For a new SPA Web App which will initially have very little user interaction and incrementally will have new features which will require lot of user interaction. This app is targeted for mobile devices. I am using this weird combination of technologies.
AngularJS + jQuery Mobile - for Client Side - MVC framework + SPA framework.
ASP.NET MVC - Server side MVC Framework - which seems unnecessary.
WCF REST Services (from 3rd party) - Do not have any control here, just consuming it. These services returns JSON data. All business logic resides here. Application do not have any feature outside of this.
Once application loaded at client side all service calls will happen from AngularJS to REST Services.
The main role of ASP.NET MVC, is just initial request load only. Even user session is handled between AngularJS and REST services.
But I foreseen eventually application will be complex to handle all the stuff at client side. So looking to push some complex processing which is easy and efficient to get done using ASP.NET MVC and .NET Sandbox. I cannot ask REST Service to do this because as i mentioned it is 3rd party.
In dilemma,
1. Should i maintain user session on server side as well?
2. How can i utilize ASP.NET MVC best possible way?
Thanks for any suggestions.
Your dilemma is justified and valid. When I go with angularJs, my big question is , do i need to csthml file or shall i use the html file.
I always go with cshtml, hoping that in future there may be scenario where i may have to leverage the server side capabilities of the mvc.
Currently I am working on the same combination of technologies stated above and with modularity of arranging js codes(angular controllers) i don't see any issues. I am bit curious on what complexities you would be adding to the contoller as you have stated that all your business logic is done by the third partly controller.
If you are looking for security aspect, I would suggest you to write a custom actionfilter which uses httpmodule to do the custom security handling.
With MVC , sessions should be a BIG NO . At lease in my organisation it so.
Related
I am planning to create a service oriented application. For creating service I will be using WebApi and for web application MVC.
I have thought of two approach for the same kindly let me know which one better.
Create one business logic shared across MVC and WebApi and dont consume WebApi in MVC application. Just business logic will be shared.
Consume API in MVC application from WebApi project using HttpClient.
The question was a bit unclear but now, after comments it makes more sense.
I would go with option 1.
The first reason is that you can avoid a lot of traffic to the API if you can simply use the layer and don't bother with any APi calls at all.
The second reason, it will be a little quicker since it doesn't need to wait for the API responses.
Less pressure on the API means the mobile app has more resources to play with.
You can basically build your own Nuget packages, use them in both your Web and Api layers and you don't have to repeat the code.
I have an MVC application that uses MVC Controllers to return views. Now I want to expose an API to other applications to consume, as well as returning JSON data types for some SPA features in the same MVC. What are the differences between adding Web API Controllers to my MVC Project vs adding a whole new Web API Project?
returning JSON data types for some SPA features in the same MVC
For that case, I'll place Web API inside existing MVC. By doing so, you can share business logic, services and even models.
In my case, I have SPA silos using AngularJS, and both MVC and Web API live happily in the same web application, and share business logic and data access layers.
It is worth noting that you can share Authentication cookie if you keep MVC and Web API together. Otherwise, it is pain in the neck to authenticate in both places at the same time, because Web API is token based and MVC is cookie based by default.
FYI: In new ASP.Net MVC 5, there won't be separate MVC and Web API anymore.
The only difference between the two is reusability and good design practice. I highly recommend to use it in a separate project. Then, later on, you will be able to reuse it without much or any effort.
Another advantage to segregate is the impact on testing required for any changes made. If you keep the projects different then if later on you change anything, the domain for the re-testing efforts would also be just the second project.
I am quite perplexed over the use of Web Api in a MVC application being developed at my company.I recently joined the project and wondering why they are using this.The application uses JQuery AJAX functionality to pull data for each Tab in a MultiTab Page without refreshing it.
The application here is neither providing data service nor consuming any Web API service.This can be easily achieved without using REST verbs.It is directly connecting to database like a typical web application.
I am holding back myself to raise this question with the team since I haven't used Web API much but has a conceptual idea.
