MVC and Client-Side Scripting

[saxon75]

Hello all,

I'm developing a small web application using an MVC framework that I'm concurrently working on. I use Smarty for the view components, a MySQL database for storage, and custom PHP objects for the business logic and models. My problem is that I want a fair amount of checking and dynamic generation to happen on the client side, mostly for speed. This is causing my Smarty templates to have a lot of JavaScript in them, and that just feels wrong. What's a good way to incorporate JavaScript into an MVC application so that I can preserve the separation between the view components and the business logic?

More generally, is the MVC concept compatible with client-side scripting? And what's a good way to decide how to partition your application between the client side and the server side?

[AstroTeg]

I'm thinking you might want to just use JavaScript files themselves (as a library) and referencing them as a file from your template.

But in cases where you have to toss in dynamic JavaScript, then you're kinda stuck. JavaScript I believe falls under the view component. Or at least I'd consider it as the view component only because it doesn't run until "viewed".

For the templating I've done, the JavaScript always parked itself in the HTML template. In cases when I needed dynamic JavaScript, I dropped in my own tag which caused the PHP to catch the tag and produce the custom JavaScript.

That make sense?

[saxon75]

That does make sense. Do you have a general rule-of-thumb on how to partition your applications between client-side and server-side scripting?

[AstroTeg]

I doubt this is the industry's rule, but the approach I've taken with PHP and Java with the MVC concept is this: All HTML goes in a template, whenever possible. All server-side code stays in [language of choice]. I say "whenever possible" because there's times when I need to show an error message and its just easier to drop in the break tag when you need to force a new line. There's some file naming and class conventions I'll use, but that's pretty minor.

I almost always put the JavaScript within the HTML. If its small then I put it directly in, if its large then I put it in its own .js file and have the HTML call it. My template system has ways I can drop and sprinkle variables in where ever I need them. This works out great for handling tough jobs like table rows and JavaScript references to custom stuff. If need be, I'll generate the JavaScript with [language of choice] and drop it in as a template variable. Sort of extreme, but definitely an option and I've done it before.