State Engine for MVC (Typescript Compatible)

Super simplified from redux by converting actions/reducers/containers/store to load and store, so that providing super intuitive MVC developing model for front-end Apps

What you will get

A super simple MVC model, all properties of all views are mapped to the space of corresponding controllers, without those redundent and anoying actions or reducers

Quick Start (React.js)

Step 1: Connect controllers with pages

// ./controllers/rootCtrl.ts
import fetch from 'isomorphic-fetch';
import RootView from '../views/RootView';

export default {
    $view: RootView,
    $id: 'unique_id_for_view1'
    $combine: { 
        face: 'uiue.face.identifier', 
        foot: 'uiue.foot.toes', 
        boot: '#unique_id_for_boot_view'
    },
    someInitState1: 'value of that state',
    someOtherInitState2: 1234567890,
    someDateTypeState3: new Date(),
    someStateForCounting: 0,
    onCountingButtonPress: function() {
        return { someStateForCounting: this.someStateForCounting + 1 }
    },
    querySomething: async (arg1, arg2) => {
        const res = await fetch(`<some address>?arg1=${arg1}&arg2=${arg2}`, {
            method: 'get'
        });
        return await res.json();
    },
    $children: [ subCtrl1, subCtrl2, subCtrl3 ]
}

Step 2: load controllers

import { StateEngine } from 'state-engine';
import { connect } from 'react-redux';
import { withRouter } from 'react-router-dom';

import controller from './controllers/rootCtrl';

const parameters = {
    connecter: connect,
    withRouter: withRouter
};

const engine = new StateEngine()
engine.load(controller, parameters);

Step 3: generate the redux store

import { createLogger } from 'redux-logger';
const loggerMiddleware = createLogger();
const store = engine.store(loggerMiddleware);

Final Step: assemble the application

import React, { Component }  from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import { Provider } from 'react-redux'
import { Router, Route, IndexRoute, Link, Switch } from 'react-router-dom'
import createBrowserHistory from 'history/createBrowserHistory'

const browserHistory = createBrowserHistory();

if (document.getElementById('root')) {
    ReactDOM.render(
        <Provider store = {store} >
            <engine.rootView />
            //  <engine.views /> if multiple controllers presented as children of the root controller, and the root controller omitted its own $name and $view properties
        </Provider>
        , document.getElementById('root')
    );
}

Manually dispatching actions (not suggested)

engine.dispatch('path.to.some.action', arg1, arg2, arg3);

Suggested Project Structure

|-controllers
|  |-ctrl1
|  |-ctrl2
|  |-index.ts
|-views
|  |-component
|  |-pages
|-engine.ts
|-router.ts
|-app.ts

Controller data structure:

{
    $name: <controller name, optional, when omitted the controller will be used as container, its children will be regarded as brothers of its parent controller>,
    $id: <global unique identity, optional, allowing accessing this ctrl without providing full path>,
    $view: <view object> ,
    $combine:   <global path to some property> 
                    | [ <path1>, <path2>...]
                    | { prop1: path1, prop2: path2 ... }
    [property: string]: <value of the property used as init state>
    [action name: string]: <function body as the action handler>
    $children: [ <sub-controller1>, <sub-controller2> ... ]
}

Concepts

1. $name should be unique throughout its layer, when omitted, the $view property is also useless, the controller will be used as container of its children controllers, which will be regarded as brothers of its parent controller
2. The structure of store equals with the organization of controllers
3. View (collection of views) is loaded to the coresponding node using keyword $view
4. The State of current node:
   1. is mapped to props of corresponding page
   2. is updated by the return value of interfaces within the controller: currentState = Object.assign(currentState, responseOfCtrl), unless the response value is not an object, then it will be assigned to a property: <action name>.response
5. keyword $combine: import states of other pages to current node, there are three different kinds of usages:
   1. $combine: 'path.to.prop1' : map path.to.prop1 to prop1 of current node
   2. $combine: [ 'path.to.prop1', 'path.to.prop2 ] : map one or multiple props (prop1, prop2) to current node
   3. $combine: { customPropName1: 'path.to.prop1', customPropName2: 'path.to.prop2' } : map and rename one or multiple props to current node
6. $id is optional. Can be used to locate a path like $combine: { someCustomProp: '#someId' }

Action Scope

Every action defined by keyword function or async function is guaranteed to have dynamic runtime action scope connected with the controller state and other actions

as the example above has shown:

{
    $name: ...,
    $view: ...,
    someStateForCounting: 0,
    log: (someMsg) => {
        console.log(someMsg)
    },
    onCountingButtonPress: function() {
        this.log(`counting value is going to change to: ${this.someStateForCounting+1}`)
        // this.someStateForCounting++ : 'this' is immutable, won't change anything
        return { someStateForCounting: this.someStateForCounting + 1 }
    }
}

the action onCountingButtonPress can access the property someStateForCounting of the controller, and the value is guaranteed to be up-to-date, and can see all other actions by using the scope pointer this

And by returning an object containing the same property with new value, the corresponding property is updated.

CAUTION As the state is updated in a One-Way-Flow (which means what is read can not be writen), so the only way to update any state is to return a new object containning the desired properties.

CAUTION AGAIN Arrow functions do not hold its own scope, so Action Scope is not available for arrow functions. DO NOT ACCESS STATE IN ARROW FUNCTIONS

Action Expanding

Every action will be expanded to at least 4 more actions which to indicate the action is in which status

1. when begin to execute an action, an affiliated action 'doing' should be triggerred at first this will update current state space with a property <action name>$status and its value is 'doing'
2. then the true action handler would be executed and waited until it respond or crash with error
3. if the action executed successfully, another affilated action 'done' should be triggered together with its response object
   1. the response object will be used to update current state space,
   2. if the action is an internal action (whose name begin with character: _ ), the entire current state space will be updated by its response object
   3. otherwise an affiliated property <action name>$response of current space will be updated with its response object
   4. meanwhile the property <action name>$status of current state space will be updated with value 'done'
4. if the action crashed with an error, an affilated action 'error' would be triggerred with the error object
   1. and the property <action name>.status of current state space will be updated with value 'error'
   2. and another affilated property <action name>$error of current state space will be updated with the error object
5. after all proper handlings, including done and error, the final action 'idle' is strongly suggested to be triggerred
   1. for the goodness of future uses of this action
   2. and the status of the action <action name>$status should be 'idle' when the action has lost the focus
   3. to set action in idle status, just invoke this.props.<action name>.idle() in the view

Interfaces

1. load(controller, params = { converter: prop => () => prop, connecter: () => page => page, withRouter: page => page, viewAssembler: (currentView:any, subviews: {[key: string]: any}) => currentView }, parentPath: string = '')
   1. controller: as the parameter name means
   2. parentPath: the parent path, default value is empty
   3. converter: a user defined function to convert string properties into functions
   4. connecter: the connect function required by react-redux
   5. withRouter: withRouter function required by react-router
   6. viewAssembler: a callback handler to assemble subviews for each view in the controller
2. store(...middlewares): configure redux store with user defined middlewares
   1. middlewares: Redux middlewares
3. dispatch(actionPath, ...actionParameters): manually dispatch a redux action (safe but not suggested)
   1. actionPath: path to that interface
   2. actionParameters: parameters for that interface

Enjoy the flying state!