How to load this file given a specific Backbone route? - backbone.js

I am currently working on a single page web application and new to Backbone.
I have a list of navigations for my page and each is within a separate PHP/HTML file. What I want is to load this file given a specific route (e.g. /contacts will load contacts.php or contacts.html).
How to do that?

I didn't found any forum or discussion relating to this however the process of rendering a template from a backbone route can be done through
var router = Backbone.Router.extend({
routes : {
'/contact' : 'contactUsHandler'
},
home : function() {
var url = urlToRequestServerToRenderATemplate,
that = this;
$.ajax({
type : 'GET',
url : url,
success : function(response) {
//response should contain the html rendered from server
var contactView = new contactView();
contactView.render(response.html);
}
})
}
})
var contactView = Backbone.View.extend({
el : '#main-container',
render : function(html) {
this.$el.html(html);
}
});

Related

Using Express to render an .ejs template for AngularJS and use the data inside AngularJS $scope

I hope I can explain myself with this first question I post on Stack Overflow.
I am building a small test application with the MEAN stack.
The application receives variable data from Mongoose based on an Express Route I have created.
For example the url is: localhost:3000/cities/test/Paris
Based on the name of the city the response gives me the name of the city and a description. I Know how to get this data inside the .ejs template
But thats not what I want. I want to use this data inside an ngRepeat.
Maybe this is not the right way but maybe you can help me figure this out.
The reason I want to do this is because I don't want a single page application but an Angular template that can be used over and over for each city and only uses the data that gets back from the mongoose find() results and not the whole cities array.
app.js :
var cityRoutes = require('./routes/cities');
app.use('/cities', cityRoutes);
app.set('views', './views'); // specify the views directory
app.set('view engine', 'ejs'); // register the template engine
./routes/cities/cities.js :
var express = require('express');
var citiesList = require('../server/controllers/cities-controller');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var urlencode = bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false });
var router = express.Router();
// because this file is a fallback for the route /cities inside app.js
// the route will become localhost:3000/cities/test/:name
// not to be confused by its name in this file.
router.route('/test/:name')
.get(citiesList.viewTest)
module.exports = router;
../server/controllers/cities-controller.js :
var City = require('../models/cities');
module.exports.viewTest = function(request, responce){
City.find({ stad: request.params.name }, function(err, results){
if (err) return console.error(err);
if (!results.length) {
responce.json( "404" );
} else {
responce.render('angular.ejs', { messages:results });
// through this point everything works fine
// the angular.ejs template gets rendered correctly
// Now my problem is how tho get the results from the
// response.render inside the Angular directive
// so I can use the data in a $scope
}
});
};
../models/cities.js
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
module.exports = mongoose.model('City', {
stad: { type: String, required: true },
omschrijving: String
});
AngularJS directive :
// This is where I would like to use the messages result data
// so I can create a $scope that handles data that can be different
// for each url
// so basically I am using this directive as a template
app.directive('bestelFormulier', function () {
return {
restrict: 'E',
templateUrl: '/partials/bestel-formulier.html',
controller: ['$scope', '$http', '$resource', '$cookieStore',
function($scope, $http, $resource, $cookieStore){
// at this point it would be nice that the $scope gets the
// url based results. But I don't now how to do that..
// at this point the var "Cities" gets the REST API with
// all the cities...
var Cities = $resource('/cities');
// get cities from mongodb
Cities.query(function(results){
$scope.cities = results;
//console.log($scope.products);
});
$scope.cities = {};
}],
controllerAs: 'productsCtrl'
}
});
The database is stored like this :
[
{
stad: 'Paris',
omschrijving: 'description Paris',
},
{
stad: 'Amsterdam',
omschrijving: 'description Amsterdam',
}
]
I hope these files included helps explaining my issue.
Thanks in advance for helping me out
I figured out a way to do it...
The following changes to my code fixed my issue.
in app.js
var cityRoutes = require('./routes/cities');
app.use('/', cityRoutes);
// removed the name cities
./routes/cities/cities.js :
router.route('/cities/test/:name')
.get(citiesList.viewTest)
// added this route to use as an API
router.route('/api/cities/test/:name')
.get(citiesList.viewStad)
../server/controllers/cities-controller.js :
// added this callback so that a request to this url
// only responses with the data I need
module.exports.viewStad = function(request, responce){
City.find({ stad: request.params.name }, function(err, results){
if (err) return console.error(err);
if (!results.length) {
responce.json( "404" );
} else {
responce.json( results );
}
});
};
in my AngularJS app I added the $locationDirective and changed the following in my Angular directive to :
var url = $location.url();
var Cities = $resource('/api' + url);
// now when my .ejs template gets loaded the Angular part looks at
// the current url puts /api in front of it and uses it to get the
// correct resource
That is the way how I can use it in my $scope and use al the lovely Angular functionality :-)
Hope I can help other people with this... Eventually it was a simple solution and maybe there are people out there knowing beter ways to do it. For me it works now.

