knockoutjs with Umbraco and Umbraco base call

I was thinking how we could use knockoutjs with Umbraco, so just thought blog it.

Knockout is a JavaScript library that helps you to create rich, responsive display and editor user interfaces with a clean underlying data model. Any time you have sections of UI that update dynamically (e.g., changing depending on the user’s actions or when an external data source changes), KO can help you implement it more simply and maintainably.

• Features
• Elegant dependency tracking
• Declarative bindings
• Flexible and sophisticated templating
• Trivially extensible

More information reference: http://knockoutjs.com.

Well, we start with Umbraco, To know more on umbraco, Please refer below links
http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/how-tos/a-complete-newbie's-guide-to-umbraco
http://umbraco.com/help-and-support/video-tutorials/getting-started?freeVideos=1
http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/how-tos/getting-started-with-umbraco-what-is-next-after-you-install
http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/install-and-setup, 

I have created a document with document type "Announcement" with below two properties

• announcementTitle 
• description

My Html block is as shown below
<p>

        <h1 data-bind="text: Title">

        </h1>

    </p>

    <p>

        <span data-bind="html: Description"></span>

    </p>

    <form id="frmAnnoumcent">

    <p>

        Title:

        <input data-bind="value: Title" name="Title" style="width: 400px" /></p>

    <p>

        Annoucement:

        <textarea data-bind="value: Description" name="Description" rows="5" cols="60"> </textarea></p>

    <button data-bind="click: save">

        Save Listings</button>

    </form>

Script Block

    <script type="text/javascript">

    var announcement = {

        "Title": ko.observable("") ,

        "Description": ko.observable(""),

    };

  

   var viewModel=ko.mapping.fromJS(announcement);

     $.ajax({

        url: '/base/baseCall/GetAnnouncement.aspx',

        type: "POST",

        data: $('#frmTest').serialize(),

        dataType: 'JSON',

        success: function(result)

        {

            ko.mapping.fromJS(result,{},viewModel);

          

        },

        error:

        function(result)

        {

        alert(result.message);

        }

       

    });

  

    viewModel.save = function() {

    $.ajax({

        url: '/base/baseCall/SaveAnnouncement.aspx',

        type: "POST",

        data: $('#frmTest').serialize(),

        dataType: 'JSON',

        success: function(result)

        {

            ko.mapping.fromJS(result,{},viewModel);

             ko.applyBindings(viewModel);

          

        },

        error:

        function(result)

        {

        alert(result.message);

        }

       

    });

},

$(function() {

    ko.applyBindings(viewModel);

});

     </script>

Base Service Call

       [RestExtension("baseCall")]

    public class TestService

    {

        [RestExtensionMethod(returnXml = false)]

        public static string SaveAnnouncement()

        {

            DocumentType dt = DocumentType.GetByAlias("Announcement");

            User author = User.GetUser(0);

            string title = HttpContext.Current.Request["Title"];

            string Description = HttpContext.Current.Request["Description"];

            Document doc = Document.MakeNew(title, dt, author, 1048);

            doc.getProperty("announcementTitle").Value = title;

            doc.getProperty("description").Value = Description;

            //after creating the document, prepare it for publishing

            doc.Publish(author);

            //Tell umbraco to publish the document

            umbraco.library.UpdateDocumentCache(doc.Id);

            return GetAnnouncement();

        }

        [RestExtensionMethod(returnXml=false)]

        public static string GetAnnouncement()

        {

            List<Announcement> announcement = new List<Announcement>();

            Document root = new Document(1048);

            string sJSON="";

            if (root.HasChildren)

            {

                foreach (Document tempDocument in root.Children.OrderByDescending(res => res.CreateDateTime))

                {

                    Announcement a = new Announcement();

                    Property prop1 = tempDocument.getProperty("announcementTitle");

                    a.Title = (string)prop1.Value;

                    prop1 = tempDocument.getProperty("description");

                    a.Description = (string)prop1.Value;

                    announcement.Add(a);

                    System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer oSerializer =

        new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer();

                    sJSON = oSerializer.Serialize(a);

                    sJSON=sJSON.Insert(sJSON.Length - 2, ",");

                    break;

                }

            }

          

            return sJSON;

        }

    }

    public class Announcement

    {

        public string Title { get; set; }

        public string Description { get; set; }

    }

Of-course the knockoutjs can be used well, and it gives an live UI. We could create an amazing user experience with it.