages/resource/resource.html)

app.get("/:page", (req, res) => {

	res.sendFile(require("path").join(__dirname, "index.html"));

});

```



## Quickstart with java server



I wrote a java library to quickstart development with ldf and the templating engine mustache. It also solves the problems with non-hash url as mentioned above. [You can find information about the library here](https://github.com/AUTplayed/ldfSpark)



## Final Notes



This project was just thrown together in a few hours based on a way messier implementation, which I used in my diploma thesis. If you find a bug or want to add an improvement, please open an issue/pull request.