my backbone sample is not working and giving with this.el.html is not a function - backbone.js

Question

I am new bee to backbone and i am trying with a below sample
http://jsfiddle.net/naveencgr/L3orucjm/
While loading i am getting this.el.html is not a function, let me know what is the cause of it.
HTML:
<div id="container"></div>
<script type="text/template" id="template">
<input type="text" name="Name" id="Name"></input>
<input type="button" name="Add" id="Add" value="Add"></input>
<div id="list"></div>
</script>
JavaScript:
NameModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
});
var nameModel = new NameModel();
nameModel.set('name','test');
alert(nameModel.get('name'));
NameView = Backbone.View.extend({
tagName:"li",
render: function(){
var template=_.template("<%=name%>", nameModel.toJSON());
return template;
}
});
var nameView = new NameView();
NameViewList = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function(){
this.render();
},
render: function(){
var template = _.template($("#template").html(), {});
this.el.html(template);
},
events : {
"click input#Add" :"addName",
},
addName : function() {
var name = $("#Name").val();
if (name.trim().length > 0) {
//nameModel.set("name", name);
$("#list").append(nameView.render());
}
}
});
var nameViewList = new NameViewList({el : $("div#container")});

Answer 1

You have numerous errors in your code. You know about one of them but not the others.
The one you know about is:
this.el.html(template);
A view's el is just a DOM node and that doesn't have an html function. The html function you're trying to use is part of jQuery so you'd want to call it on this.$el (which is just a cached version of $(this.el)):
this.$el.html(template);
Other problems:
Your fiddle is missing vars all over the place; don't say:
NameModel = ...
say:
var NameModel
to avoid accidental globals.
Your NameView is strange. It has tagName: 'li' so presumably it should be creating list elements but the render doesn't do anything with the view's el, it just returns a string of HTML that ends up inside a <div>. That <div> should be a <ul>:
<ul id="list"></ul>
A render function generally populates the view's el and, to allow chaining, returns this:
render: function() {
var template = _.template('<%= name %>');
this.$el.html(template(nameModel.toJSON()));
return this;
}
You are using Underscore's _.template incorrectly. You used to be able to say:
var h = _.template(template_source, data);
to compile the template and fill it in in one step but as of Underscore 1.7, the second argument to _.template is an options object. Now you need to compile and fill in the template in separate steps:
var t = _.template(template_source);
var h = t(data);
You'll see this change in the render above.
The way you're using your NameView is strange. Apparently you are trying to use one NameView to handle multiple names, this would work with your strange NameView#render implementation but it will fall apart once NameView has anything to do or once NameView is updated (as above) to be more conventional. You should create one NameView for each name you're displaying and each NameView should have its own NameModel as its model property. This would make NameView#render look like:
render: function() {
var template = _.template('<%= name %>');
this.$el.html(template(this.model.toJSON()));
return this;
}
and NameViewList#addName would look like:
addName: function() {
var name = this.$("#Name").val();
if(name.trim().length > 0) {
var nameView = new NameView({
model: new NameModel({ name: name })
});
this.$('#list').append(nameView.render().el);
}
}
You'll note that we're using NameView#render's new return value, this x.append(v.render().el) pattern is quite common and idiomatic in Backbone so it is a good practice. You should also notice that the search for #list is now limited to the view's el by using the view's this.$ function; this.$('#list') is equivalent to this.$el.find('#list') and doing things this way helps you keep your views self-contained.
In real life you'd probably put your new NameModel({ name: name }) instances in a collection somewhere and events on that collection would trigger the creation of new NameViews.
Applying all that to your fiddle gives you this functional and more idiomatic version:
http://jsfiddle.net/ambiguous/8x0ma9qo/