[Epic] Frontend Refactor (Channels) #5091

ErisDS · 2015-03-31T16:26:21Z

This is a WIP epic - I'm still working out the steps needed to get from A-B and I'll break it down into sub tasks/sub issues as and when, in the meantime, the goal is clear and documented here.

The frontend of Ghost - that is the server side code which renders a blog using the active theme - has been somewhat unloved for a little while now. It essentially consists of some hard coded routes in /routes/frontend.js, which in turn call the monolithic functions in /controllers/frontend.js. It's time for this part of Ghost to be refactored into something more elegant, and importantly, something more extensible.

On the wiki you'll find a new document, titled Channels 101, which introduces and explains the concept of Channels for the frontend. In short channels are the abstracted concept of a list of posts, i.e. the homepage, the tag archive, the author archive or any other group of posts you could conceive of.

And the very end of the document it talks about working to slowly remove hardcoded bits of the fontend and refactor it into configuration & generation code, before finally moving towards making channels a model & API endpoint just like Posts, Tags and Users.

This issue is the 'epic' where we'll keep track of our progress towards achieving this New World Order.

Refactor out the hardcoded slug keywords Make the named frontend routes customisable #4519
Convert sitemaps & rpc pings to use events Refactor sitemaps to use centralised events #5069
Move RSS from frontend controller & refactor to use events
Move post-processing of author data out of the frontend controller Refactor to remove author.email from API #5159
Refactor frontend controller Frontend controller refactor #5192

Need to solve:

Maybe later:

~~add a channel registration mechanism that works whilst Ghost is running~~
~~Support offset, rather than page, in the API Paginate all the things #2896~~
RSS feeds for each channel linked in that channel
Post urls & next/prev post when in channel

Updates: Aug 2017

The current state of channels is that it the functionality is largely refactored and in place, but can only be accessed by modifying the core file channels-config.js. This is because, although the basics are working, advanced behaviour of Ghost isn't yet properly linked to channels.

Examples of missing pieces (some listed above) are:

Sitemaps
Meta data
RSS feed (URLs only)
Next/prev post when in a channel
Deep customisation, e.g. disabling RSS feeds

There is also some pure-refactoring that needs to be done:
E.g.

moving channels to a proper home
moving non-channel pieces from controllers/frontend.js to a proper home
strengthening the implementation to make channels more of a first class object
better/clearer default configuration
proper use of express
exposing channels without core modification

Basically, we need to iron out a few more of the major pieces, and then expose this config. Short term, we're going to start publishing blog posts on how to use the functionality that is there by hacking core.

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

refs TryGhost#5091, refs TryGhost#2263 - Move rss handling out of the frontend controller and into its own module - Separate the code into logical blocks - Wrap the generation code in a in-memory cache to prevent it being regenerated on every request

refs TryGhost#5091 - This is step one of several steps towards ending up with dynamic routes for channels - Refactoring this way makes the similarities between all the routes clearer to see

refs TryGhost#5091 - adds names to all middleware functions, for debugging purposes

refs TryGhost#5091 - There is very little that changes here, just code readability - However I've expanded out the tests getting ready to be able to test more deeply as I refactor the routing

refs #5091 - There is very little that changes here, just code readability - However I've expanded out the tests getting ready to be able to test more deeply as I refactor the routing

refs #5091 - remove the use of functions - remove unnecessary quotes from tag filter - move channel config to be a JSOn file called config.channels.json - accept external config - new channelUtils for tests - remove channelConfig.get - refactor so tests work as expected - refactor away duplicate 'name' value

refs #5091 - Move all of the code to do with handling channels into one folder - Still keeping all the shared/simlar code for rendering etc inside weird frontend folder until I am sure what this will look like

refs #5091 - rkw is something I made up on the spot - t_ looks like a translation function, which is what this IS!

