Knockout.js Introduction

We all know about jQuery It makes Java Script developers life very easy. But in Some scenarios jQuery does not help. For example there is no way where UI and data communicates with each other without writing complex code.  Here JavaScript library knockout comes very handy.  Knockout.js implement Model-View-View-Model pattern to JavaScript. 

Key Features:

Declarative bindings: It provides an easy way to bind your data with UI declaratively. You can use knockout observables with some html attributes. Whenever data changes it will automatically updates UI.

Dependency Tracking:  With this features it will automatically updates the UI whenever data changes.

Extensibility: It can be easily extensible with new declarative bindings and it can recused every where.

Templating: Knockout.js has a built in template engine which you can use with declarative bindings. It also supports third party template engines like jQuery templates and UnderScore.

As mentioned in knockout introduction documentation it has some additional benefits also.

Pure JavaScript Library: It can be work with any web technology like ASP.NET web forms, ASP.NET MVC, PHP etc.

Can be added on top of your existing web application : It can be added on the top of your application with modifying anything.

Works on most of the browsers: (IE 6+, Firefox 2+, Chrome, Safari, others)

How to download and install Knockout.js:

You can download latest version of Knockout.js from the following link.

http://knockoutjs.com/downloads/index.html

You can simply install knockout js with adding a script tag there.

That’s it. In next post we are going to learn how knockout works and how we can create nice interactive UI.