pod.js

[P]lugin [O]riented [D]evelopment for AngularJS 1.5x

Pod is a framework for AngularJS 1.5x which allows you to create dynamic UI plugins in the form of AngularJS components

Features

• UI framework developers can create plugin slots
• UI plugin providers can create plugins that fit into predefined slot types
• Inter-plugin communication
  • Data
  • Events
  • Subjects
  • Shared UI-Router States

Dependencies

• AngularJS 1.5x
• AngularJS UI-Router
• RxJS (Reactive Extensions Library for JavaScript) Pod uses Behaviour Subjects provided by RxJS for inter-plugin communication

Getting Started

Import the required libraries and you're all set!

<script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/rx.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/pod.js"></script>

Creating Plugin Slots

<pod pod-type="'widgetSlot'">
    <div class="widget-wrapper" ng-click="selectWidget(pod.widgetName)" >
        <pod-target/>
    </div>
</pod>

Creating Plugins

.component('dateWidget', {
    template: 'The date is <strong>{{$ctrl.date}}</strong>',
    controller: function() {
        this.date = new Date();
    },
    podType: 'widgetSlot',
    podArgs: {
        widgetName: 'dateWidget'
    }
})

Inter-Plugin Communication

To communicate between plugins each AngularJS module should create its own linking factory as shown below

app.factory('$widgetsPodLink', function ($podLink) {
    return $podLink.register('widgets');
})

Data

$widgetsPodLink.data.set('header', 'Welcome to Widgets!');
$widgetsPodLink.data.get('widgets.header');

Events

// publish event
var message = 'Hello World!';
$widgetsPodLink.events.pub('MessageReceived', message);

// subscribe to event
$widgetsPodLink.subjects.sub('widgets.Navigation', function(message) {
    console.log(message);
});

Subjects

// create new subject
var initialValue = null;
var isGloballyVisible = true;
$widgetsPodLink.subjects.new('Navigation', initialValue, isGloballyVisible);

// publish next value
var navigationObject = { selectedLevel: 0 };
$widgetsPodLink.subjects.next('Navigation', navigationObject);

// subscribe to subject
$widgetsPodLink.subjects.sub('widgets.Navigation', function(navigationObject) {
    console.log(navigationObject);
});

Shared UI-Router States

var isSharedState = true;
$codeReviewPodLink.state.add('widgetSettings', { .. state definition .. }, isSharedState);