Question

I am starting a new app that will target both web and mobile (but possibly only as HTML5, not necessarily a native app)… So, what are the frameworks you guys recommend? I am familiar with plain ol’ ASP.NET, and some minimum AJAX. So is it best, for example, to build a ASP.NET REST based API with a JQuery and JQueryMobile?

Answer 1

I’m looking at a similar approach while we’re commercializing an app of ours.

Considerations

After 5 months of research and experience combined with the comments above, here are some considerations:

• Do you have control over your users’ browser selection? If yes, HTML5 is a great and flexible. If your users are more up-to-date I would also recommend HTML5.
• The server-side framework in most cases will not matter, as long as you can develop a robust server with an efficient data model that’s familiar and manageable.
• Are your mobile devices tablets or phones or both? If you are using phones it will be harder to fit and prioritize the interface.
• Do you know all of your app’s functionality? This will be important for determining UX which will then help you understand how you will build out the client.
• Is your app real-time? And you have modern users? Websockets are handy. Here’s a demo for ASP.NET http://wsaspnet.codeplex.com/

Recommended Frameworks

Given your case, here are some recommended frameworks to make life easier:

• Stick with .NET on the server-side since you are familiar with it
• Use backbone.js to manage your client-side template
• HTML5 boilerplate is also worth a look http://html5boilerplate.com/mobile
• Use the latest JQuery library
• Use JQuery Mobile to adapt your HTML5 app to mobile devices
• There’s also JQTouch http://www.jqtouch.com/
• Custom build your “fluid” javascript to adjust your client to different interfaces (I haven’t been satisfied with current plugins and frameworks)
• If you are using websockets, web-socket-js is very handy for a flash fallback https://github.com/gimite/web-socket-js …otherwise stick with AJAX REST
• Consider PhoneGap to adapt your app if you need to distribute the app in approved marketplaces outside the browser http://phonegap.com/ and https://build.phonegap.com/
• Here’s a C# Websocket server: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/webservices/c_sharp_web_socket_server.aspx

Remember

Sometimes it is just necessary to build a separate client for mobile if your app is complex. It can be native, HTML5, or HTML5 put through PhoneGap.