Using Umbraco to host a HTML5 application?

Question

I haven't used Umbraco as yet, however I here good things about it - how it's structured and how easy it is to write "applications" that can be hosted within it (if that is the correct term).

From what I have seen, .NET usercontrols seem to be the way to host "applications", because you can pass down membership info or other params from Umbraco to your hosted usercontrol.

If I want to write a pure HTML5/Javascript (jQuery) app that is to be hosted within Umbraco, what options are available? I heard that you can create a razor based page (cshtml).. however just wondering how params would be made available from Umbraco to the HTML page itself (I'm not that up on asp.net mvc either, but I am guessing if a razor page, the viewbag could be used?)

Any pointers would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

Umbraco sounds like a good fit. It lets you use whatever HTML markup you like so you're free to build with it what ever you like.

Umbraco has the idea of Templates for rendering whole pages. Templates can be nested additionally each template can have multiple reusable Macros which can render out snippets of HTML/XML/JSON.

If you want to do some snazzy JSON calls then they have a RESTful api (not 100% REST though) called /Base which does some goodness.

The juicy bit about Umbraco is the package/plug-in eco-system, there is a great REST package called uREST which gives you some uber power if you need it (http://our.umbraco.org/projects/backoffice-extensions/urest)

Out the box 4.7+ use Razor for their macros (or XSLT or .net User Controls) so plenty of options.

Give it a go. The community forums are supper helpful too (http://our.umbraco.org) if you have a specific problem.

Cheers

Pete