Intro to mobile web application development

Intro to Web App DevelopmentZane Staggs - @zanedev

Welcome : SetupCoffee and food provided, caffeine up you’ll need it! WIFI: HD-Free Pass: hackerdojo Decent code editor WebStorm (free trial): http://goo.gl/lNCzIX Slides: http://goo.gl/PJvfBl Code download zip (easy): http://goo.gl/MYWjg6 Code git repo (advanced): http://goo.gl/Hq3RgL Google Chrome Browser

Class StructureQuick overview of web tech, really important everything builds on it later. Some may be review with such diverse backgrounds, skillsets and goals.

Build a Library app together with jquery, bootstrap then angular.

Try to keep up but no worries if not.

5-10 mins to try out some code after every session.

Please don’t be afraid to ask questions we are all in this together.

Our main goal is for you to walk out of here comfortable with web technologies, debugging, coding, and how to think like a web developer.

Your instructor

Husband, Father and DeveloperLiving the dream

Coding House

MIS graduate U of Arizona

BetterDoctor

Coding House

Learn how to code with Intensive training courses

Physical activities and food provided

Full time immersion in coding environment

Hands on mentorship and career placement

Accessible to bart

Night and Weekend classes coming soon!

So you want to be a web/ mobile developer?

Coding languages: html/php/ruby/java/javascript/c/python

Design skills: user interface, photoshop, illustrator, optimizing graphics

Business skills: communication, group/team dynamics

Everything else: optimization, seo, sem, marketing, a/b testing, unit testing, bugs, debugging, operating systems, browser bugs/quirks, devices, responsiveness, performance

Why would you want to do this?

Career

Fame and Fortune

Fun, creative

Wild West days of the internet

Technology

Startups

It’s actually not that hard Today we will do a high level overview so you are at least familiar with the concepts that a web developer must deal with on a daily basis.

It’s the bigger picture that matters when dealing with business people and engineers.

I’m here to show you the how to get it done fast.

It’s important to know how to think like a developer and use the resources that are available to you including google

The web browserVery complicated client software.

Lots of differences between platforms (os) and rendering engines: gecko (firefox), webkit (safari/chrome)

Reads markup, css, and js to combine to a web page

IE is the underdog now, always a pain for web devs but getting better slowly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers

How the web worksClient/Server (front vs back-end), networking, ip addresses, routers, ports, tcp/ip = stateless protocol

Request/Response Life Cycle

DNS (translates readable requests to map to servers)

API’s (rest, xml, json, etc)

Databases (mysql, mssql, mongodb)

Markup languages (html, xml, xhtml) Doctypes

Client/Server Communications

Client requests data from a server, server responds

!

!

!

!

Cloud based/virtualization = many servers on one box sharing resources through software virtualization

DNS: Domain Name ServersBrowser requests to look up a website address, hits the closest DNS server says yes I know where that is it’s at this IP address.

IP addresses are like home addresses, domain names are like phone numbers they can be assigned to any home.

Cacheing, propagation, TTL

Markup Languages

HTML5 - modern html lots of new features, not even an official approved spec but browser vendors started implementing them anyway.

W3C/standards

Doctype tells the browser what spec to adhere to.

DOM = Document Object Model: tree of elements in memory, accessible from javascript and the browser

Example DOM Tree

Server sideServer software simply waits for requests. It responds with some data depending on the type of the request and what’s in it.

Port 80 is reserved for website traffic so anything coming on that port is routed to the webserver on the machine like Apache, Nginx

The server says: “oh this is a request for a rails page so let’s hand this off to rails let it do its thing then respond with the result”.

Rails runs some logic based on the request variables, session values and checks the database if needed to look up more data and returns the response

DatabasesLike a big excel sheet, way to organize and retrieve data through columns and rows (schemas)

Runs on the server responds to requests for data using specified syntax like SQL, JSON

Example SQL: “select type from cars where color = blue”

Mysql, MSSQL = traditional relational database

MongoDB = schema-less, nosql database

APIsAPI = Application Programming Interface - good for decoupling your application. Data access.

