Liveview

Liveview allows apps to run on the server and render in the browser. It uses WebSockets to communicate between the server and the browser.

Examples:

Support

Liveview is currently limited in capability when compared to the Web platform. Liveview apps run on the server in a native thread. This means that browser APIs are not available, so rendering WebGL, Canvas, etc is not as easy as the Web. However, native system APIs are accessible, so streaming, WebSockets, filesystem, etc are all viable APIs.

Setup

For this guide, we're going to show how to use Dioxus Liveview with Axum.

Make sure you have Rust and Cargo installed, and then create a new project:

cargo new --bin demo
cd app

Add Dioxus and the liveview renderer with the Axum feature as dependencies:

cargo add dioxus
cargo add dioxus-liveview --features axum

Next, add all the Axum dependencies. This will be different if you're using a different Web Framework

cargo add tokio --features full
cargo add axum

Your dependencies should look roughly like this:

[dependencies]
axum = "0.4.5"
dioxus = { version = "*" }
dioxus-liveview = { version = "*", features = ["axum"] }
tokio = { version = "1.15.0", features = ["full"] }

Now, set up your Axum app to respond on an endpoint.

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let addr: std::net::SocketAddr = ([127, 0, 0, 1], 3030).into();

    let view = dioxus_liveview::LiveViewPool::new();

    let app = Router::new()
        // The root route contains the glue code to connect to the WebSocket
        .route(
            "/",
            get(move || async move {
                Html(format!(
                    r#"
                <!DOCTYPE html>
                <html>
                <head> <title>Dioxus LiveView with Axum</title>  </head>
                <body> <div id="main"></div> </body>
                {glue}
                </html>
                "#,
                    // Create the glue code to connect to the WebSocket on the "/ws" route
                    glue = dioxus_liveview::interpreter_glue(&format!("ws://{addr}/ws"))
                ))
            }),
        )
        // The WebSocket route is what Dioxus uses to communicate with the browser
        .route(
            "/ws",
            get(move |ws: WebSocketUpgrade| async move {
                ws.on_upgrade(move |socket| async move {
                    // When the WebSocket is upgraded, launch the LiveView with the app component
                    _ = view.launch(dioxus_liveview::axum_socket(socket), app).await;
                })
            }),
        );

    println!("Listening on http://{addr}");

    axum::Server::bind(&addr.to_string().parse().unwrap())
        .serve(app.into_make_service())
        .await
        .unwrap();
}

And then add our app component:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
fn app(cx: Scope) -> Element {
    cx.render(rsx! {
        div {
            "Hello, world!"
        }
    })
}
}

And that's it!