If you haven't already heard, Wijmo started as an ASP.NET project. When we wanted to completely rebuild our ASP.NET tools, we looked to jQuery UI as our client-side framework. So now that we have Wijmo, it's time to show you how to use it in ASP.NET MVC! Last week I had the pleasure of presenting a session at MVCConf. The session I gave was called "Putting the V in MVC". Here is the abstract taken from the schedule:
MVC gives us total control over markup in ASP.NET. Or in other words, you better learn how to turn HTML into something pretty. Luckily, there is a great framework to help us out: jQuery UI! We will take a look at using jQuery UI to do exactly that. We will start with simple HTML markup and transform it into interactive widgets with very little code. jQuery UI widgets add style and behavior to otherwise drab markup without changing its semantics. We will also look at Wijmo, a new toolkit that extends jQuery UI. Wijmo brings over 30 widgets to jQuery UI from Menus to SVG Charts, 18 of which are Open Source. Both jQuery UI and Wijmo can take your Views from boring to brilliant in ASP.NET MVC. After this session you will be ready to start putting the V in MVC!
The Ultimate View
The gist of the session was to propose a new way of creating rich UI in MVC (The Ultimate View). The idea is to use simple HTML markup and then enhance it with jQuery UI and Wijmo. Some benefits from this approach are:
- Take control over your markup
- Clean & lean HTML
- Maintainable markup
- Highly interactive UI
- Easily integrates jQuery.ajax()
- Themeroller support
Video
Slides
View more presentations from Chris Bannon
Code
Download the sample app to follow along. It is an ASP.NET MVC 3 web app using the Razor View Engine. You will see how simple it is to use Wijmo in MVC and how clean the Views are when doing so.
Props
MVCConf blew me away! It was a huge success (over 10,000 attendees) and completely run by the community. I have to thank everyone who made it possible. I would also like to thanks MVCConf for letting me give a session. So a big round of applause for:
If you are interested in learning about how successful the online conference was check out the wrap up blog.
Chris Bannon