JSON = Preferred format for describing and transferring data, also native js object, nested attributes and values

XML = brackets and tags, old school and heavier

REST = (REpresentational State Transfer) - url scheme for getting and updating/creating data based on http requests

HTTP Requests: GET, POST, UPDATE, DELETE

Error codes: 200, 404, 500, etc

Quick Break and then Let’s get to coding

HTML

CSS

Javascript

Jquery, Bootstrap, Angular JS

HTML

Descendant of xml so it relies on markup

<p>text inside</p>, a few are “self closing” like <img />

Nesting Hierarchy: html, head, body - DOM

Can have values inside the tag or as attributes like this: <p style=”....”>some value inside</p>

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_quick.asp

HTML5

Latest spec

New html5 tags: article, section, header, footer, video, audio, local storage, input types, browser history, webrtc

http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design-tips/examples-of-html5-1233547

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)Style definitions for look and feel can be inline, in a separate file, or in the <head> of the document.

Describe color, size, font style and some interaction now blurring the lines a bit

Media queries = responsive = tablets/phones/etc

Paths can be relative (../) or absolute (/some/img.jpg)

Positioning: Floating, centering.

Box Model: padding and margins.

Modern stuff in CSS3, table layout, flexbox, not supported yet everywhere. http://caniuse.com

CSS Box Model

You try it

Change the body background color to green using an ID in the stylesheet.

Change the checked out books button style to btn-info

Change the title “Library of Books” to something different.

Change all books to have a blue background color.

Javascript (not java!)

Most ubiquitous language in the world, also can be inline, in the head, or in a separate file.

Similar to C syntax lots of brackets

Variables vs Functions vs Objects {}

Actually a lot of hidden features and very flexible

Scope is important concept, window object, event bubbling/propagation

Console, debugging with developer tools or firebug

Polyfills for patching older browsers to give them support

General coding tipsUse a good editor with code completion and syntax highlighting (webstorm recommended)

Close all tags first then fill in the content.

Use developer tools in chrome or firebug in firefox always. Get used to testing assumptions with the live console.

Test at every change in all browsers if possible. Get a virtual box and free vm’s from ms: modern.ie

Phone testing: get a simulator, download xcode and android simulator

Minimize the tags to only what you need.

Semantics: stick to what the tags are for

Developer Tools

JqueryJavascript framework, used everywhere. Free and open source.

Simplifies common tasks with javascript and the DOM

$(‘.login-button’) = get this element or group of elements using a selector

Vast selection of Plugins

$.ready = when document (DOM) is completely loaded and ready to be used

Your turn

Show the book buttons on mouseover (hover) - hint: start hidden with css (display:none) and show on mouseover using jquery

Use the console in developer tools to checkout a book.

Bonus Points: Fix problem with not being able to click on item after checking out/returning book.

BootstrapCSS Framework from Twitter with common js plugins.

Include the CSS file and js file

Use the various components as needed.

Override styles as necessary

http://getbootstrap.com/

Lots of themes: wrapbootstrap.com (paid), bootswatch.com (free)

You try it

Add a bootstrap carousel to our page, use images from place it as temporary images if you don’t have any: http://placehold.it/500x280

Bonus: add a navigation bar and prev/next buttons.

MVC FrameworksBackboneJS, AngularJS

Front End Client Framework loosely based on MVC patterns.

M = Model, V = View, C = Controller

Model = Data/Business Logic

View = Display/HTML

Controller = Handles site operational logic, pull some data show a view

Front End Templating

Assists with handling lots of markup and data manipulation.

Built in to Underscore but Handlebars is a more robust templating solution: http://handlebarsjs.com/

Include handlebars, then create an html template as a string or embedded in the html in a script tag with {{curly braces}} for the data. var myTemplate = “<div>{{one}}</div>”;

Create a js data object like var data = {“one”:”1”, “two”:”2”};

Compile the template using handlebars like: var template = Handlebars.compile(myTemplate);

Get the resulting html by executing the compiled template passing in the data: var result = template(context);

Output the result of that into the html using $.html(result)

Let’s try it together

Let’s use handlebars for our book item html and data

Angular JS

“Superheroic” Framework.

Declarative = higher level and easier to understand.

What HTML would have been had it been designed for web apps

Less code to write lots of magic included

Angular JS FeaturesData Binding: Models and views in sync both ways

Directives: Attribute that allows angular to hook into dom element and create custom elements.

Filters: Handy built in functions to transform or parse some data (sort, find, format). Can build your own custom ones also.

Dependency Injection: Import whats needed on the fly

Modules and Controllers: Module encapsulates an app, controllers encapsulate a dom view.

