Single-Page Applications in Force.com

A single-page application is an application that runs almost entirely within the Web browser. In contrast, older Web application architectures generate the appearance and behavior of Web pages primarily on the server. Single-page applications tend to be more interactive and responsive than Web applications that rely on full or even partial page refreshes from the server.

Single-page applications can be challenging to build as they are heavily reliant on client-side JavaScript code. Many JavaScript frameworks have sprouted up to assist developers. They address the difficulties in implementing complex user interfaces by separating the concerns of Web user interfaces using Model-View-View Model (MVVM) or Model-View-Controller (MVC) patterns. Some examples of frameworks to support single-page application development are Backbone.js, Knockout.js, AngularJS, and Ember.js.

At first glance, this seems to replace much of Visualforce. Although it does replace the Web-rendering portions of Visualforce with its own data binding and templating technologies, Visualforce continues to provide the glue that makes everything work smoothly. For example, it loads the single-page application code, making communication between the user’s Web browser and Force.com secure and authenticated without additional development effort. The resulting blend of Force.com and JavaScript performs better than Visualforce for many types of user interfaces, minimizes proprietary code, and keeps back-end dependencies clear and modular to maximize testability.