>The address bar and back button change everything. >the web is different It's not specifically the desktop UI framework model that's discordant with the Web;

>The address bar and back button change everything. >the web is different It's not specifically the desktop UI framework model that's discordant with the Web; it's SPAs in general. The browser was built around a document model, not a SPA model. Hence, 99% of what you really want to do with the back button in a SPA is try to prevent it from having deleterious effects. You enable it for navigation only because you have no choice (well, you do, but it wouldn't meet user expectations, especially on mobile where the back-button in apps and the browser are the same). Likewise, beyond locating the app, the address bar is really of little use. So, let's hold that constant. You have to manage it regardless and it's just as easy to build URL-based view-resolution into any framework. Point being that, once the view is resolved, there's absolutely no reason you can't use a Swing-like model to render and manage it.