A combination of MVVM and mobile user interfaces for use with Breeze

Question

I have been working with Breeze / knockout for some time now and have been completely satisfied. Twitter Bootstrap was the right placeholder for the user interface when experimenting, but it was time to focus on the user interface (mobile web application), and I ran into a problem that made me search elsewhere (except for the knockout, that is). The problem that I am encountering with a knockout is due to the inability / difficulty to integrate existing components / widgets of the user interface.

The problem is that most of these widgets / frameworks / libraries (like jquery mobile) control the DOM to accomplish what they do. This is contrary to knockout.

So, I moved on to Angular (the binding syntax of which I prefer), and I started my quest again. Well ... the same problem. Although someone wrote the Angular / JQuery Mobile adapter, I would not want to rely on it to stay up to date with new versions of jquery mobile. Moreover, the more I worked with jQuery mobile, the less I liked it. It seems that it is more focused on mobile websites than on web applications, and I decided that I want to replace it with a navigation router and much more. Interestingly, at the same time (just a couple of days ago) I noticed a demonstration of Angular ToDo in the latest version of Breeze.

The Angular Breeze demo made me think that I should try Breeze with the Kendo UI, whose MVVM implementation doesn’t really bother me, but the UI is very polished. I did not spend too much time on it, as there is no official support, and it is not surprising that I ran into problems.

So my question (s):

Will Breeze ever work with MVVM UI Kendo? If so, are we talking days, weeks, or months? If not, any ideas on how to solve the real problem, which can be summarized as follows:

toolsToRapidlyDevelopProfessionalWebApp = [Breeze, MVVM, UI] 

Breeze : I do not know an alternative that solves the problems described above.

MVVM : which implementation will work with Breeze and a solid user interface library (mobile in my case)?

UI : which professional user interface library will work with the MVVM implementation, which also works with Breeze?

By the way, in my search for answers I came across the following:

http://feedback.kendoui.com/forums/127393-kendo-ui-feedback/suggestions/3247342-integrate-with-breeze-js

Answer 1

Yes, KendoUI support is on the roadmap for Breeze. As you saw on the page the Kendo review page from your link, our two companies are in contact and have a mutual interest in this.

Edit: Telerik reviews Breeze here and shows the source code for integrating with KendoUI: https://gist.github.com/derickbailey/258716b0107f9067616a

Edit 2: The final version of BreezeDataSource for KendoUI now works: http://www.kendoui.com/blogs/teamblog/posts/13-02-21/breeze_js_and_the_kendo_ui_datasource.aspx

Answer 2

I know this does not answer your question about breeze / kendo / ui, but I wanted to point out something about Angular, and possibly Knockout, that might help you find the answer.

You are allowed to manipulate the DOM with Angular ... I mean, everything is angular. But you just need to do it in the right place: directives. The connector libraries you see just implement the directives for connecting to the DOM from Angular. You do not need to rely on third parties for them, and they are easy to maintain.

Do not overdo it, it is really simple. A directive is just a “link” function that mainly uses your DOM stuff. It is really easy to use.

 angular.diretive("something", function(){ return { restrict: 'EACM', //just tells angular where this can be used link: function(scope, element, attrs){ //do DOM stuff here, element works with jQuery if included element.someJqueryPlugin(); } } } 

Now, anywhere in your code, you can say <something> or <div something> , and your directive is called and properly connected. You can even use templates, controllers, and use dependency injection.