Routes: Match displaying views and urls

Animations: Built in way to handle transition animations

Testing: Built in support for testing

Two Way Data BindingView is automatically in sync with the model

DirectivesAt a high level, directives are markers on a DOM element (such as an attribute, element name, or CSS class) that tell AngularJS's HTML compiler to attach a specified behavior to that DOM element or even transform the DOM element and its children.

Angular comes with a set of these directives built-in, like ngBind, ngModel, and ngView. Much like you create controllers and services, you can create your own custom directives for Angular to use.

myModule.directive('myComponent', function(mySharedService) {...

<my-component ng-model="message"></my-component>

Can restrict the directive to a certain type of element or class.

FiltersA filter formats the value of an expression for display to the user. They can be used in view templates, controllers or services and it is easy to define your own filter.

Filters can be applied to expressions in view templates using the following syntax: {{ expression | filter }}

E.g. the markup {{ 12 | currency }} formats the number 12 as a currency using the currency filter. The resulting value is $12.00.

Filters can be applied to the result of another filter. This is called "chaining" and uses the following syntax: {{ expression | filter1 | filter2 | ... }}

Filters may have arguments. The syntax for this is{{ expression | filter:argument1:argument2:... }}

E.g. the markup {{ 1234 | number:2 }} formats the number 1234 with 2 decimal points using the number filter. The resulting value is 1,234.00.

Dependency InjectionDependency Injection (DI) is a software design pattern that deals with how code gets hold of its dependencies.

AngularJS has a built-in dependency injection subsystem that helps the developer by making the application easier to develop, understand, and test.

To gain access to core AngularJS services, it is simply a matter of adding that service as a parameter; AngularJS will detect that you need that service and provide an instance for you.

function EditCtrl($scope, $location, $routeParams) {// Something clever here...}

Modules and ControllersIn general, a Controller shouldn't try to do too much. It should contain only the business logic needed for a single view.

The most common way to keep Controllers slim is by encapsulating work that doesn't belong to controllers into services and then using these services in Controllers via dependency injection.

Do not use Controllers for:

Any kind of DOM manipulation — Controllers should contain only business logic. DOM manipulation (the presentation logic of an application) is well known for being hard to test. Putting any presentation logic into Controllers significantly affects testability of the business logic. Angular offers databinding for automatic DOM manipulation. If you have to perform your own manual DOM manipulation, encapsulate the presentation logic in directives.

Input formatting — Use angular form controls instead.

Output filtering — Use angular filters instead.

Sharing stateless or stateful code across Controllers — Use angular services instead.

Managing the life-cycle of other components (for example, to create service instances).

RoutesSingle page app support.

Match urls to display views (ng-view) and template files

Need to import the separate routes js file: <script src="lib/angular/angular-route.js"></script>

Then define the routes

AnimationsBased on CSS

Adds the proper class names before and after

Must include angular-animate.min.js

http://code.angularjs.org/1.2.10/docs/guide/animations

Testing

Built in support for testing, no excuse for not using it.

Testing is very important in a js project

Requires a server to run, Node JS is usual suspect

https://github.com/angular/angular-seed

Give it a shot together

Let’s use Angular instead of jQuery

Angular Links

http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/5-awesome-angularjs-features/

http://angular-ui.github.io/bootstrap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TylaL_cRFA

https://egghead.io/

Modern front end web developmentHAML and SASS, Compass, Less,

Static site generators: middleman, jekyll

Coffeescript (simpler syntax for javascript)

Grunt and Yeoman (build and dependency management)

Node JS (back end - server side javascript)

http://updates.html5rocks.com/2013/11/The-Landscape-Of-Front-end-Development-Automation-Slides

Mobile web developmentHTML5 vs Native vs Hybrid

PhoneGap

Appgyver - fast way to get an app on the phone and development

Objective C/xcode - Native Iphone

Android: Java

AppGyver

Handy framework for wrapping an html app and putting it on a device, app store.

Based on phonegap/cordova

Gives you better transitions, more native feeling app.

Very fast to use and get started.

http://www.appgyver.com/

Key TakeawaysDon’t give up the more you see it and use it the more it will sink in

Jquery is great for plugins and simple dom based tasks, allows for $ selector but can get messy in a larger application.

JS templating helps with displaying data into views

Angular is very fast to develop with and provides most of the features of jquery and backbone plus handy utilities to lessen the amount of boilerplate code required.

Native vs Hybrid apps, Native has faster UI but Hybrid uses web technologies and covers more platforms but lots of time spent fiddling with the webview. Gap is getting narrower but not one to one yet.

Questions

Have any questions speak up!