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Sample Mobile Application with Mithril and Cordova

Note This tutorial was done with a previous version of Mithril v0.2.0, current version is v1.1.6

Mithril is my favorite Javascript framework. It has a simple API, it's lightweight, it's very fast and it's just Javascript. I believe it deserves a few more tutorials and sample applications to illustrate how great it is.

Inspired by what Jonny Buchanan (@insin) did for large datasets, this tutorial is unashamedly copying a sample mobile app developped by Christophe Coenraets (@ccoenraets), a developer evangelist working at Salesforce, who regularly publishes awesome tutorials, using the latest javascript technologies. His blog can be found here and the model for the following tutorial can be found here.

The focus of this tutorial will be to highlight the similarities and differences between React and Mithril, when developing this sample application.

  • No JSX, no tools, only javascript
  • No templates: Components are the building blocks. By keeping the markup and the corresponding UI logic together, you have the full power of Javascript to express the UI.
  • Virtual DOM. In Mithril, rendering a component means creating a lightweight description of the component UI. Mithril diffs this new description with the old one (if any), and generates a minimal set of changes to apply to the DOM.

Introduction

As @ccoenraets says, there is nothing like building an app to get familiar with a new language or framework.

A similar logic to React can be used to architecture the App. We can start with a mockup of the UI and break it down into a component hierarchy. mock up

Based on this diagram, the component hierarchy for the Employee Directory app looks like this:

  • App
    • HomePage
      • Header
      • SearchBar
      • EmployeeList
        • EmployeeListItem
    • EmployeePage
      • Header
      • EmployeeDetails

“App” is the application container that will transition pages in and out of the UI. Only one page is displayed at any given time.

In this article, we will build the application going through several iterations, from a simple static prototype to the final product.

Iteration 1: Static Version

In this first version, we create and render the HomePage component with some hardcoded (static) sample data.

View source | Run it

Code Highlights:

We create 3 components for within the HomePage: a Header, a SearchBar, and an EmployeeList.

In Mithril, creating components is easy: you create a JavaScript object with a key called 'view':

var MyComponent = {
	//the controller is optional
    controller: function() {
    	return {
    		greeting: "Hello"
    		};
    },
    view: function(ctrl) {
        return m("h1", ctrl.greeting);
    }
}

m.mount(document.body, MyComponent);

This view is a function that returns the UI description. The element returned by the view function is not an actual DOM node: it’s a description of the UI that will be diffed with the current description to perform the minimum set of changes to the DOM. To actually render the view, we use here m.mount()

Using a component can be done in two ways:

  • either by referring to it directly if it is a static component, like SearchBar or EmployeeList in the source code of Iteration 1
  • or with the m.component() function, like in the following example: m.component(Header, {text: 'Employee Directory'}). Its first argument is the name of the component, the second is a plain javascript object which contains what you want to pass down.

Side Note: If you don't like the syntax of m('input[type=search]') you can use MSX (which is similar to JSX in React).

Another side note: the default of m('') is a div, so you can ommit div if you want.

Iteration 2: Data Flow

In this second version, we define an array of employees, and we make the data flow down the component hierarchy to EmployeeList and EmployeeListItem. In this version, the list of employees is hardcoded: we’ll work with dynamic data in iteration 4.

View source | Run it

Code Highlights:

In Mithril, you can add a plain javascript object to your custom component tags to pass properties to the component instance.

m.component(EmployeeList, {employees: employees})

Properties passed by the parent are available in the child through the second argument of the view, called here args. For example EmployeeList can access the list of employees provided by HomePage in args.employees. In a list component (like EmployeeList), it’s a common pattern to programmatically create an array of child components (like EmployeeListItem) and include that array in the Mithril description of the component.

var EmployeeList = {
	view: function(ctrl, args) {
		var items = args.employees.map(function(employee) {
			return m.component(EmployeeListItem, {
				key: employee.id,
				employee: employee
			})
		})
		return m('ul', items);
	}
}

The key attribute (like in EmployeeListItem above) is used to uniquely identify an instance of a component (useful in the diff process).

Side note: Unlike React, which can have some surprising behaviours when translating JSX to HTML, there is no whitespace created by a m() function so in EmployeeListItem if you render the following:

m('span', args.employee.firstName),
m('span', args.employee.lastName)

Unless you have inserted a whitespace in your strings, the first name won't be separated from the last name. Some might prefer with, some without, I prefer without because I like the concept of pure functions, m() is here to create a virtual DOM element, with no unexpected side effects.

