In light of this article, what is a good application structure to use on the client if we do decide to go with Knockout?
If you're going to use Knockout to provide wiz-bang editing and binding on single page (as opposed to a slew of jQuery code everywhere), then you might not need much more than Knockout.
If you're going to be creating multi-page JavaScript applications within a single page of your site, you should look at combining something like Backbone.js with Knockout, using the Knockback library I linked to in that article.
Alternatively, if your looking for good structure for JavaScript applications in general, I have another post that introduces a few of the concepts and links to some great resources, here: http://derickbailey.lostechies.com (unfortunately, I can't get the exact URL at the moment... site seems to be slow / not responding. just look for the "Intro to composite JavaScript apps" post)
There are several way to structure your app, but it depends on what your app does and how structured it is. On a basic level I structure every page to have a page object to handle events and setup the view model(s).
So, for default.aspx, I might have something like:
var Page = new function(){ _this = this;
$(function(){
//document ready
});
$("#dataTable").delegate(".delete",function(){
_this.viewModel.deleteItem(ko.dataFor(this));
});
this.viewModel = new function(){
var _this = this;
//set up view model
this.observableVal = ko.observable("");
this.deleteItem = function(){
//delete item from VM
};
};
But then you might want to have a page with multiple view models (ie UserControls that are self contained). This gets a bit tricky, especially if you want the multiple view models to interact.
Shoot me an email if you need help.