Client-side

Parke Godfrey
26 October 2011
CSE-2041

Client-side
What is the web client (browser) responsible for?

• Communicating with the servers.

• Handling the content for the user.

  
  

  1. Rendering the page.

  2. Controlling behaviour (locally) of the “page” / webapp.

     E.g.,

     • user clicking links,

     • user filling in forms.

Model-View-Controller ( MVC) Paradigm
revisited

• model

  • Manages the data (the content).

  • Defines the interactions possible with the data.

• view

  • Defines how to render the content into a presentation.

  • Defines how to interact with the content.

  • There can be multiple views for the same model.

• controller

  • Manages the interactions via the view against the model.

MVC for Web Client
old web

• model

  • The “page” delievered from the server.

• view

  • Client renders the page in some appropriate way.

  • Can we abstract this more in a useful way?

• controller

  • Hardwired Web behaviour handled by the client browser.

  • What about richer behaviour that is specific to a webapp?

    Can handle in a back-and-forth to the server / CGI program, but that is so “Web 1.0”!

MVC for Web Client
new web

• model

  • The “page” delievered from the server. (DOM)

• view

  • Client still renders the page in some appropriate way.

  • Defined by style directives. (CSS)

    Style is separated from content.

• controller

  • Hardwired Web behaviour still handled by the client browser.

  • Handles logic of the webapp — that defines the webapp's specific behaviour. (JavaScript)