danieldkim / charlotte

Charlotte is a framework for building mobile hybrid web/native apps using Express and PhoneGap. It allows you to build a web app using a traditional web development approach and then to reuse that web app and progressively enhance it for a native app.

Introduction

Charlotte is a framework for building mobile hybrid web/native apps using Express and PhoneGap. It allows you to build a web app using a traditional web development approach and then to reuse that web app and progressively enhance it for a native app.

By extending Express to the web browser Charlotte allows the rendering of view templates to transparently move to the client where it can be combined with CSS3 animations to provide page transitions with native feel. It leverages the PhoneGap File API to provide reliable and granular control over the caching of application assets and data on the device.

Charlotte provides a browser abstraction in JS that effectively produces, within the single-page application environment of PhoneGap, a multi-page web application development environment with user-defined page transition animations, robust error handling, and the performance characteristics (minimal network overhead) of an architecture based on a JavaScript MVC framework and JSON server API.

(Charlotte is not a JavaScript MVC framework, though, and does not require you to build an API.)

Charlotte is an implementation of the html bundle concept. Read the wiki doc for some background.

Also, check out the charlotte demo app.

Requirements

• underscore >=1.3.1

• async >=0.1.16

• Express ~2.5.6

• zepto >=1.0rc1

• PhoneGap >=1.6.1

• jade (optional)

Express Setup

Install charlotte:

npm install charlotte

Require charlotte:

var charlotte = require('charlotte');

Set a version:

charlotte.version = "1.0";

Support express (do this just before you use the router middleware):

charlotte.supportExpress(app, { 
  assetRootUrl: 'http://assets.local.host:3000/',
  viewExtensions: 'default' 
});
app.use(app.router);    

The assetRootUrl option will be used by the asset helpers when outputting urls for asset tags. This can be omitted if not using a separate asset server.

The viewExtensions option specifies the extensions of view resources that should be served statically. This is useful if you have static file paths that match/conflict with any of your Express routes, and can be omitted if you don't. Should also be omitted in environments where static asset requests are served by a separate server and never enter node. If 'default' is specified these are the extensions that will be served statically:

['jade', 'css', 'js', 'jpg', 'gif', 'png']

There is also a templateExtensions option that will simply add the specified template extensions to the default view extensions.

Serve up all views statically:

app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/views'));

Create a symlink to the charlotte module's lib directory somewhere in your views directory:

[~/projects/foo/node/views/lib]$ ln -s ../../node_modules/charlotte/lib charlotte

Create a versions directory in the views directory. Create a symlink within the versions directory that points to the views directory above it for each new version of your app :

[~/projects/foo/node/views]$ mkdir versions
[~/projects/foo/node/views]$ cd versions
[~/projects/foo/node/views/versions]$ ln -s .. 1.0

Layout Structure

Create a layout template and a layout body partial, which gets included by the layout:

layout.jade:

!!! 5
html(xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml")
  head
    meta(name="viewport", content="user-scalable=no, width=device-width")
    meta(name="apple-touch-fullscreen", content="yes")
    meta(name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style", content="black")
    - if (!requestId)
      != stylesheets('foo')
    != javascripts("/lib/underscore", "/lib/async", "/lib/zepto", "/lib/jade")
    != javascripts("/lib/charlotte/shared", "/lib/charlotte/charlotte", "/lib/charlotte/util")
    script(type="text/javascript")
      charlotte.baseUrl = 'http://foo.com/';
      charlotte.assetRootUrl = '#{assetRootUrl}';
      charlotte.version = '#{version}';
  
  body
    #content.content-container
      - if (isBlank("layoutBody"))
        !=partial('layout_body')
      - else if (layoutBody)
        !=partial(layoutBody)
      - else
        != body

layout_body.jade:

- if (!requestId)
  != stylesheets('foo')

!= body

This layout body is rather empty but the bulk of the layout content for your pages should go in the layout body partial, which should also include the body of the response. The outer layout template should just be a basic html skeleton with a content container that includes the layout body partial. It should include charlotte and its dependencies.

The actual layout body partial to use should be given in the layoutBody parameter, and should default to layout_body; if not blank (undefined, null, or '') and not truthy we just include the body of the response directly rather than go through the layout body.

Use the javascripts() and stylesheets() helper functions provided by Charlotte to include JavaScript and CSS files. Simply pass paths to source files to the functions (you can omit the '.js' and '.css' extensions) and they will output script tags or link tags, respectively.

Note that the inclusion of the stylesheets partial is either in the outer layout template or in the inner layout body depending on the presence of a requestId.

The outer layout partial will only be used when rendering templates on the server in node. We do some basic client-side charlotte setup in it, setting the baseUrl, assetRootUrl, and version attributes on the global charlotte object. When running in html bundle mode and rendering templates on the client, the baseUrl and assetRootUrl attributes will be set by the bootstrap process , which you can see in the Client window setup section of this document, and the version will be handled in a different manner.

Client window Setup

Include charlotte and its dependencies in your index.html file to bootstrap charlotte. Also include a link to your own boot script which should create a charlotte browser and a tab and load the home page.

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="lib/cordova-1.5.0.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="lib/underscore.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="lib/async.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="lib/zepto.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="lib/charlotte/shared.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="lib/charlotte/charlotte.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="boot.js"></script>

(You'll need to have a process setup wherein these files are copied to your xcode project's www directory when building. For instance, the charlotte demo project has a shell script called copy_boot_scripts.sh that is called from a "Run Script" build stage in the xcode project.)

Create tab containers and tab content containers in the index.html:

<body onload="onBodyLoad()">
  <div id="foo-tab" class="tab">
    <div id="content" class="content-container"></div>
  </div>
  <div id="bar-tab" class="tab">
    <div id="content" class="content-container"></div>
  </div>
</body>

In your boot script, initialize the global charlotte object:

charlotte.baseUrl = 'http://foo.com/';
charlotte.rootUrl =  'http://local.host:3000/';
charlotte.htmlBundleMode = true;

Then create a charlotte browser and some tabs:

browser = charlotte.createBrowser();

_.each(['foo', 'bar'], function(name) {
  browser.createTab({
    name: name, 
    container: '#' + name + '-tab'
  });
});

And load the initial page into the initial tab:

var fooTab = browser.switchTab('foo');
fooTab.load({ url: '/' });

There are a number of possible options that you can and should specify when you create a browser and when you load a page. Refer to the API documentation below and check out the charlotte demo app to learn more.

Optionally, may want to load newer versions of the core scripts required for bootstrap from the server:

charlotte.assets({ 
  javascripts: {
    urls: [
      "/lib/underscore", "/lib/async", "/lib/zepto", "/lib/jade",
      "/lib/charlotte/shared", "/lib/charlotte/charlotte"
    ]
  }
}, next);

You'll want to do this before you create a browser. charlotte.assets() is async so you should pass a callback method as the final argument which will be invoked when all the assets have been loaded.

You may also may want to clean up the file cache on startup. This will clean up all of the version caches except for the current version:

charlotte.clearFileCache({
  versionExceptions: [localStorage.getItem("version")]
}, next);

charlotte.clearFileCache() is also async and takes a callback as the final argument.

Template API

The template API provides a common set of variables and helper functions that templates can use whether they are running on the server within node or on the client.

