Page History

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1. Initial static page via SSR: When a user initially visits any page in the DSpace user interface (UI), this triggers server-side rendering (SSR) via Angular Universal.  This means that the UI (Javascript) application is run on the server by Node.js. The result is that a static HTML page is generated, which will be sent back to the user.
   1. This process of rendering the static HTML page will result in Node.js making requests to REST API to gather all the data necessary to build the static HTML page.
2. Static page is dynamically replaced by UI application: The user briefly sees the generated static HTML page while the UI (Javascript) application is downloading to their browser .  This allows the user to immediately see the DSpace User Interface even before it becomes interactive. As soon as the UI application finishes downloading, it dynamically replaces that static HTML page, making the User Interface interactive to the user.  (The time between the UI page appearing and becoming interactive is usually unnoticeable to a user.)  This entire process is handled by Angular Universal.
3. Interactions with the UI application send requests to the REST API: As soon as the UI becomes interactive, it runs in the user's browser (as any other Javascript application).  This means that when the user interacts with the application (by clicking links/buttons or typing in fields, etc), this will send requests from the user's browser to the REST API (backend).
   1. At this point, every action in the User Interface will generate one or more requests to the REST API to gather necessary data.  These requests are all visible in the user's browser (in the "Network" tab of the browser's "Developer tools").

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