Webflow vs. Angular or both?

Question

We are developing an enterprise application with the following technology stack:

• Websphere Application Server
• Spring (Webflow template (Session in View), JPA (Hibernate), Core)
• DB2 osZ
• Frontend (JSP Rendering HTML5 (CSS 2.0), Ajax in combination with web stream, JQuery)
• Design multiple single pages combined with the use of webflow to support streams

Development Methodology - Domain / Component Managed Application - Test Driven Development

Current Situation Our domain model has a very deep hierarchy of domain classes, and so we decided to use a web stream to allow deep class navigation in substreams. We use the "session in view" template because there are many screens that reflect the hierarchy of classes of the domain model. This worked very well due to the backend managing data sessions for the interface.

What do we want to do next?

• Single Page Design
• Manage user data in a session
• Manage user data on screens
• Support for multiple browser instances in a single user session.
• Want to be able to talk to the backend (Enterprise Java / Spring) to retrieve data and persist
• Support for a more modern user interface.

Technological stack

• Websphere Application Server
• Spring (Webflow template (Session in View), JPA (Hibernate), Core)
• DB2 osZ
• Frontend (Angular, JQuery, Bootstrap 3)

So internally discussed how to integrate Angular?

• Should we abandon Webflow and solve everything with Angular?
• Does the mixture make sense?

We used the following table as a reference: http://vschart.com/compare/angularjs/vs/spring-framework

We know what both structures can do, and we know how to make them work. Are we interested in the experiences of other Angular integration teams? Has anyone ever mixed Webflow and Angular? Are we interested in learning about some of the best practices and how the teams switched to any of these platforms or supported both of these options?

Thanks for the input, Andrew

Answer 1

I suggest you check out the thymeleaf Java library to take advantage of the HTML5 benefits you can easily add to AngularJS and build ( bootstrap if you need it) and use Spring Security for Auth and session management. Since free communication at all levels (including the input interface) is desirable in most cases, try to avoid mixing technologies (in this case WebFlow and AngularJS), where this does not make sense.

Finally, you and your team can discuss the possibility of developing a single-page Angular-based application that uses the server-side API encoded in Java.

Answer 2

It is too late, but may be useful for those seeking such an answer.

I would recommend

• Angularjs SPA (single page application) and use the html template instead of jsp.
• Implement authentication based on the token, and based on the session, and implement a calm spring web mvc api.
• Web stream / navigation control can be controlled using Angular services or a local browser. I would recommend Angular services to manage the state of the application instead of the localstorage browser.

And obviously bootstrap 3 to make the user interface pretty.

Implementation Example: jhipster