Architectural advice for a SPA ASP.NET application - asp.net-mvc

I'm starting a new project, based on ASP.NET. The application will be a registry with a web interface. It will be used by ca 3000 users.
It has been ca 4 years since I last started a new project so I'm a "bit" rusty when it comes to the latest trends..
I wish the new application to be SPA so I investigated some Javascript MV* frameworks and finally settled on Durandal, Bootstrap (for layout) and Telerik's Kendo UI with ASP.NET MVC helpers.
I installed a template called Hot Towel, which created a ASP.NET MVC based Durandal project setup. However, I see that Views are html not Razor's cshtml. Can I still use cshtml files (for helper classes to work)? Is there any downfall in this?
Also I heared a discussion that when using Durandal, one shouldn't use ASP.NET MVC but rather just Web API. What do you think of that? I'd still like to use MVC helpers here and there..or is there a good reason for abandoning it for Web API?
Do you have any other considerations and recommendations on a new project setup?
Best wishes,
Andrew

Someone who knows a more about durandal than I may be able to shed some light on the part of using cshtml views. I would imagine that you would have to override the viewLocator and point it to controller actions rendering partial views??? (you need them to be parsed by the Razor engine to get valid HTML).
As for using regular html files, I have used a fantastic library called knockout-kendo
for using kendo UI components in SPA applications. I find it just as easy to use as the HTML helpers, all while keeping the application a true SPA, and you then serve up all of your data via WebAPI controllers.Hope this is of some help.
EDIT: Perhaps you can also have a look at this answer How can I use cshtml files with Durandal?. There are a few answers there that seem to be doing what you are looking to do..

Related

Net5 razor pages vs mvc

I am new to net5 framework and have some questions regarding the structure of the project.
When we create a new project it will only create the razor pages. I am learning that we can achieve things with these razor pages.
Meanwhile, I have looked into some open source net5 projects on GitHub and see that they are also using MVC.
So, my question is why do we need MVC then? If everything is achieved using razor pages then what is the need for MVC?
If we need MVC then should we use razor pages with them too?
I have done the identity work with razor pages using scaffolding. What would happen now if I add MVC to my project. How will I manage the routes and page redirection from razor pages to MVC and vice versa?
Please help me with this so I can clear my concepts on this.
I will be really thankful to those who explain the scenario to me.
Thanks
First, .NET 5 is out of support. You should target .NET 6 instead.
Razor Pages represents a simpler way to generate HTML on the server compared to MVC. It is recommended for all new web applications that rely on server-side HTML generation going forward. MVC is still available for existing apps. It is also probably easier to migrate older MVC 5 (.NET Framework) apps to ASP.NET Core MVC when porting to .NET Core.
Razor Pages is built on top of the MVC framework and depends on a lot of the features of MVC such as model binding, action results and so on.
If you are using Razor Pages, there is no compelling reason to also use MVC in the same project, although you can. If you do, then you need to register controller endpoints:
app.MapControllers();
You might need to add controllers to your project if you want to create HTTP service APIs, although you can use the minimal API feature that was added to .NET 6 instead:
https://www.mikesdotnetting.com/article/358/using-minimal-apis-in-asp-net-core-razor-pages
Razor Pages can make coding page-focused scenarios easier and more
productive than using controllers and views.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/razor-pages/?view=aspnetcore-6.0&tabs=visual-studio
As another difference, in MVC, you usually create separate class for ViewModel. As I understand, in Razor Page, you don't need a separate class and you just add more properties in the same page and those properties will be part of your model which make things easier.

benefit of using angular js on top of asp.net mvc

Is there much point to using angular js on top of asp.net mvc since they're kind of both doing the same thing? What are the advantages to using angular over asp.net mvc + jquery? What kind of scenario would you pick angular in? If you do pick angular in a microsoft environment, what would you run on the server side? Would it be something like Web API? Or is there still benefit of using traditional asp.net mvc?
This question is a bit subjective, however here was our reasoning.
Let the client handle rendering of pages, free up resources on the server.
Leverage built in caching of cache servers since we are just dealing with <html/> content.
Since the pages are cached the only traffic back and forth is json payloads.
We have been using NancyFx, but WebAPI or Service Stack would work just fine.
We wanted to build a responsive single page application and AngularJs fit the bill for testability as full feature rich framework.
AngularJs forces you into a pattern that we needed for JavaScript, in the past our jQuery heavy applications turned into functional spaghetti (That was our fault but being guided by Angular helped out a lot).
As with all frameworks pick the one that suites your needs
On my site http://www.reviewstoshare.com, I am using AngularJS along with ASP.NET MVC. The main reason I did not go all the way with AngularJS was that SEO is not easily achieved with AngularJS.
Keep in mind that my site was already built using ASP.MVC + Jquery for in page interaction as needed.
On the other hand there is still some "Ajaxy" nature to the site like comments, voting, flagging etc. Not too different than Stackoverflow itself. Before AngularJS it was a mess of Jquery plugins and functions within $(document).ready() callback, not to mention the JS code was not testable much.
In the end, I went with both.
If you fancy using Java Script framework then Angular JS rocks.
SEO could be the issue. You need to have deeper understanding of DOM and Java Script as compared to other famous JS Frameworks.
I ve developed a Proof of Concept - using Angular JS with Require JS using ASP.net MVC
You can have a look at it at the below given link
http://angualrjsrequirejsaspmvc.blogspot.com/2013/08/angular-js-with-require-js-front-end.html