Asset Helpers

Asset helpers should always be used to include application assets. The output shown below can be considered to be the logical output of these helpers. When running in node on the server, the output is literally what is shown and is rendered inline in the template output. When running in html bundle mode on the client there's a bit more going on.

javascripts

this:

!= javascripts('/js/underscore', '/js/async')

or this:

!= javascripts(['/js/underscore', '/js/async'])

will output this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://assets.local.host:3000/versions/1.0/js/underscore.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://assets.local.host:3000/versions/1.0/js/async.js"></script>

stylesheets

this:

!= stylesheets('/css/foo', '/foo/bar')

or this:

!= stylesheets(['/css/foo', '/foo/bar'])

will output this:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://assets.local.host:3000/versions/1.0/css/foo.css"></link>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://assets.local.host:3000/versions/1.0/css/bar.css"></link>

img

this:

!= img({src: '/img/foo.jpg'})

will output this:

<img src="http://assets.local.host:3000/versions/1.0/img/foo.jpg"></img>

Do not use the img helper to include non-application-asset images such as user-generated content. Should only be used for images that are part of the application itself, i.e. icons.

assetUrl(url)

Sometimes you want to output an asset url in your markup outside of a script, link, or img tag (e.g. as a background-image property in an inline style).

this (jade):

div(style="background-image: url('#{assetUrl("/img/foo.jpg")}')")

will output this:

<div style="background-image: url('http://assets.local.host:3000/versions/1.0/img/foo.jpg')"></div>

Utility Helpers

• isBlank(varName) - returns true is the variable named varName in this scope is undefined, null or an empty string.

Dynamic Helpers / Variables

• NODE_ENV - the value of the NODE_ENV environment variable (e.g., development, production, etc.).

• context - the context within which this template is executing. will be the Express app object when rendered server-side; can be either a browser or a page when executing client-side (see discussion of Charlotte, Browsers, Tabs, and Pages below).

• rootUrl - the root url of the charlotte object, browser, or tab within which this template is rendered.

• assetRootUrl - the root url of the server for downloading application assets, i.e. javascripts, stylesheets, and image assets.

• version - the version of this request.

• requestId - the request id of this request (always null on the server).

• viewOnly - whether this is a view-only request.

• referer - the referer for this request -- use this instead of checking the Referer header.

• inNativeApp - this tells the template if it's running within a native app and device APIs are available.

• requestIsSecure - whether the current request is an https request.

Express Request Helpers

• acceptsHtmlBundle - whether the request is an html bundle request.

• referer - a property that returns what the name implies. works in html bundle mode and normal request mode.

Client window API

The client side of the charlotte framework runs within the window of a web browser or web view of a PhoneGap-based native app. The progressive enhancement of your web app for a native environment happens within this context.

Callback Style

A side note here on callback style. Charlotte uses the standard node callback style wherein an error is passed as the first argument to the callback; it uses this style on the client as well as the server. This is true for user-provided callbacks as well as the callbacks that Charlotte provides for the user to call. So check the first argument for an error on any callbacks that you pass to Charlotte. Send an Error object as the first argument when invoking any Charlotte-provided callbacks to pass an error back to Charlotte.

Event handler callbacks, such as ready event handlers, are the exception to this rule. By definition they are invoked to handle specific -- generally non-error -- states and do not need an optional error argument.

charlotte.ready(requestId, handler)

As with a typical web page, the action begins when the page is ready, and we register a function to be invoked when it is.

Call the charlotte.ready() method to register functions to execute when the page is ready:

script(type="text/javascript")
  charlotte.ready('!{requestId}', function(callback) {
    $('#body-frame', this.container).height(window.innerHeight - 40);
    callback();
  });

charlotte.ready() takes 2 arguments:

• requestId - the id of the current request. you don't need to worry about what this is or how to get it -- charlotte provides it to you through the requestId helper in the template API. just interpolate the value into the template and pass it to the ready() method (be sure to use the unescaped form of interpolation).

• your handler.

Charlotte provides two things to your handler function.

First it provides, as the only argument to the handler, a callback that must be invoked when the handler is done doing what it has to do. This callback is in the node style -- pass an error as the first argument to it if an error occurs within your handler.

Ready event handlers are invoked in a chain, in order of their registration in the flow of the HTML. The next handler is not invoked until the current one has signaled completion by invoking its callback. Passing an error to the callback halts the execution chain. You could implement a global ready event handler that always gets invoked first on every page by including it in a partial at the beginning of every page.

The second thing that charlotte provides to your handler is the value of this. What is this, you ask? Read on to learn more ...

Charlotte, Browsers, Tabs, and Pages

The JavaScript executing in a rendered page in the client environment (i.e., after the template has been executed and the html generated) in a charlotte-based app can be executing in one of three possible scopes or contexts, depending on how the page was loaded into the window. The execution context defines the value of this in the page's ready event handlers.

this is useful in a few of ways in your handler:

• you can access properties of the execution context, such as container and rootUrl.

• you can access asset loading methods of the execution context, such as javascripts() and require(), that are auto-versioned with the version of the current request.

• you can do some duck-typing on it to do different things depending on what the execution context is. for example, you will usually only want to override anchor tag click handlers when executing within a page context.

Global charlotte object

When not executing in html bundle mode, with templates being rendered on the server in node, this in your ready handler is the global window.charlotte object.

Charlotte browser tab page

Most pages in your app will be loaded into a page of a tab in a charlotte browser. Tabs maintain history as you load pages into them. You can go back and you can reload. This is when you'll want to override anchor tag click handlers to load linked pages into the current tab, or to go back in the history.

function(callback) {
  var self = this,
      container = self.container;

  if (container) {

    $(container).on('click', '#nav-bar .button.left', function(e) {
      e.preventDefault();
      self.back();
    });

    $(container).on("click", 'a.post.show', function(e) {
      e.preventDefault();
      // this load is not very interesting without some load and back transitions
      // but i'm keeping this example short
      self.load({url: this.href});
    });

  }
  callback();
}        

Only pages have a container property so we use it above to determine if we're in a page execution context. It should also be used to scope any selector-based operations. We use the page container property to select the root for event delegation.

Charlotte browser

When you load a page into the DOM using the request() method on a charlotte browser instance, this in your ready handler will be the browser object. This will generally be the case when issuing AJAX-style requests to retrieve page data or to update parts of a page outside of the normal tab history flow.

Typically, these types of requests occur to update part of a page within a tab, so it is not necessary to add event event handlers so long as event delegation was used properly when the tab was loaded. See the charlotte demo app for an example of this.

DOM Event Handling

Because a charlotte-based application is underneath-the-hood still a single-page application, and pages are removed from the DOM as they are popped off the stack, it is important that event delegation be used properly. Use zepto's on() method to attach event handlers, not bind(). In a page execution context, use the supplied container property to select the root for event delegation:

function(callback) {
  var self = this,
      container = self.container;

  if (container) {

    $(container).on('click', '#nav-bar .button.left', function(e) {
      e.preventDefault();
      self.back();
    });

  }
  callback();
}

Charlotte provides a couple of convenience methods on the execution context -- on() and find() -- that are automatically scoped to the context's container. Using on(), the above can be written like so:

function(callback) {
  var self = this;

  this.on('click', '#nav-bar .button.left', function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    self.back();
  });

  callback();
}

Charlotte will detach all event handlers from a page's container when back() is called, to prevent any possible memory leaks.

Common properties

All of the execution contexts have these properties:

• baseUrl - this is the logical base url for the execution context. it is used in 2 ways:

  1. to resolve relative module names passed to the require() method.

  2. whenever a module is encountered whose name is under baseUrl it will be retrieved using the rootUrl.

  only required if using AMD.

