bike shed: rename ng-viewport directive

[btford]

Long story short: Angular 2 has a type of directive called "Viewport," which has a specific relationship to "View"s in Angular 2. Therefore, "viewport" is a bad name for "the thing that the router puts components into." It makes less sense to rename the "Viewport" type of directive in Angular 2 than to come up with a new name for the directive that the router uses.

There are a couple important criteria:

• Needs to be namable. Because you can have multiple sibling routes, there needs to be a way to distinguish them.
• Should not use the term "view." The term "view" means something very specific in Angular 2, and it's going to be confusing to have something named similarly that is functionally very different.
• Should be easy to talk/write about.

What should we call this? Here are a few options to get us started:

• <route-outlet name="main"></route-outlet>
• <route-content select="main"></route-content>

[darcnite3000]

[sarcasm]

• <route-transclusion name="main"></route-transclusion> we need to bring the term back

[/sarcasm]

:+1: to route-outlet it sounds more 'right' over content. Content seems too generic, and also feels like something needs to go into the tags, not that something is going into the tags later. Outlet implies something coming through, or attached, which is likely why it feels more right to me.

[tommck]

Component?

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On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 4:52 PM -0700, "Tristan Smith" notifications@github.com<mailto:notifications@github.com> wrote:

[sarcasm]

• we need to bring the term back [/sarcasm]

[:+1:] to route-outlet it sounds more 'right' over content. Content seems too generic, and also feels like something needs to go into the tags, not that something is going into the tags later. Outlet implies something coming through, or attached, which is likely why it feels more right to me.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/angular/router/issues/264#issuecomment-93600525.

[nunoviegas]

I like the route- prefix, as it makes it clear that the directive is route related. maybe a sufix along the lines of a container:

<route-pod name="main"></route-pod>
<route-dock name="main"></route-dock>

[jameskleeh]

I like

<route-container name="main"></route-container>

[AnthonyPAlicea]

Too bad, viewport was a great name. I like

<route-content name="main"></route-content>

Very straightforward, though outside the 1.x 'ng-' standard. A few other suggestions:

<ng-component name="main"></ng-component>

<ng-route-component placeholder="main"></ng-route-component>

<route-component key="main"></route-component>

<ng-content name="main"></ng-content>

<ng-route-content name="main"></ng-route-content>

<route-placeholder name="main"></route-placeholder>

<ng-content-placeholder name="main"></ng-content-placeholder>

<route-component-placeholder name="main"></route-component-placeholder>

Looking very, very much forward to the release of this!

[kpko]

I think ng-viewport was a very great name, because "viewport" expresses what the component actually does. I think "route-content" doesn't really reflect this. I guess we can't go with router-viewport instead?

I like the idea @AnthonyPAlicea mentioned: "ng-content-placeholder".

[uztha4c]

I think that seems to make the most sense...it can be used in presentations/demos, in code for representing the parent or children and still make sense, and easily understandable when referring to it..."the template will display in the route-container you specified..."

On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 11:55 AM Kevin Preller notifications@github.com wrote:

I think ng-viewport was a very great name, too, because "viewport" expresses what the component actually does. I think "route-content" doesn't really reflect this. I guess we can't go with router-viewport instead?

I like the idea @AnthonyPAlicea https://github.com/AnthonyPAlicea mentioned: "ng-content-placeholder".

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/angular/router/issues/264#issuecomment-93814669.

[gautelo]

I'm not sure <route-viewport/> will be that confusing. Developers are used to namespaces and words changing meaning based on its namespace-context. So I'm not sure it has to be off the table.

I agree that the directive name should be prefixed by/namespaced to route or router. I'm kind of leaning toward router as the better prefix. As I see it the body is the outlet of the complete route whereas the router works with partial routes and instantiates a component based off of that. So I guess it might make more sense for the router to place things into a <router-outlet/> than into a <route-outlet/>.

So, what should be the postfix? I like both <router-outlet/> and <router-content/>. Though I think the former sounds better and kind of makes more sense I'm leaning toward the latter because of <content/>. We transclude a components content into its internal <content/> tag. Similarly it would make sense for the router to transclude its content (the component) into a <router-content/> tag.

[robwormald]

in iOS, we call these "Container Views" - so how about or ?

