Typical AngularJS workflow and project structure (with Python Flask)

Question

I am pretty new to this whole MV* client-side framework frenzy. It doesn't have to be AngularJS, but I picked it because it feels more natural to me than either Knockout, Ember or Backbone. Anyway what is the workflow like? Do people start with developing a client-side application in AngularJS and then hooking up the back-end to it?

Or the other way around by first building the back-end in Django, Flask, Rails and then attaching an AngularJS app to it? Is there a "right" way of doing it, or is it just a personal preference in the end?

I am also not sure whether to structure my project according to the Flask or AngularJS? community practices.

For example, Flask's minitwit app is structured like so:

minitwit
|-- minitwit.py
|-- static
   |-- css, js, images, etc...
`-- templates
   |-- html files and base layout

AngularJS tutorial app is structured like this:

angular-phonecat
|-- app
    `-- css
    `-- img
    `-- js
    `-- lib
    `-- partials
    `-- index.html
|-- scripts
 `-- node.js server and test server files

I could picture a Flask app by itself, and it's fairly easy to see AngularJS app like ToDo List by itself but when it comes to using both of these technologies I don't understand how they work together. It almost seems like I don't need a server-side web-framework when you already have AngularJS, a simple Python web server will suffice. In the AngularJS to-do app for example they use MongoLab to talk to the database using Restful API. There was no need having a web framework on the back-end.

Maybe I am just awfully confused, and AngularJS is nothing more than a fancy jQuery library so I should use just like I would use jQuery in my Flask projects (assuming I change the AngularJS template syntax to something that doesn't conflict with Jinja2). I hope my questions make some sense. I mainly work on the back-end and this client-side framework is an unknown territory for me.

Answer 1

I would start out by organizing the Flask app in the standard structure as follows:

app
|-- app.py
|-- static
    |-- css
    |-- img
    |-- js
|-- templates

And as btford mentioned, if you are doing an Angular app, you'll want to focus on using Angular client-side templates and stay away from server-side templates. Using render_template('index.html') will cause Flask to interpret your angular templates as jinja templates, so they won't render correctly. Instead, you'll want to do the following:

@app.route("/")
def index():
    return send_file('templates/index.html')

Note that using send_file() means that the files will be cached, so you might want to use make_response() instead, at least for development:

    return make_response(open('templates/index.html').read())

Afterwards, build out the AngularJS part of your app, modifying the app structure so that it looks like this:

app
|-- app.py
|-- static
    |-- css
    |-- img
    |-- js
        |-- app.js, controllers.js, etc.
    |-- lib
        |-- angular
            |-- angular.js, etc.
    |-- partials
|-- templates
    |-- index.html

Make sure your index.html includes AngularJS, as well as any other files:

<script src="static/lib/angular/angular.js"></script>

At this point, you haven't yet constructed your RESTful API, so you can have your js controllers return predefined sample data (only a temporary setup). When you're ready, implement the RESTful API and hook it up to your angular app with angular-resource.js.

EDIT: I put together an app template that, though a little more complex that what I've described above, illustrates how one could build an app with AngularJS + Flask, complete with communication between AngularJS and a simple Flask API. Here it is if you want to check it out: https://github.com/rxl/angular-flask