Model-View-Whatever, the Plus engine for Sciter.

Preface

I would say that human history is a history of reinventing "wheels" of various kinds.

This time we see concept of data binding reincarnated with slightly pathetic name Model-View-Controller. Of course, as many people as many meaning they give to the MVC abbreviation but, nevertheless, it is all around basic idea of data binding – you have data (the Model these days) declaratevily bound with UI "controls" (the View). I believe Microsoft’s VisualBasic 4 and its IDE was the very first usable implementation of the idea. There was no Controller concept at that moment so their implementation was quite limiting – while you can implement 90% of your data editing needs using simple declarations you will spend 90% of your design time fighting with the rest of 10% of needed functionality.

The Plus framework for Sciter.

The Plus framework you can find in Sciter SDK is quite compact (400 LOC) and relatively simple implementation of that old data binding concept with controller means.

Note, the Plus is not an attempt to solve every html/css/script UI problem as AngularJS does. It is just a data binding mechanism with the concept of @observing functions (controllers in my interpretation).

Basics

Model in Plus interpretation is some tiscript namespace object that contains data variables (and optionally functions) to be bound with particular container in HTML DOM.

For example if you declare this script:

namespace Data {
  var correspondent = "world"; // variable to be bound
} 

and corresponding markup:

<section model="Data">
   Whom to greet: <input name="correspondent"> ?
   <p>The greeting: Hello <output name="correspondent">!</p>
</section>

and include in your document "plus.css" file you will get live data binding between Data.correspondent data variable and two DOM elements: two ways with input[name=correspondent] and one way (only view) binding with output[name=correspondent]. So when you type something in that input you will see the data also rendered in output element.  To see this alive load sdk/samples/+plus/demos/0-basic-variable-binding.htm in sciter.exe from its SDK.

The model and name DOM attributes.

Note that <section> element contains model="Data" attribute. It instructs the Plus engine to establish data binding between content of this section and members of namsepace Data {} in script. Name of the bound namespace can be any suitable, not just Data.

Any DOM element inside that section[model] may have name attribute defined. On binding initialization the Plus will try to find data element in the model with that name and if such data variable is found it will made two or one way (for <output> elements) binding between .value of that DOM element and the data variable. The name can be compound – may contain ‘.‘ (dot)-separated list of names. This way  you can bind DOM elements with object fields inside the model:

namespace Contact {
  var name = { first: "Albert", last: "Einshtein" };
  var phone = "....";
  ... 
}

and markup:

<form model="Contact" id="contact-details"> 
  <label for="name.first">First name></label> <input name="name.first">
  <label for="name.last">Last name></label> <input name="name.last">
  ...
</form>

Controllers, the @observing function decorator.

File plus.tis (the Plus engine implementation) contains declaration of function decorator named @observing. With that decorator you can define functions that will be triggered (called by the engine) when variable(s) they are observing change.

As an example let’s define simple Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion tool that should work in two directions – when you define celcius value it will calculate its fahrenheit representation. And vice versa. Something similar to the form on the right:

First we will define our Data namespace:

      include "../plus.tis"; // model below uses @observing decorator defined in plus.tis  
      namespace Data // our model
      {  
        var celsius = 0; 
        var fahrenheit = 32;
        
        // this function is observing 'celsius' and calculates 'fahrenheit'
        @observing "celsius"
          function toFahrenheit() {
            fahrenheit = celsius * 9 / 5 + 32;
          }
        // this function is observing 'fahrenheit' and calculates 'celsius'
        @observing "fahrenheit"
          function toCelcius() {
            celsius = (fahrenheit - 32) * 5 / 9;
          }        
      }    

Note two functions above: function toFahrenheit() is observing celcius variable. When celcius variable will change, for example as a result of changes in <input|number(celsius)> field, the toFahrenheit() function will be triggered and will set value of fahrenheit variable. As we have another input bound with the fahrenheit variable:

<body model="Data">
  <p><input|number(celsius)>°C and <input|number(fahrenheit)>°F</p>
</body>

we will see in it results of calculation. This works in both directions – from fahrenheit to celcius and from celcius to fahrenheit.

To see this alive load sdk/samples/+plus/demos/1-basic-function-binding.htm sample in sciter.exe.

That’s it for now. In the next article I’ll explain use of repeatable attribute to bind arrays of objects with rpepatable sections and other samples. If you don’t want to wait check other samples in sdk/samples/+plus/demos/ folder of the SDK. They are self descriptive.