• rootUrl - the root url of the node server, used to resolve all relative paths (except for AMD module names). defaults to '/'; should be set to a full absolute URL in a native app execution environment. will typically be equal to the baseUrl only in production.

• assetRootUrl - the root url of the static asset server, used to resolve all relative asset paths. if no assetRootUrl is provided, the rootUrl will be used.

• contentContainer - CSS selector identifying the container element for the content within this context (implicitly scoped to this context). defaults to '#content'.

Generally, it is only necessary to set these properties on the global charlotte object, as browsers created by it will inherit these values, and tabs will inherit these values from browsers.

It is theoretically possible, however, to have multiple browsers in an app with different bases/roots, or tabs within a browser that have different bases/roots.

beforeAjax(url, settings, callback)

Charlotte provides a way for you to intercept calls to its low-level internal AJAX API and modify the arguments passed to if desired. This can be done at the charlotte, browser, and tab levels by setting the beforeAjaxcallback at that level. If set at multiple levels their invocations will be chained starting at the most specific level, the result of the previous level being passed up the chain. These callbacks will be executed whenever Charlotte makes an AJAX request internally to do its work (including when downloading templates and when loading assets from the cache seed).

The arguments to beforeAjax are

• url - the url of the request

• settings - the settings object that will be passed to zepto

• callback(err[, url[, settings]]) - a callback to invoke when you're done to invoke the next function in the chain. if url and/or settings arguments are passed they will passed to the next function instead of the arguments received by this function.

An example is illustrative. Below is a simplified version of a beforeAjax callback that I use in an app to send an X-next-version header so that it can be used by proxy servers to route the request to node processes running the next version of the code while the app is in review:

charlotte.beforeAjax = function(url, settings, callback) {
  var version,
    _this = this;
  function addHeader() {
    settings.headers = settings.headers || {}
    settings.headers['X-next-version'] = 'yes';
  }
  if ((settings && settings.bypassInReviewCheck) || !url.match(/^http/)) {
    callback();
  } else if (this.inReview) {
    addHeader();
    callback(null, url, settings);
  } else {
    this.ajax({
      url: this.rootUrl  + "version",
      bypassInReviewCheck: true
    }, function(err, data) {
      if (err) {
        callback(err);
      } else if (data == window.bootConfigVersion) {
        delete _this.beforeAjax;
        callback();
      } else {
        _this.inReview = true;
        addHeader();
        callback(null, url, settings);
      }
    });
  }
};

The method above checks to see if the version the app is built as is equal to the currently deployed server version. If so, it deletes itself. Otherwise, it sets an inReview flag to true and adds the X-next-version header to the current and subsequent requests.

Common methods

Asset methods

All of the execution contexts have methods to dynamically load application assets:

• stylesheets(options, callback) - load CSS stylesheets.

• javascripts(options, callback) - load JavaScript files.

• assetUrls(options) - returns versioned URLs.

The options for each of these methods are:

• urls - an array of resource paths. paths are minus the filename extensions (i.e. "/foo/bar", instead of "/foo/bar.js"); the exception to this is the assetUrls() method which expects urls to include the extension.

• version - version of assets to load. relative resource paths will be versioned using this value (e.g. "/foo/bar" -> "/versions/1.0/foo/bar")

• rootUrl - url of node server; this server will be used to retrieve the current version if none is provided

• assetRootUrl - static asset server that assets will be downloaded from; the rootUrl will be used if no assetRootUrl is provided here or on the object itself.

If the version, rootUrl, and assetRootUrl options are not provided, the properties of the execution context will be used. The urls of the source files are passed to the callback function.

There's also a wrapper around the stylesheets and javascripts methods that can be used to load both stylesheets and JavaScripts at once:

• assets(options, callback)

The two possible options are:

• javascripts - options for the JavaScripts load

• stylesheets - options for the stylesheets load

assetUrls comes in handy when you want to set the background image for an element dynamically to an image asset:

var backgroundImageUrl = page.assetUrls(urls: ['/img/my-background.jpg'])[0];
page.find('#my-element').css('background-image', "url('" + backgroundImageUrl + "')");

AMD

In addition to the asset methods described above, Charlotte provides an AMD module loading mechanism. Each of the execution contexts has a require() method.

• require(options, callback)

The options are the same as the options to the other asset loader methods plus:

• dependencies - array of module names.

• baseUrl - used to resolve relative module names in the dependencies list

• allDependenciesCallback - a callback that will receive the names of all the dependencies encountered while resolving the required dependencies, including the required dependencies themselves and all modules in the dependency trees of the required dependencies

Modules are defined using the charlotte.define() method.

If you ever need to grab a module programmatically, you can use the charlotte.resolveModule(name) method.

Ready event handler modules

In many cases, all you want to do in your ready event handlers is require a module and invoke it in this manner:

charlotte.ready('!{requestId}', function(callback) {
  this.require(
    {
      dependencies: ['foo/bar']
    }, 
    function(err, foobar) {
      if (err) return callback(err);
      foobar.call(this, callback);
    });
});

Modules names can be specified as ready event handlers. When this is done Charlotte will automatically require the module and call it using the execution context as this, and pass the ready handler callback as the only argument. The code below is equivalent to the above:

charlotte.ready('!{requestId}', 'foo/bar');

DOM methods

• find(selector) - executes a Zepto find() within the content container for this context.

• on(type, [selector], handler) - executes a Zepto on() on the content container for this context .

ajax(settings, callback)

The charlotte and browser objects have an ajax method that you can use which is a thin wrapper around zepto's ajax method, with a node-style callback interface, relative url resolution, generation of charlotte error types, and execution of beforeAjax callbacks.

It's generally recommended that you use this method if you need to issue manual AJAX requests.

charlotte

In addition to the common ones, the charlotte object has these properties and methods:

• htmlBundleMode - flag indicating whether charlotte is in html bundle mode.

• cacheSeedLocation - url of cache seed. should be relative to the app location and will be resolved relative to the www directory in the native app. defaults to './cache_seed'.

• readyRegistryTimeToLive - how long ready event handlers should live before being purged, in milliseconds. defaults to 15000.

• tempCacheSize - the size, in characters, of the in-memory temp cache. older entries in the cache will be purged when this size is exceeded to make room for newer ones.

• define(name, [dependencies,] callback)

  • name - the name is required and should be a fully-qualified absolute url.

  • dependencies - array of module names. relative names will be resolved using the fully-qualified name of the module itself, and interpreted as root-relative to that name. e.g. if the name of the module is "http://foo.bar/foo", then a dependency with the name "/bar" will be resolved as "http://foo.bar/bar".

• createBrowser(options) - options to this method are discussed in detail in the browser API section.

• clearFileCache(options, callback) - clears the filesystem cache for a particular rootUrl. options are:

  • rootUrl - the root url of the cache to clear; if not provided the rootUrl of charlotte object will be used.

  • versionExceptions - an array of version strings that should be not be cleared.

• removeFromFileCache(paths, callback) - removes only certain files from the file cache. pass an array of file paths in the paths argument. use the path that is logged to the console when a file is downloaded (look for log lines that say "Downloaded file: /path/to/myfile.js"). you can also see the full path to a file through different simulator/device-specific means. for instance you can use the XCode Organizer to browse the filesystem for an app installed on an iphone (the full path to the file would include every component of the path under the Documents directory). this function is useful when debugging on a device and versioning is on. you can make changes to just a few files on the server, delete them from the file cache, restart your app, and charlotte will download the missing files (for changes that are confined to templates and for purely additive css changes it should be sufficient to clear the RAM cache and reload the page vs. restarting the app entirely).