Iteration 3: Inverse Data Flow

In the previous version, the data flew down the component hierarchy from HomePage to EmployeeListItem. In this version, we make data (the search key to be specific) flow upstream, from the SearchBar to the HomePage where it is used to find the corresponding employees.

View source | Run it

Code Highlights:

In this version, the inverse data flow is implemented by providing the child (SearchBar) with a handler to call back the parent (HomePage) when the search key value changes.

m.component(SearchBar, {searchHandler: ctrl.searchHandler })

Let's examine the SearchBar component more carefully. First, Mithril has a very convenient getter/setter in m.prop() which is easy to understand:

//define a getter-setter with initial value `John`
var name = m.prop("John");

//read the value
var a = name(); //a == "John"

//set the value to `Mary`
name("Mary"); //Mary

//read the value
var b = name(); //b == "Mary"

Second, in Mithril we put all methods, which are to interact with a model in the controller, ie a property of the component, which can be accessed throught the first argument in the view function. The controller is the glue between the UI layer (the view) and the data layer (the model), with Mithril separation of concerns is encouraged and it thrives to adhere to the MVC paradigm.

Third, Mithril is very flexible in how you can implement the controller. From Line 9 you will see 3 different implementations of the controller, which have the same results.

  • You can use the pattern var ctrl = this and then attach every property and method to ctrl, so it is explicit what you attach to it,
  • or you can use this directly, but then you have to use bind to create bound functions,
  • or you can use the factory function pattern where you return an object. I personnally prefer to use the first pattern as it makes it explicit that I attach it to the controller, but Javascript is flexible so the choice is yours.

Iteration 4: Async Data and State

In this version, we implement employee search using an async service. In this sample app, we use a mock in-memory service (defined in data.js) that uses promises so you can easily replace the implementation with Ajax calls. We keep track of the search key and the list of employees in the HomePage state.

View source | Run it

Code Highlights: In React: The state (this.state) is private to the component and is changed using this.setState().

In Mithril: The controller is private to the component and is accessed through the ctrl parameter in the view.

The UI is automatically updated when the user types a new value in SearchBar. This is because when the state of a React component is changed, the component automatically re-renders itself (by executing its render() function in React, the view function in Mithril).

In React: getInitialState() executes once during the component lifecycle and is used to set up the initial state of the component.

In Mithril: Controller gets initiated once, when it is created.

Iteration 5: Routing

In this version, we add an employee details page. Because the application now has more than one view, we add a simple view routing mechanism.

View source | Run it

Code Highlights:

There are many options to implement routing. Some routing libraries are specific to React (check out react-router), but you can also use other existing routing libraries. Because the routing requirements of this sample app are very simple, I used a simple script (router.js) that I have been using in other sample apps.

componentDidMount() is called when a component is rendered.

Iteration 6: Styling

Time to make the app look good. In Mithril, we can use CSS selectors to specify attributes. We can aslo use the . syntax to add CSS classes and the # to add an id. In this version, we use the Ratchet CSS library to provide the app with a mobile skin.

View source | Run it

Code Highlights:

In React: Notice the use of className instead of class In Mithril: When having static classes, notice how we can easily add them thanks to CSS selectors.

Iteration 7: Maintaining State

If you run iteration 6, you’ll notice that when you navigate back to HomePage from EmployeePage, HomePage has lost its state (search key and employee list). In this version, we fix this problem and make sure the state is preserved.

View source | Run it

Code Highlights:

To keep track of the state, we introduce a new parent container (App) that maintains the state (searchKey and employee list) of the Home page and reloads it when the user navigates back to the Home Page.

Iteration 8: Adding animations

We will use the Mithril-page-slider designed by @ArthurClemens

Coming soon!

Checkout also the modular implementation of Material Design for Mithril developed by @ArthurClemens Polythene

Iteration 9: Running in Cordova

Coming soon!

Additional resources:

My other tutorial using Mithril: Mithril trader
My Sublime package for easy autocompletion of most Mithril methods in Sublime Text: Mithrilizer

Other tutorials on Mithril by Gilbert @mindeavor here and here

Polythene is a library by Arthur Clemens using Mithril Components

Two open-source non-trivial applications using Mithril in production:

Here you can read on how Toby Zerner made the transition from Ember.js to Mithril

Further resources can be found on the Mithril wiki