Binding upshot to a Web API in a different project

Question

I am trying to create a SPA application, to take advantage of upshot and its capabilities. However, the services exposing the data (i.e. the Web API) is in a completely separate project, already hosted on IIS. I would like to bind upshot to that existing API, but from what I can see in the HTML helpers for upshot (v1.0.0.1), you need to pass in the type of the controller that exposes the data, like so:

Html.UpshotContext.DataSource(Of ToDoController)(Function(x) x.GetTodoItems())

where ToDoController is the ApiController that exposes the data, defined in the same project.

My question is, how can I bind upshot to a Web API that is not in the same project? Is there any way I can use the helpers, or will I have to do everything manually?

I have access to the Model classes (i.e. TodoItem), as they are in a separate assembly, which can be referenced from both projects (SPA & Web API), but I don't have access to the controllers defined in the Web API project.

Answer 1

You can use the following:

upshot.dataSources = upshot.dataSources || {};

upshot.metadata({"ModelType:#Namespace":
    {
     "key":["Id"],
     "fields":    
        {"Id":{"type":"Int32:#System"},
         "IpAddress":{"type":"String:#System"},
         "Name":{"type":"String:#System"}
        }
    } (and so on, just map everything)
});

var dataSource = new upshot.RemoteDataSource({
    providerParameters: 
        { url: "Your URL", 
          operationName: "Method Name, example: GetCustomers" },
    entityType: "ModelType:#Namespace",
    bufferChanges: true (or false, whatever you like),
    dataContext: undefined,
    mapping: {}
});

If I were you, If I could I would temporarily create a solution with the Controller project in it, then I would check the JS generated by the UpshotContext helper and copy that into your pages (which is what I did to have the result above, anyway).