PIcking Your Javascript Mobile Framework: Part 3 - Minimum Functionality

If you are joining us now, this is a multi-part shootout of mobile Javascript frameworks. In the last instalment, we got a series of candidates, 77 long. In this instalment, we will look at functionality.

The Todo app pushed by the TodoMVC team is very simple, but pretty complete. In it you:

1. Create new todo items by entering them into a box
2. Display all available todo items
3. Alternatively, display only the active ones, or the completed ones
4. Mark a todo item as completed by checking a box to its left
5. Delete a todo item
6. Delete all completed todo items
7. Edit a todo item

Bindings and behaviors were refined further:

• Aside from clicking on the box to the left and the delete button to the right, a double click on the item would allow you to edit it
• Typing text into the edit box at the top would allow you to create a new item; hitting “Enter” would add the item to the list
• Three links at the bottom would route you to the list of all items, active items, and completed items
• A button on the bottom would allow you to delete all completed items
• When in Active mode and an item is cleared, the item should automatically disappear

That all seemed pretty simple. For it to work, I also made the assumption that I could load the test in a browser page and then on a phone, and it would all work.

It is at this point that I need to remark in general: a knockout here doesn’t mean the framework has no merit, or that missing functionality in the todo example has any real-life implications on the quality and capabilities of the framework as a whole!

On the other hand, though,** there are plenty frameworks to choose from**, and I can be picky. If something doesn’t work as expected in the demo, it obviously means it’s not trivial to implement. So you could say, well if the demo doesn’t auto-update to remove newly declared done items, it’s not a big deal. But the big deal is that the view and the model should always be in sync. If I have to do it manually, then the value of this framework goes down the hill.

Also, some of the frameworks have no other fault than requiring a particular server (like meteor). It’s not that it’s tragic: in general, you would have no problem providing a web server. But in the case of a mobile app, you don’t really have that option at all.

So take this whole series as it is: a help in finding a mobile Javascript framework that makes it easy to write mobile apps using PhoneGap. Nothing more, hopefully nothing less.

I armed myself and got the following knockouts. If everything worked as expected, there was no comment.