• addCompiledTemplates(version, templates) - adds precompiled templates to the resource cache. templates is a hash of template functions keyed by their full absolute url. the functions can be in function or string form.

• setTemplatesJs(version, url, callback) - uses the specified templates file as input to the addCompiledTemplates() method. url is a relative url that will be auto-versioned; this method will look in the local asset cache and cache seed before requesting it from the server.

• clearRamCache(options) - clears the RAM cache for a particular rootUrl (including the temp cache). options are the same as those for clearFileCache(). this method is mainly used internally to clear the RAM cache when a version change is detected.

• getVersionKey() - returns the key used to access/store the current version in localStorage. is based on the rootUrl.

browser

In addition to the common ones, a charlotte browser has the following properties.

createBrowser(options)

The createBrowser() method is actually on the charlotte object, but it plays the role of constructor for a browser instance so we discuss its details here.

The baseUrl, rootUrl, and assetRootUrl can be provided as options. If not provided, the browser instance will inherit those of the charlotte object that created it. Other options are described below.

followRedirects

Whether redirects on a request() should be followed. If false, a charlotte.RedirectError will be generated. Default is true.

layoutBody

The default layout body template. Default is 'layout_body'.

templateCompilers

A hash of compilers for different template types. Default is:

{
  '.jade': function(text) {
    return jade.compile(text);
  }
}

defaultTemplateExtname

Template extension to use for template paths that omit the filename extension. Default is ".jade".

helpers

Static helpers that will be available to templates. You'll want to use the same ones here that you use on the server.

dynamicHelpers

Dynamic helpers that will be available to templates. You'll want to use the same ones here that you use on the server.

Dynamic helpers that depend on the res argument are not supported. There is limited support for dependence on the req argument -- basically just the referer and viewOnly properties and the flash() method, currently.

timeout

Timeout value for any network operations. charlotte.ServerUnavailableError's will be generated when requests take longer than the timeout.

cachedBundles

Used to configure what html bundle resources (pages, essentially) will be cached and in what manner. Each of these options takes a set of matchers against which the url for a resource will be tested. A matcher can be a regular expression or a function that returns a boolean. A matcher function takes two arguments:

function(url, parsedUrl):

• url - the url as a string

• parsedUrl - the url as a parsed object with attributes.

The different cachedBundles options are:

• urlMatchers - any array of matchers for resources to be cached permanently.

• tempUrlMatchers - any array matchers for resources to be cached in the in-memory temp cache.

• viewOnlyUrlMatchers - a hash of named matchers for view-only resources. since many resources can share the same view-only representation we give that representation its own name and store it under that name rather than name of the resource itself, to avoid duplication. see the charlotte demo for examples.

errorHandlers

Error handler callbacks to be invoked when an error occurs while processing a request() or tab.load().

global: function(err, page)

The global error handler always gets invoked for every error. The page argument is the page that the error occurred on if it was a tab.load() call. Logging the error somewhere is something you may want to do in a global error handler.

default: function(err, page, next)

This is the default error handler for any request() calls or tab.load() calls that do not specify an onError option. The next argument is a callback that you should invoke if you'd like to continue processing and for the error to be passed on to the request/load callback.

onCacheMiss(url, page, afterViewLoad)

Callback that is invoked if the network is accessed at any point while processing a request() or tab.load() call. Only invoked once per request/load even if multiple network accesses occur.

The url argument is of the actual resource on which the first cache miss occurred while processing the request, i.e. potentially a JavaScript file that has to be downloaded if the html bundle was retrieved from the cache. Thus, the url may not be the same as the url of the page that was being loaded if the cache miss occurred during a tab.load() call.

The afterViewLoad argument indicates whether this cache miss occurred on a view-only load after the view has been completely loaded.

This callback will not be invoked if overridden at the request/load level.

onRequestEnd(err, settings, page, bundle)

Callback that is invoked when any request() (which is also used internally by tab.load()) is fully processed. One use case for this is to hide a "loading" status message that you displayed on cache miss.

onRequestEnd: function(err, settings, page, bundle) {
  if (!(err instanceof charlotte.RedirectError)) {
    hideLoadingMessage(page);
  }
}

This callback will not be invoked if overridden at the request/load level.

onVersionChange(localVersion, remoteVersion, callback)

Callback that is invoked whenever a version change is detected while processing an html bundle request. localVersion is the current local version and remoteVersion is the new remote version returned from the server. Invoke callback if you'd like the processing of the request to continue, otherwise don't.

onDestroy(contentCtr)

A function that takes a content container that is being removed from the DOM and does any necessary clean up, such as cleaning up images (cleanup of event handlers added to the contentCtr through Zepto's on() method is already taken care of by Charlotte). It will be called be called on the specified container of any request() calls before inserting the response html into it.

This callback will also be called when destroying any pages created by any tabs created by this browser. There are three instances in which a content container for a tab is destroyed and the onDestroy() callback called with it:

• on a viewOnly load, on the view-only content before loading the full page.

• on a reload() of a page, on the current content before loading new content.

• when back() is called on a page.

archiver[(tab, page)]

A function that takes a tab and a page argument and that when invoked creates an object with onArchive(contentCtr) and onRestore(contentCtr, backOptions) and onRestoreAfterTransition(contentCtr, backOptions) methods (all optional). The relevant method will be called on the returned object whenever the given page is archived/restored.

The archiver function itself will be invoked just before the page is archived. Optionally, it is simply an object with the relevant methods.

A page is archived (taken out of the DOM) when a new page is loaded into the tab, and restored when the page is returned to when back() is called on the next page.

You'll want to do the same sort of cleaning up that you do in your onDestroy() callbacks, but in a way that allows the cleaned up state to be restored when the page is returned to. For example:

archiver: function(tab, page) {
  return {
    onArchive: function(contentCtr) {
      $('img', contentCtr).each(function() {
        this._src = this.src;
        return this.src = TINY_GIF;
      });
    },
    onRestore: function(contentCtr, backOptions) {
      return $('img', contentCtr).each(function() {
        return this.src = this._src;
      });
    }
  };
}

onViewLoad/onLoad/onBack

Options for any tab load that occurs in this browser. The callback options are chained with the browser-level callback being executed first. The transition options are defaults that can be overridden at the tab or load() call level.

bundleResponders

An array of bundle responder objects. Bundle responders are useful when you want to render a page without having to hit the server. They're client-side objects that handle generating html bundle responses for requests. You can think of them as controllers that live on the client. Bundle responders have two properties:

• matcher(url, parsedUrl) - takes the url of the request in string and parsed form as arguments and returns a boolean indicating whether this responder should handle the request.

• responder(settings, callback) - takes the settings passed to charlotte.request (which could be a page), and passes an html bundle or an error back to the callback.

A trivial example of a bundle responder:

{
  matcher: function(url, parsedUrl) {
    return parsedUrl.path === '/foobar';
  },
  respond: function(settings, callback) {
    return callback(null, {
      template: 'foobar',
      locals: {
        title: "Foobar"
      }
    });
  }
}

createTab(options)

The options to this method are discussed in detail in the tab API section.

currentTab()

Returns the currently selected tab.

switchTab(name)

Switches to the tab with the give name.

getTab(name)

Returns the tab with the give name.

request(settings, callback[, renderWait, page])

Issues an html bundle request.