See https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/ViewControllerPGforiPhoneOS/CreatingCustomContainerViewControllers/CreatingCustomContainerViewControllers.html

[kpko]

@gautelo Yes, I thought a prefixed version of viewport would be enough, too. @btford What's your opinion on this? Personally I think <router-viewport/> would be great. What's the naming convention for components in Angular 2.0 apps?

[darcnite3000]

From what i've seen in NG2 talks it seems like they are removing the namespacing convention because a component can be included in and renamed in a class on the fly. The current stuff seems to be more 'what i am doing' than 'what am i'.

[btford]

@gautelo – It's hard to tell. In Angular 1, we got so much feedback about confusing names that we want to be really picky with names in Angular 2. Just as a general guiding principle, I think it's best to keep the name of this directive distinct from the concept of "views" in Angular 2.

@robwormald – thanks for the reference!

@darcnite3000 – great insight!

I'm going to add route-container to the original post and start to tally votes just to get a general idea of where people stand.

[darcnite3000]

I'd have to :+1: route-container over route-content because 'content' feels more definitive, as in this is the content, and the only content. 'container' (or words like outlet) give more of a you can have multiple of these feeling.

As an aside to using the prefix route, it's probably a good thing to do because the 'ComponentRouter' (aka new angular router) is still going to be used in ng1. As an aside in ng2 you could always rename it yourself to just be 'container' (which you wouldn't want to do with 'content' due to there already being a 'content' in html tied to the shadow dom and templates [which in it self would be confusing])

[nverba]

aperture?

<aperture name="main"></aperture>

In it's most literal sense, just means 'an opening'.

[darcnite3000]

would be a good choice if we named the router 'BlackMesa'

[gautelo]

As a person with English as my second language, I had to look 'aperture' up. The last word from Angular nomenclature I had to look up was 'transclusion'. Just saying...

[darcnite3000]

as a person with english as my first language i had to look up transclusion

[nverba]

@gautelo, I was going for something distinct, but you make a fair point...

What about:

<route-display name="main"></route-display>

<div route-display="main"><div>

or just

<display name="main"></display>

<div display="main"><div>

[gautelo]

@nverba Well done on coming up with new ideas. I like route-display! It makes the same kind of sense that route-outlet does but fits more easily into normal language: "The route-display is where the router places its component." Nice!

I prefer route-display over display. Being specific is good.

[wulfsberg]

Not fond of "outlet". It sounds somewhat contrived and not all that router/display-specific. (When I see "outlet", my mind goes to data pipes and sinks more generically, not to displaying HTML in a template slot). I like router-viewport and I think it's explicit enough to not collide with other meanings. route-display is also nicely straightforward.

[kamrenz]

It seems the documentation and examples have been updated to reflect the move to <ng-outlet> as the new name. However, when I grab the latest version of the router I still need to use <ng-viewport>. Any ideas why?

[btford]

I only re-generate the dist folder on a release. I'll cut a new release soon. Until then, building the router locally will solve your issue.

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015, 19:01 Kamren Z notifications@github.com wrote:

It seems the documentation and examples have been updated to reflect the move to as the new name. However, when I grab the latest version of the router I still need to use . Any ideas why?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/angular/router/issues/264#issuecomment-95390368.

[kamrenz]

Awesome and thanks @btford !

[0x-r4bbit]

I really don't want to be mean, but this commit here landed just recently in the angular code base (https://github.com/angular/angular/commit/3aac2fefd7f93c74abfa5ee58aa0ea8d4840b519) which actually lets us use viewport as a term again (which I also like more) :)

Just leaving that here.

[kpko]

Ha! :-)

That's great. I still think Viewport was the better matching term. Does anything speak against using it again at this point?

[0x-r4bbit]

Since Brian just gave a talk on the router at the Boston meetup where he announced the latest renames, I don't think we'll switch again.

[wulfsberg]

I think flip-flopping a little now is better than settling on a poorer choice for years, so my vote still goes to router-viewport.

[btford]

@PascalPrecht – Haha, no worries. I'm aware of that commit.

There was another time when "Viewport" was removed (or being considered for removal) from Angular 2, and then it was later re-introduced.

I'm open to reopening this discussion in light of "viewport" being open, but we may be in the same spot again in the future.

Names are hard.

[frodefi]

How about ng-pagepart?

[dsebastien]

Naming stuff is by far one of the most difficult things in IT (also happens to be true for babies eh ;-))

'route-display' makes a lot of sense to me. Something like 'routes-anchor' could also be nice to express the fact that component views end up in there.