Reaching a Backbone.js view from external payment website

How can I reach the Backbone view from an external third party website or how can I handle real time payment process in a website using Backbone.js?
Router.js
route : {
// ....
// Route for callback page
'cart/callback/' : 'retrieveCallbackPage'
}
retrieveCallbackPage : : function () {
var view = new Backbone.View();
view = router.appendPage(new CallbackView());
router.changePage(view);
},
I have a html file CallBackViewTemplate.html which would be rendered using CallbackView.js
// Includes file dependencies
define(["jquery",
"backbone",
"text!templates/cart/CallbackViewTemplate.html"],
function ($,
Backbone,
CallbackViewTemplate) {
var CallbackView = Backbone.View.extend({
// The View Constructor
initialize: function () {
this.template = _.template(CallbackViewTemplate);
},
});
How can I reach this view by an external third party payment website so that I would get some details from them and save it in my server?

Which one should I use? Backbone.js Router.navigate and window.location.hash

I began learning Backbonejs recently, by reading a book. and I feel a little bit confuse about this issue.Here is a Router:
define(['views/index', 'views/login'], function(indexView, loginView) {
var SelinkRouter = Backbone.Router.extend({
currentView: null,
routes: {
'home': 'home',
'login': 'login'
},
changeView: function(view) {
if(null != this.currentView)
this.currentView.undelegateEvents();
this.currentView = view;
this.currentView.render();
},
home: function() {
this.changeView(indexView);
},
login: function() {
this.changeView(loginView);
}
});
return new SelinkRouter();
});
and this is the boot method of a application:
define(['router'], function(router) {
var initialize = function() {
// Require home page from server
$.ajax({
url: '/home', // page url
type: 'GET', // method is get
dataType: 'json', // use json format
success: function() { // success handler
runApplicaton(true);
},
error: function() { // error handler
runApplicaton(false);
}
});
};
var runApplicaton = function(authenticated) {
// Authenticated user move to home page
if(authenticated) window.location.hash='home';
//router.navigate('home', true); -> not work
// Unauthed user move to login page
else window.location.hash='login';
//router.navigate('login', true); -> not work
// Start history
Backbone.history.start();
}
return {
initialize: initialize
};
});
My question is about the runApplication part. The example of the book that I read passed router into module just like this, but it used window.location.hash = "XXX", and the router wasn't touched at all.
I thought the "navigate" method would make browser move to the page I specified, but nothing happened. Why?
And for the best practice sake, what is the best way to achieve movement between pages(or views)?
thanks for any ideas.
You could also use the static method to avoid router dependency (while using requirejs for instance).
Backbone.history.navigate(fragment, options)
This way, you just need :
// Start history
Backbone.history.start();
// Authenticated user move to home page
if(authenticated)
Backbone.history.navigate('home', true);
// Unauthed user move to login page
else
Backbone.history.navigate('login', true);
According to the documentation, if you also want to call the function belonging to a specific route you need to pass the option trigger: true:
Whenever you reach a point in your application that you'd like to save
as a URL, call navigate in order to update the URL. If you wish to
also call the route function, set the trigger option to true. To
update the URL without creating an entry in the browser's history, set
the replace option to true.
your code should look like:
if(authenticated)
router.navigate('home', {trigger: true});
Once your router is created, you also have to call
Backbone.history.start();
Backbone.history.start([options])
When all of your Routers have
been created, and all of the routes are set up properly, call
Backbone.history.start() to begin monitoring hashchange events, and
dispatching routes.
Finally the runApplication logic will be something similar to this:
var runApplicaton = function(authenticated) {
var router = new SelinkRouter();
// Start history
Backbone.history.start();
// Authenticated user move to home page
if(authenticated)
router.navigate('home', true);
// Unauthed user move to login page
else
router.navigate('login', true);
}