The settings are the same settings accepted by a zepto ajax() request, plus:

• viewOnly - whether this is a view-only request

• container - the DOM container into which the generated HTML should be added; can be CSS selector or actual element object. optional.

• followRedirects - override of the browser option with the same name.

• layoutBody - ""

• onCacheMiss - ""

• onVersionChange - ""

• uploadOptions - a PhoneGap FileUploadOptions object. should have a fileUri attribute in addition to the standard PhoneGap attributes. when this is option is passed, an upload using the PhoneGap FileTransfer object is done.

• onDestroy - same as the browser option with the same name; will be called on the container provided before adding response HTML. will be called before the browser callback.

• archiver - same as the browser option with the same name; will be called before the browser callback.

• renderHtml - boolean indicating whether template+bundle should be rendered into HTML. defaults to true. use this to avoid the cost of rendering the HTML if you're only interested in the bundle.

The callback is invoked when the request is complete and has this signature:

function(err, bundle, html, triggerReady)

• bundle - the html bundle object.

• html - the generated html content; the same content that was loaded into the specified container, if specified.

• triggerReady - a function to call to trigger the ready event on the page. ready event handlers will not be executed until this function is called. you can also pass a callback to this function to be invoked after the execution of the ready event handler chain is complete, though you will rarely need to do this.

The optional renderWait argument is a callback that can be used to delay the rendering of the bundle into HTML until some condition is met. If provided, it is given a callback to invoke when you're ready to render. (tab.load() uses this internally to delay the rendering of the full page on view-only-first loads until the view-only load, including transition and ready event handlers, has completed processing.)

An optional page argument can be passed which will be used as the context for any ready event handlers that are executed. You should probably pass this if you intend to invoke the triggerReady function.

getVersionKey()

Returns the key used by this browser instance to access/store the current version in localStorage. Is based on the rootUrl.

loadTemplates(version, paths, callback)

Loads templates specified in the path argument into the cache(s). Note: this method is not smart about loading referenced partials. You must explicitly specify all templates that you want to load.

getTemplate(version, path)

Sometimes you just want that template so you can render some html manually:

tmpl = browser.getTemplate(page.version, "/comments/comment.jade");
locals = _.extend({
  comment: {
    user: currentUser,
    text: text,
    createdAt: Date.now()
  }, browser.helpers);
page.find('#comments-list').prepend(tmpl(locals)); 

tab

In addition to the common ones, a charlotte tab has the following properties.

createTab(options)

The createTab() method is actually on a browser object, but it plays the role of constructor for a tab instance so we discuss its details here.

The baseUrl, rootUrl, and assetRootUrl can be provided as options. If not provided, the tab instance will inherit those of the browser object that created it.

onDestroy and archiver options can be provided that will will supplement the browser options, and be called before them in any of the respective scenarios in which they're called.

onViewLoad/onLoad/onBack options can be provided. The callback options are chained, with the tab-level callback being executed after the browser-level one (if the browser-level one calls next()). The transition options override any browser-level options and serve as defaults for any loads in this tab.

Other options are:

• name - a unique name for the tab.

• container - CSS selector identifying the container element for the tab.

• createContentContainer - an optional callback that should be invoked when creating a new content container to load a new page into.

The default createContentContainer function is:

function defaultCreateContentContainer() {
  var container = document.createElement('div');
  container.className = 'content-container';
  container.style.display = 'none';
  return container;
}

load(page)

Loads a new page into the tab. A page is a basically an extension of the settings object that zepto's ajax() accepts plus:

• followRedirects - override of the browser option with the same name.

• onCacheMiss - ""

• onViewLoad - options for the view-only load event.

• onLoad - options for the load event.

• onBack - options for the back event (loaded page is popped off the stack).

• onError - override of the errorHandler.default browser option.

• onDestroy - supplemental to the tab and browser options with the same name, will be called before them.

• preserveOnViewLoadOnRedirect - whether to preserve the onViewLoad option if redirected to another page. defaults to true. set to false if you want to disable viewOnly loads on redirect.

• replaceCurrent - boolean indicating whether to replace the current page on the top of the stack with the new page.

onViewLoad, onLoad, and onBack all take the same options, both of which are optional:

• transition - callback to handle the transition of the loaded content from staging container to current content container.

• callback - callback to be invoked when the processing of the load, including optional transition, is complete.

The signature for the onViewLoad and onLoad callbacks looks like:

function(err, bundle, next[, afterViewLoad])

• err - an error object if an error occurred while processing the load.

• bundle - html bundle response.

• next - a function to call to when complete. this invokes the next callback in the chain, or completes it. the last callback in the chain -- the load()-level is always the last in the chain, if it exists -- can also pass a callback to this function to be invoked after the execution of the ready event handler chain is complete, though you will rarely need to do this. if you omit this argument in your callback signature, the next callback in the chain will be called immediately after.

• afterViewLoad - only relevant for onLoad(), this is true when the load event occurred after a view load.

If the callback option is not provided for these events, triggerReady() will be automatically executed.

The onBack callback looks like:

function(options, callback)

The options are user-defined, and are whatever was passed in the tab.back() call. The callback argument should be called when done doing what it has to do.

Transitions

The transition option is a function that takes a content container, a content stage container, and callback:

transition: function(contentCtr, contentStageCtr, callback)

It causes the contentStageCtr to take over the viewing area currently occupied by the contentCtr, as well as assume its identity. It invokes the callback argument when the transition is complete.

The transition could involve moving the contentCtr out of the way, covering it, etc. It will be removed from the DOM when the callback is called.

For on[View]Load events, the contentStageCtr contains the newly loaded page content. For the onBack event, the contentStageCtr contains the previous page in the tab history.

Default transition functions can be defined at the browser level (see transitions option to createBrowser()). Those defaults can be overridden here. Setting a transition option to null will nullify for this load any default transition option set at the browser level.

The value of this in the transition function is the current page before the transition to the new page (or to the previous page in the case of onBack)

View-only first loads

Responsive user interfaces require that some sort of view be displayed to the user upon the touch of a button, even if some latency is involved in rendering the full content of a page. The view-only-first mechanism helps to address that need.

When an onViewLoad setting is specified in a load() call, charlotte will actually coordinate the handling of 2 distinct html bundle requests:

• one request with a viewOnly=true query string param appended to the url
• one request with the provided url

The Express route for the url can detect this parameter with the charlotte-provided req.viewOnly property and render a response immediately, avoiding any unnecessary IO or computation:

app.get('/posts', function(req, res) {

  if (req.viewOnly) {
    res.render('posts/index', {
      title: "Post list",
      posts: [] 
    });
  } else {
    Posts.all(function(posts) {
      res.render('posts/index', {
        title: "Post list",
        posts: posts
      });      
    });
  }

});

Charlotte will fire off the two requests in parallel but it will always invoke the onViewLoad callbacks first, even if for some reason the regular load returns a response first. Also, it will not invoke the onLoad callback until the triggerReady for onViewLoad is called, even if the regular load returns while the onViewLoad callback is being executed.

Caching of view-only responses, which is discussed in the Caching and Versioning section, will avoid network roundtrips and allow for minimal latency between the touch of a button and the display of the view, and we can typically cache them forever as they will generally be essentially static and have no dynamic components.

Redirects

The tab.load() method has some special handling for redirects when the followRedirects option is true (the default). When a redirect is handled Charlotte keeps track of the original request that generated the redirect. If the page is reload()-ed, the original request is attempted again as a server state change that would affect the logic of the redirect may have occurred since the page was originally loaded.

