Combining Play! Framework 2.xx with Angular.js

Question

I am having trouble is this marriage of 2 seemingly powerful frameworks. It seems most things that can be done by 1 can be done by 2.How to best utilize the two? Are there any p

Answer 1

There are many ways you can combine this two frameworks. All depends on how much you want to envolve each of them. For example your Play 2 application may only serve JSON request/respons from the one side(server side) and AngularJS would make all the other stuff from the client side. Considering your example for basic CRUD app :

1. A Play 2 controller:

   def getNames = Action {
   
     val names = List("Bob","Mike","John")
     Ok(Json.toJson(names)).as(JSON)
   
   }
   

2. Your Play root for it:

   GET /getNames controllers.Application.getNames

3. an AngularJs controller:

   app.controller('NamesCtrl', function($scope) {
       // get names using AngularJS AJAX API  
       $http.get('/getNames').success(function(data){
           $scope.names = data;
       });
   });
   

4. Our HTML :

   
   
   
       
   
   
       
   
           
   
               
   {{name}}
           
       
   
   
   

This way you completely separate the concerns, for your client side, it doesn't matter how the server side is implemented, only thing you need is valid JSON as a response. It's considered to be a good practice.

But of course you can render most of your HTML from Play 2 and use AngularJS for some specific stuff where needed. All depends what conception you choose for your app.

...how to pass on data that arrives after rendering the template by Play to angular for later use at clientside?

I don't think that it's a good idea, but you surely may do it using ngInit directive like this:

@(message:String)
@main("Welcome") {

Hello, {{angular_message}} !


}

and you will have angular_message in the scope initialised with @message value from Play 2 template.

Is it adviseable at all to use these two frameworks together for a large-level app involving a mathematical object oriented backend + server, and a fairly intensive UI at frontend?

From my point of view, yes, it's two great frameworks and they perfectly work in concert.