Fetching items with Backbone seems to ignore the id passed in

I have these routes in my webservice and I can hit either of them directly through the browser and I return the correct value.
app.get('/repairs', repair.findAll);
app.get('/repairs/:id', repair.findById);
When I ask Backbone to do this I am unexpectedly getting a call to
app.get('/repairs', repair.findAll);
when I expect it to reach
app.get('/repairs/:id', repair.findById);
The piece of code that appears to be calling "/repairs" rather than "/repairs/:id" is
var EditRepair = Backbone.View.extend({
el : '.page',
render : function(options) {
var scope = this;
var repair = new Repair({id: options.id});
//This has the correct id
console.log(options.id);
//I would expect this to call /repairs/12344312
//However it calls /repairs
repair.fetch({
success : function(repair){
var template = _.template($('#edit-repair-template').html(), {repair : repair});
scope.$el.html(template);
}
});
}
});
var Repair = Backbone.Model.extend({
urlRoot : 'repairs'
});
var Router = Backbone.Router.extend({
routes: {
'edit/:id' : 'editRepair'
}
});
var editRepair = new EditRepair();
var router = new Router();
router.on('route:editRepair', function(id) {
console.log('Edit Id : ' + id);
editRepair.render({id:id});
});
The options.id can be console.logged and shows the correct id of the item. I've had a few issues so far with the difference between _id in mongodb and id in backbone which I have worked around but for the life of me I cannot see why this is issuing a call to repairs and not repairs/id.
Any help appreciated.
My fault, I had an ajax prefilter that was encoding the uri components.
This was messing up the requests being issued.
$.ajaxPrefilter( function( options, originalOptions, jqXHR ) {
options.url = "http://localhost:3000/" + encodeURIComponent( options.url );
console.log(options.url);
});
Changed to
$.ajaxPrefilter( function( options, originalOptions, jqXHR ) {
options.url = "http://localhost:3000/" + options.url;
console.log(options.url);
});

loading multiple views in init function breaks one or the other

I'm building my first backbone.js app, and I've run into a problem when trying to initialize my app and display both recipes and a shopping list, both of which are different (yet related) backbone objects.
My init function is
var MyApp= {
Models: {},
Views: {},
Routers: {},
Collections: {},
AppView: {},
Init: function() {
new MyApp.Views.ShoppingList;
new MyApp.Routers.Recipes;
Backbone.history.start();
}
};
Strangely, when I use
new MyApp.Routers.ShoppingList;
new MyApp.Routers.Recipes;
I don't get the shopping list View, I only get the recipes.
I also don't get any errors.
The shopping list router is fairly basic
MyApp.Routers.ShoppingList = Backbone.Router.extend({
routes: {
"": "index",
"shopping_list/:id": "show"
},
index: function(){
console.log('this');
new MyApp.Views.ShoppingList();
}
});
so from what I understand, the app should load the router, and display the view, but I'm not getting that or the console.log.
--------------as requested, here is my 'recipes router'---------------
MyApp.Routers.Recipes = Backbone.Router.extend({
routes: {
"": "index",
"recipes/:id": "show"
},
index: function(){
if(!MyApp.RecipeList){
MyApp.RecipeList = new MyApp.Collections.RecipeList;
MyApp.RecipeList.page = 1;
} else {
MyApp.RecipeList.page++;
}
MyApp.RecipeList.url='/recipes?page='+MyApp.RecipeList.page;
MyApp.RecipeList.fetch({
add: true,
success: function() {
new MyApp.Views.RecipeList({ collection: MyApp.RecipeList});
},
error: function() {
new Error({ message: "Error loading documents." });
}
});
},
show: function(id){
var recipe = MyApp.RecipeList.get(id);
new MyApp.Views.RecipeView({ model: recipe});
},
newRecipe: function(){
new App.Views.Edit({ model: new Recipe() });
},
edit: function(id){
var recipe = new Recipe({ id: id});
recipe.fetch({
success: function(model, resp){
new App.Views.Edit({ model: recipe});
},
error: function(){
new Error({message: "Hey!? Were'd it go? sorry I can't find your recipe"});
window.location.hash = '#';
}
});
}
});
----------------- some progress -----------------------------
I may be wrong, but in commenting out sections of the router, I find that the problem may be caused by my 'routes' as they both have index where the url is empty. Commenting out the 'routes' in one controller/router causes the other controller/router to display.
I've changed the routes so that they are more representative of their namespace
routes{
"recipes" : "recipes"
},
recipes: function()...
but I'm still not getting the right information to display. I'm now trying to figure out if I need an initialize function and what that would look like, or if I've even debugged this properly
--------------------- update, I was using backbone wrong ------------------------
It turns out I believe that I was mis-understanding Routers and was thinking of them more like controllers, so I was calling multiple routers on load, but the page was only loading the last one which pointed to an empty route as you can only request a single url route at a time.
Now I'm loading multiple Views on load and only one router.
After instantiating your view, you still need to render it and add it to the DOM.
index: function(){
console.log('this');
var view = new MyApp.Views.ShoppingList();
//you don't have to append to the whole body, but this is just an example
$('body').append(view.render().el);
}

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