should you consider a Single Page App for your next project
As the world becomes more and more digital, there’s no denying that single-page apps (SPAs) are becoming more and more popular. Not only do they save you time and money, but they also offer a unique user experience that can’t be found on traditional websites or apps.
If you’re looking for a project that’s quick to build and easy to manage, the idea of a Single Page App might be a perfect choice. These apps are designed to be fast, responsive, and easy to update, so you can keep your users happy and your business running smoothly.
Plus, they look great on mobile devices – so you can stay competitive no matter what device your users are using.
In this article, we’ll give you the lowdown on what SPAs are, how they work, and why you should consider using one for your next project. Ready to give one a try? We believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
What is a Single-Page App?
Traditionally, apps can be either single pages or multi-page. The main difference between them is the number of pages users see at a time.
A Single Page App consists of only one page showing what to users while they are on it without refreshing and re-loading another set of content similar to if users have visited another website but not because they surfed through different webpages (URLs). Basically, This means the app is essentially a website without multiple pages.
The main difference between SPAs and normal websites is that with single-page apps you can tab through different screens faster at once which gives users an advantage in being able to quickly see new details about your product or service as if it’s one giant webpage instead of individual pages getting loaded by separate domains (URLs).
Also for multi-page sites, their content must fit completely in one page. That said, multiple pages on a single-page app are not required to load at once – they just must have all content loaded before being navigated back to the first page.
What benefits can you get from using Single Page Apps?
The main reason why companies should consider building use of SPA is because of their ability and effectiveness for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). As mentioned above that search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo can now recognize how your site will treat visitors on desktop devices.
With SPA you are able to tell them the location of content your users may want to search for, whether it’s a particular area of their use case or if they would like an even deeper view into certain information regarding any given product or service.
Every single device – from desktops to tablets to smartphones all offers different options for navigation depending on what the user is trying to do. Today, it’s common for users to get frustrated with sites that take a long time to boot.
In addition, being able to view your content throughout different devices and locations gives you more ways of getting more traffic than just focusing on one single location without thinking otherwise by overloading views.
The ability to track how users are interacting with your pages has become very useful for online marketers and even content creators. The way search engines now recognize web applications built in Javascript, it allows anybody without coding knowledge around small programs written by users to create a website that is as complex as most high traffic portfolio sites.
How do I know if my site needs Single Page App?
Even though today it’s much more normal for websites to use HTML5 & CSS, some apps still require Javascript or Flash. The mobile application you are about to build need not have any interactive elements itself at all and can be completely Javascript-free simply with only pure HTML and CSS markup. You are able to offer a SPA in your site simply by doing one of the following.
1) Using HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript. It’s best if you have a developer that has experience with all three but will not necessarily make you more qualified than others!
2) Use Google Web Toolkit (GWT). This is platform-specific as it works incredibly fast unlike mock-up tools used before GWT became available
3) Use frameworks such as Backbone.js, AngularJs or EmberJS which can be used to simplify building UI/UX of your site by delegating some of the hard work over it to a framework written after initial coding and testing should you wish so to use these frameworks if a developer you are using is limited in his knowledge of Javascript.
4) Server-side rendering allows for some websites not to have the same advantages as other single-page apps. If a server renders somewhat and your HTML5 markup fails then it breaks apart on receiving data that can be used by a SPA such as caching effects between Javascript.
We always recommend presenters to use HTML5 Server-side Rendering, with some possible exceptions as SPA lingo is complex and modules are required for them.
How do I add a single-page app?
Attaching the two files will allow WebWorkers (the main element used in server-rendered apps) to successfully connect with your application code on the client. To verify that this connection was made you’d choose “Show ” from the Chrome dev tools tab top bar, and look under Network” to check that a ‘request’ (which is called as you might expect) corresponds with “response”.
To enable hot-loading for your HTML document: in X.Y.Z release of Chrome install an extension by Nectarine Labs which adds this feature by default to all Google documents; Hot Reload The Page! This allows us server-side rendering correctly!
To push managed code to the client side: AJAX and WebRTC are alternatives that can help us connect our app correctly.
How do I provide live updates using AngularJS?
It’s not possible at this time to persist directly on the server (with PHP) through an API or local storage, so we’ve crafted this HTML structure for now which allows you to track changes from creating your content until it is ready!
It is obviously not the ideal solution, but it works for now. See here quotes from Google on HTML5 Server-side rendering flaw ‘Angular does have a live updating dynamic template which is built into the framework so that you don’t need to use something like jQuery Validation or Bootstrap customizing angular directive.’
What do I need to know about the server-side rendering of Single Page Applications? How does it work in practice?
On the surface, SPAs (and more generally single-page apps) can seem like a “happy path situation”. You create your template HTML as you would normally on any other website.
Then with JavaScript, which is located both before and after the browser request occurs, you write some code that changes that script when required – lives on the server.
But you need to consider the challenges of enabling this behavior with a real-world deployment scenario, as half our industry is finding out right now: what happens when an application breaks and has no power?
