ngx front to back (alpha)

Library providing server to client state transfer for HttpClient and other tools to help with common Angular Universal issues.

Install

npm install --save ngx-back-to-front

Setup

These instructions apply to an Angular-cli project which has been setup for Universal as in this guide. If you need a ready made starter project have a look at ngx-express-universal.

Import BackToFrontBrowserModule into app.browser.module

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserAnimationsModule } from '@angular/platform-browser/animations';
import { BackToFrontBrowserModule } from 'ngx-back-to-front';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';

@NgModule({
    imports: [
        AppModule,
        BackToFrontBrowserModule.forRoot(),
        BrowserAnimationsModule
    ],
    bootstrap: [AppComponent],
})
export class AppBrowserModule { }

Import BackToFrontServerModule into app.server.module

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { ServerModule } from '@angular/platform-server';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';
import { BackToFrontServerModule } from 'ngx-back-to-front';

import { AppComponent } from './app.component';

@NgModule({
    imports: [
        AppModule,
        ServerModule,
        BackToFrontServerModule.forRoot()
    ],
    bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppServerModule { }

How the state transfer works

The BackToFrontBrowserModule will register an HttpInterceptor which will write the repsonses from any get requests made when rendering on the server and inject them into the index.html returned to the client.

The BackToFrontServerModule will register an HttpInterceptor this time it will any get requests check for any cached responses with a matching URL and shortcut return the cached response if it exists (it will be deleted afterwards to avoid blocking subsequent requests).

Using the universal service

import { StateService } from 'ngx-back-to-front';

export class AppComponent {

  constructor(
    private stateService: StateService    
  ) { }
}

This service has twmo methods:

IsBrowser will return true if running in browser and false for all other environments isFirstRouteLoaded will return true if the current url is the first route loaded.

Using the state service

import { UniversalService } from 'ngx-back-to-front/lib/universal.service';

export class AppComponent {

  constructor(
    private universalService: UniversalService
  ) { }
}

The state service is used to get and set state values to be tranfers from server to client.