Oqtane 5.1 SSR (Server-Side Rendering) - WIP

Oqtane 5.1 is has undergone a huge change to provide SSR (Server Side Rendering) using the latest .net 8.0 Blazor technology.

But as of today, it's not quite ready yet, which is why 2sxc has not been released to be used with Oqtane 5.1. 

Quick Background on Blazor Before SSR

Microsoft has undergone a big paradigm shift with Blazor in .net 8. Initially Blazor was meant to kind of emulate the development experience of desktop programming (similar to what ASP.net used to do), and it did a surprising good job.

At the same time, it also did a lot in ways that were too magical (similar to ASP.net classic) resulting in similar problems. For example, adding even a simple JavaScript gallery was a nightmare. 2sxc solved most of these glitches so that the developer didn't feel it, but that was only possible because 2sxc uses Razor, not Blazor for it's templates. 

But Microsoft can learn, and it did. So the latest Blazor still has the option of doing the magic stuff, but by default it's way more like Razor now, just with a more component-based programming style. 

SSR - Blazor like Razor

SSR behaves a lot more like the classic Razor did - basically your server generates HTML and JavaScript, and the developer has much more control over what's happening. It still offers the magical parts if you want them, but by default (in a new Blazor project) it's quite magic free. 

So SSR = Server Side Rendering = raw HTML. Blazor still offers all that WASM and more, and also has mixed modes where it will start as SSR and "magically" move to a WASM style. But most online systems won't actually need this - especially not web sites which should be light, fast and google-indexable. 

Oqtane SSR is Amazing...

Oqtane is going the same way to ensure that it remains in line with the Microsoft strategy and developer expectations. And it's a huge lift - my guess is anywhere from 500 to 1'000 hours of development went into making this possible - which is amazing! Thanks Oqtane 💖!!!

This new setup uses less memory and is way faster! 🚀

...but not yet Production Ready

As of April 2024 Oqtane 5.1.1 was released. We've updated 2sxc to be fully compatible, but when doing so noticed issues which would result in a lot of support, simply because Oqtane still needs one or two more iterations to become production-stable. The Oqtane team is doing an amazing job at squashing bugs, so we believe that in 2-4 weeks we should be there.

2sxc Must Wait a Bit

2sxc 17.06.03 has an internal release which runs flawlessly, so we're ready when Oqtane is. But until then developers will have a hard time distinguishing which product is causing trouble - and even we would have a hard time figuring this out, so we must wait a few more weeks. Otherwise we would drown in support requests which we simply don't have the (spare-time-contributed) time to follow up on.

So expect a 2sxc for Oqtane 5.1+ around the middle of May.

Love from Switzerland,
iJungleboy