For me, when I was playing around with various approaches (SPA vs MPA) the SPA was not difficult (using ASP.NET). And I saw a very good course on SPA by John Papa on Pluralsight. But for the type of application John Papa was creating the SPA was ok; since for the most part user would want to see just one piece of information. In a database application (like we are used to in VFP) user often wants to see and compare various data views (e.g. like working on two or three orders at the same time). This is why I decided to follow the MPA approach. Even though a "downside" could be that user would quickly create/open many tabs in the browser. But given that memory today is not a problem and browsers are designed with tabs in mind, I thought it would provide the most of flexibility. However, I have not seen a web-based database application so I don't know if what I am doing is a good practice or not. Hence I started this thread.

As far as framework, so far I am only using the "default" framework that comes with VS 2012. I love C# and C# compiler. Most of what I have to learn (like climing an Everest) is learning CSS.
Thank you.


>A SPA app can have multiple pages and/or tabs: think Google Docs or Google Spreadsheet. The difference between a SPA app and a web page is that the app "page" never changes; just the parts inside, as if it were an application on a desktop. A SPA app typically sends html and some organizing javascript to the client, and then content drives the rest, using the organizing javascript manage the display of the content, in tabs, which effectively are like separate pages; fly-ins; modal dialogs; etc. One of the big advantages of a SPA app is that content is separated from the app. Another is that offline work becomes possible, provided you've got a way to store the needed content locally and a way to update the backend when reconnected -- and that's getting easier to do. Having been to the SPA session at SWFox, it is clear that SPA apps are not trivial to construct.
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>Hank
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>PS: while this is irrelevant to .Net development, it's worth noting that Lianja creates the SPA app for you, using all the same javascript technologies you might use to do this, but without your having to roll-your-own-framework. If you can find a framework that does that for you in .Net (I haven't looked), it would likely be worth investigating.
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>>I have a question about the following design approach for web application which targets are tablet browsers like iPad, Nexus, etc. The approach I choose is the following:
>>The main page of the application has a pull-down menu. When user clicks on an item of the menu a new tab is opened. For example, one of the items on the menu is View Order. And I envision that a user may want to see several orders at the same time. So when he/she clicks on this menu anchor, a new tab is opened where user enters order number and views the order. At the same time he/she can click on the same menu item again and open another tab to view another order. And so on. So practically, the main tab/page of the application will host the main menu and some static text (I have not come up with what text though).
>>What do you think about this UI approach? Would this type of app be called MPA (Multiple Page Application) as opposed to SPA (Single Page Application)?