refs #9192, refs #5091 - Using a class allows for easy shared logic - Loading is designed to work from config right now, but could be DB driven, etc - Provided configuration can be simplified and extended in the constructor / class methods - Update tests, move custom assertions to utils

ref TryGhost#5091 - render channel was always a weird file - now it's clearly 2 things - we're slowly getting towards closing 5091... 🎉

refs #5091, refs #9192 - render channel was always a weird file - now it's clearly 2 things - we're slowly getting towards closing #5091... 🎉 - added some extra tests

refs #5091, refs #9192 - This is similar to #9218, in that I'm revealing bits of code that are "controllers" in our codebase. As opposed to routes, services, renderers etc. - This also reveals some code which is identical to the channels controller - There is more to do here, but for now I've got the module split up, and the tests split and improved. - Next I'll split RSS into controller + service, DRY up the controller code, etc

refs #5091, #9192, #9178 - Get the RSS module into a much better shape - Controller -> /controllers/rss - Remainder -> /services/rss - Moved tests to match & updated requires

refs #5091, refs #9192 - There are several theme template "renderers" all over the codebase - Some are in apps, and were called "controllers" - One is in error handling - All of them now have comments marking out how they share logic/steps - Other comments describe routes & controllers where they live

refs TryGhost#5091, refs TryGhost#9192 - There are several theme template "renderers" all over the codebase - Some are in apps, and were called "controllers" - One is in error handling - All of them now have comments marking out how they share logic/steps!

refs #9192, refs #5091, refs #9178 - moved channels from controllers to a service - split out the parent router from the remaining individual router logic - moved the tests to match

refs #9192, #5091 - changed channels to use our new base class - keep the flexible structure, so that channels can be reloaded - I had to move the router into the route service otherwise we get circular dependencies - Don't _really_ want to keep it like this - need a way to define base classes as shared

refs #9192, refs #5091 - Moved all url generation into generate-feed.js, so we can see as much data processing as possible in a single place. - Refactored the way res.locals were used, to be more like how express uses them prior to rendering - Removed a bunch of code & tests todo with context for RSS - I can't see any way that'd be used, unless we switched the rendering to use a template. - moved the RSS rendering to be part of the service, not controller - updated the tests significantly Note: RSS generate-feed has a complete duplication of the code used in the excerpt helper in order to create an item description

refs TryGhost#5091, TryGhost#9192 - Renderer figures out templates, contexts, and does a render call - Renderer will handle everything after data is fetched and semi-processed - For now it only does the last 2 steps - TODO: it will eventually do more steps!!

refs #5091, #9192 - Renderer figures out templates, contexts, and does a render call - Templating is now handled with a single function - Context call is made in the renderer Note: to make this work, all controllers now define a little bit of config, currently stored in res._route. (That's a totally temporary location, as is res._template... when a sensible naming convention reveals itself I'll get rid of the weird _). This exposes a type and for custom routes a template name & default.

RaringCoder · 2018-01-17T16:00:23Z

How far off completion is this? I'd love to contribute but I'm no Node developer lol

ErisDS · 2018-04-24T09:53:09Z

Closing in favour of #9601

ErisDS added epic server / core Issues relating to the server or core of Ghost labels Mar 31, 2015

ErisDS added this to the Current Backlog milestone Mar 31, 2015

ErisDS mentioned this issue Apr 1, 2015

API: Pagination with offset instead of page #5093

Closed

ErisDS mentioned this issue Apr 10, 2015

RSS Refactor with cache #5128

Merged

ErisDS mentioned this issue Apr 12, 2015

Post Archive #5134

Closed

ErisDS mentioned this issue Apr 25, 2015

Frontend controller refactor #5192

Closed

acburdine mentioned this issue May 5, 2015

Frontend Controller Refactor #5219

Merged

ErisDS changed the title ~~[WIP] [Epic] Frontend Refactor (Channels)~~ [Epic] Frontend Refactor (Channels) May 26, 2015

