Knockout JS mapping plugin without initial data / empty form

Question

We are using knockout and the knockout mapping plugin to facilitate databinding in our jQTouch web application. The reason we use the mapping plugin, is to be able to use kn

Answer 1

One approach I am exploring now is to create an additional web service method called ReturnEmptyObject() which does nothing other than create and return a newly instantiated object (whose properties would be default values) on the server side. The (in my case C#) object gets serialized to JSON, and finally arrives on the jQuery Ajax call.... and then passed into ko.mapping.updateFromJS()... which creates the needed observables on initial page load... before I call ko.applyBindings().

When ko.applyBindings() executes, it finds the observables it needs so it won't throw an error, even though they are mostly empty.

This way the page can initially be opened without any of the fields filled in. Yet, if I add some new properties to my class on the server side, they automatically show up on the client side still.