Let’s take a look at two common situations which can be very tricky in a SPA on your servers:
The above example illustrates that if we want to preserve state across requests or store data remotely (using localStorage!), we cannot rely on AngularJS’ ng-if : <template>ngIf=”updated($event.scope.data)”>
The example above illustrates that if the data changes, it’s very likely you’ll need to write some code to update your client app when this happens (i.e., change $scope.$apply(); ) !!! This is a common source of trips and errors for our customers!
But what about issue # 3? If the JavaScript has no access to the DOM server-side and makes a second request, we cannot update anything on our client by doing $scope.$apply() because there is already something up on the HTTP stack!
So this brings us to point #2. In order for AngularJS’s ng-model directive to work correctly in parallel requests: you need at least two different “$scope” objects where one responds “change properties”
A nasty surprise for our clients who deployed this type of AngularJS SPA with some serious client-side CSS and Javascript, but were not aware that data would be shared between requests using attributes (or something else which needs to be done independently on each request). This can easily lead to outages.
You cannot rely on AngularJS’s ng-model directive to work correctly in parallel requests. In this graphic, I assume that we have a two different “$scope” objects where one responds “change properties”, i.e., some CSS will help us by creating each client app with its own ”$scope” object and presenting it using $apply() (so it can evolve independently). The presentation this work can occur in a new request:
1) AngularJS starts two different requests
2) The first app will always respond with “change properties” before $apply() is called on the second app’s node.js
3) The multi-view pattern here uses Two Way Data Binding to create multiple views for each page, which requires at least two “$scope”. One “low-level”($scope) object to hold data and a collection of $compile functions.
It always happens that one call to the ng-model directive in another request will create some CSS. Each time it does this is called an update with ‘ngModel’ set on each “$scope”. This means two things: firstly we need at least two different “$scope”.
Some tree-structured CSS classes are common to all views. For example, “accordion” and “slider”. Some former names of ‘ ngModel’ were left in the name because they use this pattern:
1) AngularJS starts two different requests,
2) There is at least one “$scope” that responds with data over each request after an evaluation which could be called a digest (e.g., changing how we collect the data from an API),
3) There are .on(“change”, function(){}) calls (pasted below for brevity): Which means we don’t want to update a $scope after every change, but only if it has changed.
In this view then “settings” isn’t applied until each call occurs and is not shared between both views at all when part of our app’s user experience (UI). What if some settings (e.g., “background-color”) change, but others do not? Do we modify both in a single digest call or have them processed separately
Comparing Single-page and Multi-page Apps
Single-page apps are the application we (the designers) build using AngularJS. This is what people get when they click on a link, or visit our server. All data and content in this page will be loaded from that single HTML page by the browser once it loads at point of view 0: URL ‘/./’.
The only piece of information needed to start making an app is a “root element” — usually denoted <app> — which is fed the initial page content and all subsequent changes to that page’s data.
In other words, it only needs href=”/folder/path/to\data” instead of “<host: Content directory>,<path:\”:” folder path”.
(Note some frameworks use “#content-url##/.#root_element_name”, here #root_element refers to a css class added while developing) towards AngularJS
In a Single-page app, one may consider two things during development:
1. Where in the Application’s HTML file are the AngularJS directives?
AND of cache-like listening functions on $scope and references to views/controllers (using #controller notation) are placed so that they can be found by your browser while being lazy‑loaded upon launch at point 0.
The purpose of module loading is usually a simplification for code hiding or caching. In AngularJS, this is done via CommonJs (node) module definition files that are bundled with the library itself.
2. How does one organize their views for modules?
All code required to create a Single-page application needs to be kept in ONE place: the home directory of your developer instance’s web app user account; which we’ll continue calling “app”. The individual components can then be brought to the “app directory”. An app directory contains an array of files:
What is a Module?
In AngularJS, by definition in-code documentation, you’ll see <module>. Here’s what happens under the hood. A module can have one optional parameter with a default value of true which allows it to serve as a dependency injector and creates instances while binding expressions using the factory method (its application requires the use of method-chaining objects sometimes).
By default, all directory names are prefixed with an underscore ( “”), however, the Module’s constructor takes in a module name-prefixed string as its only parameter:
In the example above, the app/app.module is created when running at localhost with development mode turned on; it serves several purposes:
1) It provides a place for modules to find and bootstrap one another so that all component types would have access to each other. This can be crucial if there are dependency cycles that may hurt the integrity of a given module type.
2) It looks like it should logically have access to the built-in environment variables such as app and http_port, however, this will always be requested from AppBase() -> allow environment variables(); when running at localhost; which is declared optional (no guarantee). Other modules can create instances for its need:
Conclusion
As the world moves towards a more digital and mobile-friendly lifestyle, more and more businesses are turning to single-page applications (SPA) as the perfect solution.
From increasing efficiency and reducing the cost of mobile app development, and time to boosting customer retention and driving lead conversion, there are plenty of reasons why you should consider building a SPA for your next project.
If you’re looking for a design or development partner that understands the power of a single-page application, look no further than Arka Softwares.
Our team of experienced professionals has years of experience in this field, and is more than happy to help you create an amazing single-page application that will help your business take a step forward. Sign up now and let us help you take your project to the next level.