ErisDS mentioned this issue May 26, 2015

Frontend route refactor / cleanup #5344

Merged

ErisDS added a commit to ErisDS/Ghost that referenced this issue May 30, 2015

Ensure middleware functions are named

a9fd2dd

refs TryGhost#5091 - adds names to all middleware functions, for debugging purposes

ErisDS mentioned this issue May 30, 2015

Ensure middleware functions are named #5366

Merged

ErisDS modified the milestones: Current Backlog, Zelda Jun 2, 2015

ErisDS added a commit to ErisDS/Ghost that referenced this issue Jun 2, 2015

Ensure middleware functions are named

9e7002c

refs TryGhost#5091 - adds names to all middleware functions, for debugging purposes

ErisDS added a commit to ErisDS/Ghost that referenced this issue Jun 2, 2015

Ensure middleware functions are named

7eacd28

refs TryGhost#5091 - adds names to all middleware functions, for debugging purposes

ErisDS modified the milestones: Current Backlog, Zelda Jun 2, 2015

This was referenced Oct 13, 2017

Prev & Next 2.0: refactor & primary tag support #9140

Closed

Channel config refactor #9158

Merged

ErisDS mentioned this issue Oct 20, 2017

[Discussion] Sitemaps - what should be included? #4588

Closed

ErisDS mentioned this issue Oct 20, 2017

Improve channels router code #9166

Merged

ErisDS added a commit that referenced this issue Oct 23, 2017

Improve channels router code (#9166)

c20a6aa

refs #5091 - There is very little that changes here, just code readability - However I've expanded out the tests getting ready to be able to test more deeply as I refactor the routing

ErisDS added a commit that referenced this issue Oct 26, 2017

Use t_ for translations in channel routes

b8a8360

refs #5091 - rkw is something I made up on the spot - t_ looks like a translation function, which is what this IS!

ErisDS mentioned this issue Nov 3, 2017

Represent channels as class instances #9209

Merged

ErisDS added a commit to ErisDS/Ghost that referenced this issue Nov 6, 2017

Split renderChannel into controller + renderer

41915bf

ref TryGhost#5091 - render channel was always a weird file - now it's clearly 2 things - we're slowly getting towards closing 5091... 🎉

ErisDS mentioned this issue Nov 6, 2017

Split renderChannel into controller + renderer #9218

Merged

ErisDS added a commit that referenced this issue Nov 6, 2017

Split renderChannel into controller + renderer (#9218)

5dac1c9

refs #5091, refs #9192 - render channel was always a weird file - now it's clearly 2 things - we're slowly getting towards closing #5091... 🎉 - added some extra tests

ErisDS mentioned this issue Nov 7, 2017

Split RSS module into controller + other #9224

Merged

ErisDS added a commit that referenced this issue Nov 8, 2017

Moved RSS module -> services & controllers

86c6cec

refs #5091, #9192, #9178 - Get the RSS module into a much better shape - Controller -> /controllers/rss - Remainder -> /services/rss - Moved tests to match & updated requires

ErisDS added a commit that referenced this issue Nov 8, 2017

Moved Channels module -> services

90cfdbe

refs #9192, refs #5091, refs #9178 - moved channels from controllers to a service - split out the parent router from the remaining individual router logic - moved the tests to match

ErisDS mentioned this issue Nov 10, 2017

RSS service + controller improved for consistency #9233

Merged

ErisDS mentioned this issue Nov 10, 2017

Introduced renderer to DRY up controllers #9235

Merged

ErisDS closed this as completed Apr 24, 2018

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[Epic] Frontend Refactor (Channels) #5091

[Epic] Frontend Refactor (Channels) #5091

ErisDS commented Mar 31, 2015 •

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RaringCoder commented Jan 17, 2018

ErisDS commented Apr 24, 2018 •

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[Epic] Frontend Refactor (Channels) #5091

[Epic] Frontend Refactor (Channels) #5091

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ErisDS commented Mar 31, 2015 • edited Loading

Updates: Aug 2017

RaringCoder commented Jan 17, 2018

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ErisDS commented Mar 31, 2015 •

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