Option for plugins to request that JSON be served on the page

[simonw]

Idea came from a conversation with @hydrosquall - what if a Datasette plugin could say "I'd like the JSON for a page to be included in a variable on the HTML page"?

datasette-cluster-map already needs this - the first thing it does when the page loads is fetch() a JSON representation of that same data.

This idea fits with my overall goals to unify the JSON and HTML context too.

Refs:

• Template context powered entirely by the JSON API format #1711

[simonw]

One way this could work: if plugins request it, a block like this is added to the page:

<script type="application/json+datasette" id="datasette-json">
{
  "...": "..."
}
</script>

Then a function could be provided which extracts and parses that data:

var data = await datasette.jsonData();

Why an await? Because then I could have it work the exact same way if the data is NOT available on the page - it could trigger a fetch() call for the same stuff. So loading it on the page becomes an optional performance optimization.

[simonw]

This is a micro-optimization that may not actually pay off, since it adds to the weight of the first page.

[hydrosquall]

If the table on the page were generated from the inlined JSON, the weight of that initial load wouldn’t be different, in exchange for the overhead client side element generation JS. The bigger problem though would be that the client side JS probably wouldn’t be able to directly reuse the existing plugins that generate custom table HTML. Anyways the main benefit I had in mind was to avoid the situation where multiple plugins were refetching the same data before either could put something into browser cache, eg cluster map and Vega. But if someone is only loading 1 plugin, the initial overhead may not pay off.

…

On Mon, Dec 11, 2023 at 1:02 PM Simon Willison ***@***.***> wrote: This is a micro-optimization that may not actually pay off, since it adds to the weight of the first page. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1942 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACE2MM6OXOLG24DN5GR64IDYI5DFFAVCNFSM6AAAAAASZ5FT36VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMYTQNJQGU4TSNZTHA> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>