How scaffold Durandal, Breeze in SPA app with VS 2012

I'm starting to develop an application based on Hot Towel project template. The question is how I can scaffold Durandal?
I want to perform code generation like mvc scaffolding, but for SPA using Hot Towel template, to accelerate the development of the CRUD pages
Thanks for any suggestion!
Out of the box the Hot Towel project template is based on Durandal, Knockout, and Breeze. Durandal and Knockout work seamlessly with the MVVM pattern, and not the MVC or other MV* patterns.
The approach is not that different from the MVC pattern, my best suggestion for you on this is to follow what is given for you, and if it is not found to meet your needs, you can look at some other libraries or frameworks such as Angular.js or Ember.js.
There are more out there, but this would be the simplest way to decide if you are using what best fits your needs.
By the way, in addition to the pattern, it is worth noting that MVC scaffolding in an ASP.NET MVC project is all done on the server side with ASP.NET MVC controllers and basically generated views. Using a templating engine you could easily replicate the same functionality across all of your views by creating each of the CRUD operations (Create view, Read (details) view, Update (edit) view, and Delete views)
One thing that makes JavaScript libraries unique is that you can also combine all four of these functions into one and utilize a templating engine to share the functionality.

using ASP.NET MVC and EXT JS together

I'd like to use for my next project Ext js and ASP.NET MVC.
I'm wondering what would be the best way of using this two framework together. So far I did some project using ASP.NET MVC, where every action method returned a view and reloaded the page. The Ext js mvc application uses a single page approach.
As I'm pretty new to ext js so I'm wondering if someone could share some experiences of building real world application using this two frameworks.
You can use extjs as you think is better for you. You can use its components as simple widgets or create a full javascript (extjs) client. However, which are the real requirements? a single page client or a traditional client?
In our current project we started using ASP.Net MVC Framework with extjs widgets, it was ok for a while but the customer wanted more and more sophisticated UI and a better user experince (among other thing) then, we changed the app, we left MVC models and controllers (views were removed) and we created a full javascript client with extjs 4.1.
After that we realized we were using an ASP M_C framework (with no views) and that was a nonsense so, we took the ASP MVC project away and replaced it by a WCF Rest service (it also could be done with an ASP.Net Web Api).
We feel proud of our decision and the resulting design. If you can, if you know extjs (learning it is rather hard) and javascript and, if you have support to your decision then, keep your application splitted in two:
a server-side service/api and,
a full javascript application.
Good luck!
I'm not sure I'd agree with the answer by #lontivero, I'm currently working on a project using ASP.NET MVC as the backend and ExtJS as the front.
You do, as pointed out, loose the V from the ASP.NET MVC stack and you end up needing to duplicate you C# view models in you ExtJS Models on the client side but I've found using MVC as a backend (effectively as a rest based collection of Json end points) absolutely fine.
You can utilise the model binding, model validation in MVC whilst leveraging the full client side js app in Ext.
I'm curious as to the points you didn't get on with using this structure (I'm not saying it's perfect, but it does seem to work)
We used Ext.NET (versions 0.x-1.x) in our previous projects. Even after a comprehensive effort to upgrade our projects to the (now current) version, we had to drop Ext.Net 2.x out.
If it fits you, it can help.
The main problems with Ext.Net were (several) incompatibilities with ASP.NET and a lack of trust. They used to keep their schedule, it's far from it for last 2 years or so. And they are behind ExtJS.

Incorporating MVC functionality in an existing ASP.net project

We have an intranet system developed using asp.net webforms. We are kind of planning to partly incorporate mvc and such a scenario is as follows,
We would like to generate html documents using mvc (using razor view engine) where the inputs are going to come from a normal asp.net webform (from a form button click or so)
Some pointers or references to tutorials on running these 2 scenarios side by side would help a lot.
ASP.Net MVC and WebForms postbacks don't mix; the only way to do this would be to use <iframe>s (which is not a good idea).
I am not sure about your described implementation... however, you could start by re-writing some of your aspx pages using MVC views and just get all the existing code behind into a controller to minimize the creation of new code. You could do this one page at a time until all of your pages are MVC views. Good luck.

Resources