Knockout will help developers implement sections of UI that update dynamically more simply and maintainably.
KnockoutJS headline features:
- Declarative bindings - Allows complex and dinamic User Interfaces construction, easily using arbitrarily nested binding contexts.
- Elegant dependency tracking - Whenever your data model changes, instantly updates the right parts of your User Interface.
- Extremely extensible - In just few line of code programmers can implement custom behaviors as new declarative bindings for easy reuse
KnockoutJS advantages:
- Pure JavaScript library working with any server or client-side technology
- Complet set of specifications - allows verification over new platforms and browsers
- Put it on top of your existing web app - there is no need of major architectural changes
- Slim - only 13kb after being archived
- Great usability - as it can be used over most major browsers
The display gets more alive and the user experience richer as these features simplify the specs of complex relationships between view components.
Items can be represented as JavaScript array, then by using a foreach binding the array can be transformed into a TABLE or set of DIVs while the User Interface stays in sync.
Knockout is a complementary high-end solution to link a data model to a User Interface, without being dependant on jQuery. In the same time jQuery is not excluded if animated transitions are needed.
To summarize we can say that Knockout offers a clear separation between domain data, view elements and data to be displayed besides a clearly defined layer of specialized code to manage the relationships between the view elements.