Charlotte also does some special things for certain kinds of redirects. If the location being redirected to is equal to the current page (not including search component of the urls), the tab will automatically reload() the current page (with the new location, including new search component if it exists). If it's equal to the previous page, the tab will automatically call back() on itself and then reload() that previous page. This is useful, for instance, in a modal form when you want the tab to automatically go back to the previous page after posting the form and to refresh that page's contents. Note: if the page being reloaded in either of these scenarios is itself the result of a redirect the special handling mentioned above also applies to that reload.

There is some magic going on to make this happen as true redirects are transparent to XHR clients. Charlotte monkeypatches the Express res.redirect() method to make these pseudo-redirects visible to the charlotte client runtime. As long as res.redirect() is used to do redirects, this behavior will be observed. Issuing a true redirect by setting a 302 status and setting a Location header will bypass this magic. (Note: for non-html-bundle requests res.redirect() will continue to do the normal thing and send a 302 with a Location header)

Posts

The tab.load() method also has some special handling for posts.

One kind of special handling is for posts that redirect back to the page that the post was submitted from, or to the previous page. As mentioned above, the tab will automatically reload() those pages in such cases. When such loads that are the result of redirects from posts occur, Charlotte will ignore the cache and always go to the server for the page (specifically, for the html bundle -- the cache will still be consulted for assets). It will also not cache the response. This allows any errors sent by the req.flash() method to be displayed, and not cached. The cached page will still be used for initial get loads of the page with the form.

Also, posts that return a normal non-redirect response do not affect tab history. This fits the use case of a form that repeatedly returns errors to the client until valid data is submitted. Going back in the tab history from the point when a successful submit eventually occurs should not have to go through a series of error response pages. See the charlotte demo for an example of this and it should be more clear why this special handling is a good thing for native apps.

Scroll positions

Depending on what you do in your transitions, there's a decent chance the scroll positions of any scrolled elements on a page will be missing when it is returned to on tab.back(). To allow your transitions to restore the scroll positions when you transition the page back into the viewport, tab.load() uses zepto's data() method to store the scrollTop and scrollLeft values of all elements within the content container that are .scrolled. These positions are stored in a hash keyed by the element ids; each position has a top and left property. The hash itself is stored on the content container element using zepto's data() under the key scrollPositions.

The charlotte.pagetransitions module makes use of these data objects to restore scroll positions on staged content containers when transitioning them in. Have a look there for an example of how to use this data in your own transitions.

reload(callback[, isRedirectFromPost])

Reloads the current page in the tab. callback is invoked when reload is complete. The isRedirectFromPost argument is used by charlotte when it auto-reloads a page when posting and should not be sent by external callers.

back([options, callback])

Goes back in the tab history, causing the previous page in the tab history to be displayed. The current page will be popped from the stack and permanently removed from the DOM. The onBack options for the current page -- transition and callback -- will be invoked. The options argument passed as here as the first argument to back() will be passed to the onBack.callback option that exists on the current page. When they are complete the callback argument, if it exists, will be invoked. Any errors that occurred in the transition or callback options of the page will be passed to the back() callback.

The options argument is meant to provide a way for a page to pass data to a previous page when it's popped. Applications can use this to implement updates to a page's view when it is returned to from a page that might have updated relevant state. Note: the charlotte property of the options argument is reserved for charlotte-specific options.

backTo(url[, options, callback])

Goes back in the tab history to the specified url. Transitions between intermediate pages are skipped and the onBack transition of the currently loaded page is applied when restoring the page with the given url. The onBack callbacks for all intermediate pages, however, are called and the same options argument is passed to each of them.

length()

Returns the length of this tab's history.

first()

Returns the first page loaded into this tab.

current()

Returns the current page in this tab.

previous()

Returns the previous page in this tab.

clear()

Clears all pages from this tab.

loadInProgress()

Returns a boolean indicating whether a page load is currently in progress on this.

page

A page is a basically an extension of the settings object that zepto’s ajax() accepts. The page object includes all of the properties passed in the load() call (such as url, type, etc.). In addition to those properties and the common charlotte properties, a charlotte page has the properties below.

It's worth noting here properties in particular that maybe be useful to set from your within your ready() event handler code include the archiver, onBack, and onDestroy properties.

NODE_ENV

The value of the NODE_ENV environment variable (e.g., development, production, etc.) on the server.

version

The version returned by the request that this page is associated with.

index

The index of this page in the tab history. Can be useful in your view template code when you want to do something based on where in the tab history the page is being loaded:

if (context.index > 0) 
  // add a back button to the nav bar

isAPage

Self-explanatory. Always true.

load(), reload(), back(), and backTo()

These methods delegate to the containing tab.

If you want a page to do something different when it's reloaded you can override the default behavior in your ready event handler or onLoad callback:

this.reload = function(callback, isRedirectFromPost) {
  async.parallel([
    function(callback) {
      if (isRedirectFromPost) {
        refreshStatusMessage(callback);
      } else {
        callback();
      }
    },
    
    function(callback) {
      refreshSomeContent(callback);
    }
  ], callback);
}

Charlotte will send a true value for the isRedirectFromPost argument when it auto-reloads a page when posting.

isLoading

Whether the page is currently being loaded; is true until the last ready event handler in the ready event handler chain has been executed. This can be useful in your DOM event handlers if you only want them to do anything once the page is fully loaded. For example, you may have an event handler that applies styling to a back button when it's tapped but if you invoke back() on a page while it is still loading it will be ignored, leaving the styling in place on the button but the page not popped. You can check page.isLoading before applying the styling:

page.on('touchstart', '.button.back', function(e) {
  if (!page.isLoading) {
    $(this).addClass('tapped');
  }
});

This is a new property that probably makes more sense to keep transparent -- i.e., if you use page.on() to attach your event handlers it will transparently ignore or block events until the page is fully loaded. May do that in the future but for now you have this property to use if you need it.

tab

The tab that this page was loaded into.

browser

The browser that created the tab that this page was loaded into.

Error Handling

As mentioned in the discussion on callback style, errors are generally passed to callback functions in the style of node, as the first argument. Charlotte also allows error handlers to be registered on a browser instance for errors that occur when attempting to load a page, either through the browser.request() method or the tab.load() method.

The Error Handler Chain

When an error occurs during a page load, the error is passed along a chain. For a browser.request() call the chain looks like this:

global -> default [-> callback]

The chain for a tab.load() call is slightly different and looks like this:

global -> settings.onError || default [-> callback]

Both start with the global handler specified in the createBrowser() options:

function(err, page)

• err - the error.

• page - the page the error occurred on if it occurred on a page load.

The global handler is always invoked for every error that occurs on a browser request or tab load, and is the first to be invoked. The next error handler in the chain will always be called immediately after the global is invoked, so no callback is passed to it.

Next in line is the default error handler:

function(err, page, next)

It takes the same arguments as the global handler plus a callback that can be optionally invoked to pass the error down to the next handler in the chain. The default error handler can be overridden on a tab load by specifying an onError setting.

Finally, if the next callback is invoked in the default or settings.onError handler, the request-level callback will be invoked and passed the error as the first argument.

Error Types

Charlotte will generate the errors of the types below to handle certain internal exceptions encountered while processing a request. You can check for these in your error handlers to handle these specific error conditions. For all other errors, including 500 responses, a simple Error will be generated.

if (err instanceof charlotte.ServerUnavailableError) {
  alert("Server is unavailable");
} else if (err instanceof charlotte.ResourceNotFoundError) {
  alert("Couldn't find that. Maybe it got deleted?");
...

