CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsuser-interface
Nicklas Karlsson
Nicklas Karlsson

Reputation: 409

Has Node JS anything to offer for the UI?

Hope I'm not being to general but: I have been tasked with the job of "rejuvenating/modernizing" a monolithic Java EE (JSF/CDI/EJB/JPA) app. Since the requirements state that it should support multiple clients, I have split up the code in a server (JAX-RS interfaces) and a client part (not yet done)

The server is pretty straightforward but I'm wondering about the UI part. Nowadays (hope I don't sound too oldskool) various Node JS spin-offs seem to be popular but I'm under the impression that they have the most value to offer in the "scalable server" section. Does the various Angular/React/Node framework have anything to offer for the client if you have something more complex than a single page app?

It appears to be a really hard time to pick a UI technology nowadays. Sure, the server/DB part which contains most of the business logic are pretty future-proof but still, one would like to focus on one UI technology. There are various jQuery-based frameworks like Kendo, Vaadin & co etc. One option would be to stick with JSF + ICEfaces/PrimeFaces and just work with the REST interface. And then there is JavaFX which looks nice but the future looks a bit uncertain.

So. If the backend is not going to be Node JS, does Node JS have anything to offer for the UI part that can't be done more easily with other frameworks and does anyone have other insights on the UI layer in general. Predicting is hard, especially the future ;-)

Upvotes: 10

Views: 39941

Answers (3)

petegordon
petegordon

Reputation: 339

Electron, which combines NodeJS and Chromium (render Process).

https://electronjs.org/

Formerly known as atom shell it was created by Github, it is the core of the Atom Editor, VS Code, Slack app, and a ton of “thick client” applications. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_client

Upvotes: 4

razakj
razakj

Reputation: 1049

There are several implementations which allow you to use Node.JS modules on a client-side (ie. web browser). You can then use html/css and call Node.JS modules directly from your DOM which is used to implement UI.

I'm most familiar with NW.js which I've used couple of times. Others would be for example Electron or AppJS

Upvotes: 3

Michael Daffin
Michael Daffin

Reputation: 866

Node.js is a way to run javascript on the server side, not client side. That said, npm (nodes package manager) or its wrappers (like bower) are quite often used to manage the client side dependencies - which is very useful to have.

Angular and react (among others) are client side javascript ui frameworks to help make writing ui much nicer. Neither depend on the backend being written in node.js and can work with any rest api (or other server side apis) - or no api at all if that backend injects all the data the page needs into the page itself.

Upvotes: 4

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