Server Side Dijit

Middleware plugin for Connect that renders dijit widget templates, which are normally rendered client-side, on the server. Returned pages are modified to include the generated server-side templates inline, with a client-side JavaScript plugin to hook up the templates to the widget.

Running the demo

Run the following command line to start a test application, demonstrating a variety of widgets rendered on the server side.

$ export DOJO_SOURCE=/path/to/dojo-release-1.8.0-src
$ npm start 

Once the server has started, visit... http://localhost:3000

How to use

Using this middleware plugin in your own application requires the use of the middleware plugin alongside a custom client-side JavaScript mixin.

The Connect plugin takes a single configuration parameter, dojo, which denotes the location of top level directory containing the The Dojo Toolkit source (version 1.8).

Configure middleware and use with Connect server

var connect = require('connect'),
    server_side = require('server_side_dijit');

var app = connect()
   .use(server_side({dojo: './path_to_dojo_1.8'}))
   .use(connect.static('./my_html_files'))
   .listen(3000);

Every requested HTML page will be scanned for declaratively defined widgets, data-dojo-type, that also include the declarative mixin command, data-dojo-mixin, for the custom JavaScript library, server_side/_TemplatedWidget.

Configure AMD loader with client-side library path

var dojoConfig = {
    paths: {
        server_side: "/public/js/server_side"
    },
    async: true
 };

Custom JavaScript library to assist server-side rendering is provided under public/js/server_side in the module source directory.

Use client-side mixin to denote widgets for server rendering

<div data-dojo-type="dijit/CalendarLite" data-dojo-mixins="server_side/_TemplatedMixin"></div>

These widgets are instantiated in the server side environment and their rendered template injected into the returned page. On the client-side, the mixin modifies widget construct to stop templated widgets from trying to do the client-side rendering and simply hooking up the template node that are already present.

Requirements

• The Dojo Toolkit (version 1.8) source distribution available locally.