Page Comparison

The Fluid Renderer does the work of rendering a lightweight "component tree" (a pure JSON structure) against a markup template in pure HTML to produce a user interface. This is part of an overall strategy of delivering server-neutral and markup-agnostic renderings of components, as well as operating a data binding approach that automates event handling and model updates. Note that this renderer differs from other markup processors or component frameworks in that it i) renders interfaces, that is, encoding dynamic and data binding functions, as opposed to simply processing markup, but at the same time ii) does not imply a stateful component model – the "component tree" supplied to the renderer has no lifetime after the rendering process.

This renderer operates on markup templates which are identical in format to those accepted by the IKAT renderer as part of the RSF Java server-side framework. These templates differ from pure HTML only by the insertion of a single attribute, rsf:id. Despite being algorithmically equivalent to the historical server-side renderer, the Fluid renderer has no dependence or requirement on a particular server-side infrastructure, and can even perform rendering directly from the filesystem.

As a (currently) client-side specific enhancement, the renderer is also capable of operating on completely pure HTML templates, with the id structure "imputed" onto the document by a set of selectors. The renderer operates its own selector engine, accepting a subset of that supported by CSS/JQuery, and completes the DOM-agnosticism and markup-friendliness that Fluid has always tried to adopt towards component development.