Native HTML5 push notifications with ASP.NET Web API and Knockout.js
Because you don't need websockets for push notifications
The ASP.NET Web API project progresses at a rapid pace, and has already come a long way since the beta release. And as it is OSS now, it’s really great that we all can see the progress being made (thanks, MS!). So today we are going to build a native HTML5 push notifications mechanism over HTTP protocol, utilizing the latest exciting features of Web API (PushStreamContent), modern browsers’ Server-sent Events EventSource API and, of course, Knockout.js.
Few weeks ago Henrik Nielsen on his blog was kind enough to share some updates about the latest feauters available in the ASP.NET Web API. We are going to be using his sample code as the starting point to develop an application utilizing a real HTTP push messaging infrastructure. We’ll use that to build a browser-based multi-person chat, but the principles showed here could be used for pretty much anything that requires pushing content to the client.