Kentico CMS + Backbone.js

Question

I've seen some references to using Backbone.js with a CMS. I will be starting on a new project soon that will be using Kentico CMS. I'd like to use Backbone.js for the client side framework to make a "web app" experience that has it's content managed through Kentico (similar to the example Backbone gives on their website for USAToday).

Has anyone ever done this? It seems difficult due to Kentico's web framework. I'm sure it is possible to do, but at what cost? What functionality will be lost on the Kentico side? Will content managers still be able to change layout, rearrange webparts, add/delete webparts, update content within webparts, add/delete pages?

Any help or examples would be amazing! Thanks.

Answer 1

Kentico CMS comes with a RESTful API that is able to manipulate with all objects and documents in the system. So it's up to you what you implement on the client side. If you want to achieve push capabilities you will probably want to utilize SignalR (ASP.NET encapsulation of WebSockets). There is nice library that provides communication between Backbone.js and SignalR called Backbone.signalr. Last thing you should have a look at is a new system of events introduced in Kentico CMS 7 enabling to hook up to any document or object change.