Janus is a lightweight library-framework that is designed to be just large enough to express an opinion about application organization and provide the general abstractions and standard library to support that opinion. It is not an application framework -- in fact, its default assumption is that one will use the excellent Flatiron.js framework for actually building a webserver and webapp. It looks to Backbone for guidance on what best practices are at a general level, while seeking to build upon its opinions.

This documentation (which is actually the main Janus file!), along with all other documentation, is available as annotated source.

There are many very popular frameworks out there to help build the kind of gigantic, client-side-heavy, modern application that the web is moving towards. A lot of them focus very heavily on slick server model bindings, fancy templating, and features like component libraries with responsive design and mobile support built in. However, these practices, while fantastic, don't work for those of us who have to build SEO-friendly or Section 508-compliant web applications.

Much like Backbone, Janus doesn't aim to answer a lot of questions. In particular, it provides no native implementations or opinions on:

• Databases, backends, or ORM
• Web server
• Middleware
• Session storage
• URL Routing
• Network transport
• Standard controls

Instead, Janus focuses on organizing application code in a succinct, maintainable way that encourages composition of behavior and code, modularity, and reuse while providing better functionality around server-side rendering, state representation across reload or navigation, and live data representation. Where Backbone is unopinionated in the extreme to be able to fit any model, Janus is opinionated where it suits its mission. It prevents bloat by maintaining a very small footprint.

To be rewritten, and to be completely reorganized.

util = require('./util/util')

janus = (window ? global)._janus$ ?=
  util: util # life-saving util funcs

  Base: require('./core/base').Base

  Model: require('./model/model').Model
  reference: require('./model/reference')
  attribute: require('./model/attribute')
  store: require('./model/store')

  collection: require('./collection/collection')

  View: require('./view/view').View
  DomView: require('./view/dom-view').DomView
  Templater: require('./templater/templater').Templater
  templater: require('./templater/package')

  Library: require('./library/library').Library
  varying: require('./core/varying')
  Chainer: require('./core/chain').Chainer

  application:
    App: require('./application/app').App
    endpoint: require('./application/endpoint')
    handler: require('./application/handler')
    manifest: require('./application/manifest')

    PageModel: require('./model/page-model').PageModel
    PageView: require('./view/page-view').PageView

    VaryingView: require('./view/impl/varying').VaryingView
    ListView: require('./view/impl/list').ListView
    listEdit: require('./view/impl/list-edit')

util.extend(module.exports, janus)

The Janus package exports itself via a simple CommonJS drop of its core components in an object. If you would like to support other loaders, please submit them as a pull request and justify why they make sense for Janus.

Simply install with npm: npm install janus

Janus is licensed under the WTFPL:

###
        DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
                Version 2, December 2004

Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar <sam@hocevar.net>

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified
copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long
as the name is changed.

           DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
  TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

 0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
###