Am I missing something here ?
Microsoft's Web API MVC technology is typically used for external components to interact with the system - not generally a requirement for a standard MVC Web Application.
With that said, I'm not perfectly clear on the architecture. A few points of note:
jQuery AJAX is a perfectly valid (and usually preferred) method to retrieve information for tab pages - it provides a SPA (Single Page Application) "feel" to the site and generally improves performance all around. This does not mean that they're using a Web API
MVC is a framework used for many web applications, including Microsoft's Web API projects as well as ASP.NET MVC Web projects. The use of MVC doesn't mean that they're using a Web API.
A RESTful approach isn't just for Web APIs. Indeed, many find it a cleaner approach when using regular MVC Web Applications, as it tends to be more semantic to what actions are actually being performed (GET to get a view, POST to post data, DELETE, etc.) There's no real reason not to use REST verbs (which are actually just HTTP verbs, but called "REST" when we use them in a certain way). The use of HTTP verbs doesn't mean that we're using a Web API.
To conclude, The MVC Web API framework is it's own technology that's similar to MVC Web Applications, but more geared towards working with non-visual requests and responses, instead tailored to programmatic interfacing.
If this is indeed a Web API being used and not a case of MVC practices that you happen to be unfamiliar with, then yes, I think it's a good question to raise (at least from a technical standpoint - politically, maybe not, but we can't answer that for you).
A typical setup is to have multiple projects, one of which is a Web Application, which makes use of shared project(s) for domain/business classes and data persistence. Additionally, a Web API project is often used to provide access to the system for external components, but this is a separate "presentation layer" project from the aforementioned Web Application.
There may be cases where a Web API application is written as the core interface between the internal system and the rest of the outside world, where the MVC Web Application then interacts with the Web API, but this is a corner case that should only be done with specific reason, in my opinion (unless I misread, this seems to be the case you're stating?)
Using both MVC and WebAPI together in a ASP.NET Web application is quite common. Whilst you can provide HTML through WebAPI and you can provide JSON through MVC it's much cleaner to use the best technology for each.
WebAPI in particular lets you define an API once and then generates JSON, XML, ... for you based on the request.
I am considering using MVC.NET 5 with Entity Framework for the development of a REST API to serve up data for consumption by a few Websites. Is there any compelling reason to wait for MVC.NET 6 or is there a best practice/more common framework for developing REST APIs. The reason I am focused to MVC is so I can enter/edit data via forms that reflect my database to more easily manage my REST data, but I am open to other options if there are more common pursuits.
My front end development is heavily focused towards HTML5 and a few JS libraries such as Angular and Backbone due to the design patterns.
My recommendation is to built a stand alone Web API without mixing it with MVC 5, if you want to do it the right way use OWIN middle ware and add the components needed to build the API.
For the front end and if you are going to build SPA, start new empty project which will hold only your SPA, and this project will talk to your RESTful API.
For sure you need to allow CORS on the back-end API so it will accept calls coming from your SPA.
You can read more about how you structure this on this post. http://bitoftech.net/2014/06/09/angularjs-token-authentication-using-asp-net-web-api-2-owin-asp-net-identity/
I have an asp.net mvc3 application built with RavenDB and I want to be able to access the data via an external HTML5 mobile app. I'm thinking of exposing methods via WCF or via MVC controller action methods? Which option is best?
Ok, I have faced similar situation a while ago. This the way I have handled it, I have directly exposed Controller urls to the mobile application clients. Bascially it will help you in reducing the burden of maintaining two code bases and helps you to reuse existing functionality. Even if you go with WCF you need to expose with REST to make HTML5 client developer life easy.
This is the why microsoft released ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Apis to avoid confusion among developers which way to go in these scenarios. So that your services are device agnostic and easily testable.
Since you've already built the app in MVC3, I'd recommend a JsonResult action on an MVC Controller: http://www.asp.net/ajaxlibrary/jquery_json_data_from_controller.ashx