Each of the error types below extend the Error object, and inherit properties like name and message.

charlotte.ServerUnavailableError

Generated in any of the following situations:

• host is unreachable.

• connection cannot be established with server.

• the server responds with 503 status.

• request times out.

Additional properties:

• url - url of resource request was made for.

charlotte.ResourceNotFoundError

Generated when the server responds with a 404 status.

Additional properties:

• url - url of resource request was made for.

charlotte.RedirectError

Generated when the server redirects and followRedirects is false.

Additional properties:

• location - the location being redirected to.

charlotte.AssetLoadError

Generated when an error occurs loading javascripts or stylesheets.

Chain, Chain, Chain

A number of different callback chains have been discussed in this document and it's easy to get lost without understanding their relationship to eachother. It's quite simple. The error handlers chain leads into the tab load callback chain leads into the ready event handler chain:

[error handler chain ->] [tab load callback chain ->] ready event handler chain [-> post-ready callback]

The error handler chain only exists if the relevant options are set. The tab load callback chain only applies for tab loads and is not included in any direct browser requests. At any point, any individual chain and thus the overall chain can be broken by not invoking the appropriate "next" callback (except for the global error handler at the start of the chain which does not need to invoke a next callback).

The callback passed to next() in the final tab load callback, if passed, is called after the ready event handler chain.

completeBundleProcess

Normally a server error will abort normal request processing and generate an Error that will be passed along the error handler chain. The server can prevent this from occurring by sending back a valid html bundle with a completeBundleProcess property set to true:

app.error(function(err, req, res){
  res.render('500', {
     error: err,
     completeBundleProcess: true
  });
});

In this case, no Error will be generated in the Charlotte client, the bundle will be processed as usual, and the error page sent by the server will be displayed. Note that this example merely extends the example from the Express Guide by adding the completeBundleProcess flag. Here again we're leveraging code written to handle normal web requests by extending it to work in html bundle mode.

charlotte.util

Utility methods

• propertyHelper() - this method can be used to create request scope properties that can be set and accessed from templates. this allows a template used to render the body of a response to set a property used by the layout body that includes it, i.e. where the cancel link should point to in the modal form layout body.

• isBlank(varName) - return true if the variable named varName in this scope is undefined, null, or an empty string.

• parseUrl(url) - parses the url and returns an object with attributes.

• parseBundle(url) - parses an HTML bundle, automatically converting UTC-formatted date strings into Date objects.

• storeScrollPositions(contentContainer, tabContainer) - store positions of scrolled elements in a way that can be restored by restoreScrollPositions(). tabContainer should be a selector.

• restoreScrollPositions(contentContainer) - restore positions of scrolled elements that were stored by storeScrollPositions().

semanticVersion(versionString)

Parses a semantic version string and returns an object with these properties and methods:

• major - the major version

• major - the minor version

• major - the patch version

• preRelease - the pre-release identifier

• build - the build metadata

• toString() - returns the string representation of the version.

• compareTo(that) - compares this version to that. returns -1 if this is less than that, 0 if they're equal, and 1 if this is greater than that.

• depthEqualTo(that) - the depth to which this is equal to that. "1.0.1" is equal to "1.0.2" to a depth of 2 but only equal to "1.1.0" to a depth of 1. note: "1.0" is equal to "1.0.0" to a depth of 3. and "1.0.0+1" is equal to "1.0.0+1" to depth of 5.

• isPatchOf(that) - returns true if this is a patch of that (i.e. 2.1.2 is a patch of 2.1.0 and 2.1.1, but not 2.0 or 2.1.3)

• isBuildUpdateOf(that) returns true if this is a later build of the same release or pre-release version.

VersionMismatchError(localVersion, remoteVersion[, message])

Constructor for an Error representing a mismatch between the version retrieved from local storage and the version returned from the server. Has a localVersion and remoteVersion property in addition to the base Error properties.

Intended for use in onVersionChange handlers to be passed to the error callback chain.

charlotte.pagetransitions

To get started with your app, you can use some of the basic animations provided in this module in your page transition functions. You'll probably want to write your own custom animations for your own app.

Check the source for inline JSDoc API documentation.

Caching and Versioning

Versioning

Charlotte is very aggressive in its caching. It caches resources in the local filesystem and in memory and will always consult caches before reaching across the network for them. It only hits the network when it has to, and an app-level version change (more precisely, a rootUrl-level version change) is the signal that tells it to do so. The assumption of this signal is also what allows it to avoid any network costs (i.e. even the relatively small cost of a conditional GET to check if a particular resource has changed) most of the time for cached data. It also allows for partial functionality in offline conditions.

Versioning is server-driven and is enabled by setting the charlotte.version property on the charlotte node module. This is used in a few different ways in the Express environment:

• a '/version' route is created that returns this value.

• the template asset helpers use this value to auto-version all urls.

• the version() dynamic helper returns this value.

• it is included in every html bundle sent from this ever.

onVersionChange(localVersion, remoteVersion, callback)

When versioning is enabled, the server side of Charlotte includes a version in every html bundle that it sends. The Charlotte client compares this version to the existing version stored in local storage and will call the onVersionChange handler if they're different.

The handler should call the passed callback argument to continue request processing. If an error is passed to the callback, request processing will be aborted and the error will passed to the error handler chain. If no error is passed, the local storage version will be updated with the new remote version and request processing will proceed normally.

If you are using semantic versions, this is a reasonable way to implement this handler:

onVersionChange: function(localVersion, remoteVersion, callback) {
  var semanticVersion = charlotte.util.semanticVersion,
      localSemVer = localVersion ? semanticVersion(localVersion) : null,
      remoteSemVer = semanticVersion(remoteVersion);
  console.log("Version changed! local: " + localVersion + ", remote: " + remoteVersion);
  // if new version is not just a patch, send VersionMismatchError
  callback(localSemVer && remoteSemVer.isPatchOf(localSemVer) ? 
             null : 
             new charlotte.util.VersionMismatchError(localSemVer, remoteSemVer));
}

We use charlotte.util.semanticVersion to parse the version strings and compare them. If the remote version is just a patch of the local version, we call the callback with no error to continue normal request processing. Otherwise, we create a new charlotte.util.VersionMismatchError, passing in the semantic version objects to the constructor. We can then check for the charlotte.util.VersionMismatchError in an error handler and take appropriate action. This is how we might handle it in our error handler:

if (err instanceof VersionMismatchError) {
  var localVersion = err.localVersion, 
      remoteVersion = err.remoteVersion
  if (localVersion.compareTo(remoteVersion) > 0) { // local is greater
    // app store update downloaded before new server version 
    // deployed. notify user to try again later.
    alert("New version of app not live yet.  Please try again later.");
  } else { 
    if (localVersion.major != remoteVersion.major) {
      // major version update, need app store update
      alert("Please update to latest version available in the app store.");
    } else if (localVersion.minor != remoteVersion.minor) {
      // minor version update, update local version and restart
      localStorage.setItem("version", remoteVersion);
      alert("Restart required to update.  Restarting now ...")
      document.location = "index.html";
    }
  }
} 

Filesystem Cache

Charlotte uses the PhoneGap File API to cache resources locally. The root directory for the cache res_cache and is organized by root url/version/resource host.

For example, here's what the charlotte demo cache directory tree looks like:

|-res_cache
|---local.charlottedemo.com_3000_
|-----1.0
|-------local-assets.charlottedemo.com_3000
|---------versions
|-----------1.0
|-------------lib
|---------------charlotte
|---------------common
|-------------messages
|-------------posts
|-------------tab_menu
|-------------users
|-------local.charlottedemo.com_3000
|---------posts
|-----------new
|---------tab_menu
|---------view_only_bundles

You can see that the directory structure under local.charlottedemo.com_3000_/1.0/local-assets.charlottedemo.com_3000 mirrors that of the views directory on the server. It, is in fact a mirror of the server:

The directory structure under local.charlottedemo.com_3000_/1.0/local-assets.charlottedemo.com_3000 matches the Express route hierarchy (for those html bundle resources that are cached locally).

Bundles are stored as json files. For the resource with url /foo/bar, the bundle would be stored in foo/bar/index.json. Query strings gets translated into strings that can contribute to legal filenames, so foo/bar?baz=qux would be stored under foo/bar__qm__baz__eq__qux.json.

View-only bundles are stored in a separate directory and with a filename based on the key they are registered under, plus query string.

You can delete any file individually in the filesystem cache and charlotte will automatically refresh it (this will generate a cacheMiss event). You can also edit a file directly in the cache if you wish. The changes will not be reflected in the running app, however, until the app is restarted due to the RAM cache ...

RAM Cache

All resources that are cached in the filesystem are also cached in memory. Once read from the filesystem Charlotte will not have to go to it again for a particular resource until the app is evicted from memory.

Temp cache

There is one set of resources that is only cached in memory and not permanently in the filesystem. These resources are specified by the cachedBundes.tempUrlMatchers browser option. The local cache for the such resources lives only as long as the app is active in main memory.

The overall size of this cache can be controlled with the charlotte.tempCacheSize property. Temp cache sizes cannot be controlled at the individual browser instance level. Older cache entries will be removed to make room for newer ones when the cache size is exceeded.

Resource types

Templates

JavaScripts

Stylesheets

Images

Html Bundles

Disabling Caching for Development

Caching can be disabled very simply by disabling versioning, which setting charlotte.version to a falsy value will accomplish. When charlotte.version is falsy, Charlotte caches will never be consulted and every resource request will generate a real browser request against the server.

Note: this does nothing to defeat any normal web caching that you're doing outside of Charlotte. i.e., if an Expires header was set with a date in the future, then the desktop browser or WebView could still serve a cached version out of its cache.

This can be useful in development. With caching disabled, a page reload in a charlotte tab will load all resources again from the server. Gotchas with this when loading pages in html bundle mode:

• only additive or overwriting changes will take effect. i.e., removing a style in a stylesheet on the server will not cause that style to be removed from the DOM when the page is reloaded. an app restart is required for deletions to take effect even with caching disabled (for a simulation index.html file in a desktop browser a restart is just a true browser reload of the index.html file).

• though old script tags are removed from the DOM when caching is disabled, they do not get removed from the list of scripts on the Scripts panel in the Developer Tools in Chrome. you end up with lots of duplicates in the list very quickly as you click around in your app. this can make it difficult to find the right script to set a breakpoint in. for this reason, you'll probably want to enable caching when you need to use the debugger. Note: inline scripts are used in non-Chrome environments when caching is disabled. these do not even appear at all in the Scripts panel in Web Inspector desktop Safari.

Versioned Asset Deployment

As you deploy new server versions across your cluster, there will a period of time when some nodes in your cluster are on the new version and some are on the old, until all the nodes are updated. To ensure that the correct version of the assets are always available for any given request during this time deploy the new assets ahead of the new server version, while continuing to serve the previous/existing version of the assets. Once the new assets are fully deployed, propagated through your CDN, etc. then begin deploying the new server version. This means that for production, /views/versions/1.0 cannot just be a symlink to `/views' but should be a full copy of it. Once the new server version is completely deployed across all nodes you can delete the previous version.

Cache Seed

If Charlotte cannot find a resource in the memory or in the filesystem cache, it will look in the cache seed location before requesting the resource from the server. Thus the order of locations Charlotte looks for a resource in is:

RAM -> filesystem -> cache seed -> server

The cache seed can be used to ship assets and html bundles with your native app distribution. This can allow the app to function even if started for the first time when offline. In fact, you should put at a bare minimum enough in the cache seed to at least display the view-only version of the home page and a user friendly message if the server is unreachable when the app is initially booted. You'll probably want to put more than the bare minimum to minimize the time it takes to initially boot the app even when online.

The default cache seed location is ./cache_seed, which would be www/cache_seed in your PhoneGap app.

The structure of the cache seed mirrors that of the filesystem cache (it should contain the same top-level directory for all the cached assets, which in the current version of charlotte is /res_cache). To determine exactly what content to put into your cache seed, you can simply run your app in the iOS simulator with versioning/caching enabled, hitting the pages that you want to be bundled with the app. Then copy the relevant directories and files over to the cache seed location.

Initialize the version in localStorage

Charlotte uses a localStorage item to keep track of the current version of the app. When the app is booted for the first time after initial installation this value will not exist in localStorage. Charlotte will attempt to retrieve the current version from the server in this case. If the app is offline when initially booted, however, it will have no way of determining the current version and will thus use non-versioned asset urls -- and thus will not find the assets you've shipped in the cache seed.

To prevent this, simply do something like this in your app boot script before you do anything else with charlotte:

charlotte.rootUrl = 'http://foo.com';
// versionKey is based on rootUrl
var versionKey = charlotte.getVersionKey();
if (!localStorage.getItem(versionKey)) {
  localStorage.setItem(versionKey, "1.0");
}

You'll have to do the same for any browser instances that you create on boot that have a different rootUrl than the global charlotte object.

Some general guidelines

• use the charlotte asset helper methods to output script tags, link tags, and image application assets.

• view templates should be specified with full root-relative paths in res.render() calls. charlotte will not apply the view lookup logic that Express does.

• view templates should only access locals, not session or global state.

• locals should only be accessed in templates as pure data, no method calls.

• be careful not to include any sensitive information in your template source code as the source files will eventually be served statically, with no authentication, for distribution to native apps.

• undefined values do not get serialized in JSON. attributes with a value of undefined are simply excluded. when rendering client-side in a native app, attempts to access absent locals in your templates will result in reference errors. make sure all locals are defined, setting them to an appropriate default if necessary, before calling res.render. or, alternatively, make sure your template accounts for such potentially undefined values my testing if 'undefined' === typeof myVar before attempting to access them. charlotte provides a helper method isBlank(myVarName) that will safely check if the variable named myVarName is undefined, null, or an empty string.

• the flash() method will work slightly differently when running in html bundle mode app than it does when running in node. flash messages will only be accessible in a native app on the immediately subsequent request, after which they will be cleared even if not accessed during that request. that also means they will not be accessible on the same request that they are created. this fits with the general use case for the flash() method; your app should not depend on support for other use cases.

SSL support

There is some support for handling SSL transparently in the server while specifying a non-SSL rootUrl and assetRootUrl option for charlotte. When executing on the server the helpers will output URL's appropriately depending on whether the current request is https or not.

On the client, you need to take care of setting up the charlotte object with the appropriate rootUrl and assetRootUrl, https or not. Mixing http and http requests in an HTML bundle mode session is not supported yet, though some preliminary work has been done to support it. All requests will be either/or -- requestIsSecure will be a constant value for every HTML bundle request within a given session.