ExtJs Model Proxy vs. Store Proxy - extjs

OK, I'm stuck on what should be a basic task in ExtJs. I'm writing a simple login script that sends a user name and password combination to a RESTful web service and receives a GUID if the credentials are correct.
My question is, do I use a Model Proxy or a Store Proxy?
To my understanding, Models represent a single record, whereas Stores are for handling sets of data containing more than one record. If this is correct then it would seem that a Model proxy is the way to go.
Following Sencha's documentation at http://docs.sencha.com/extjs/4.2.1/#!/api/Ext.data.Model the code would look something like this:
Ext.define('AuthenticationModel', {
extend: 'Ext.data.Model',
fields: ['username', 'password'],
proxy: {
type: 'rest',
url : '/authentication'
}
});
//get a reference to the authentication model class
var AuthenticationModel = Ext.ModelManager.getModel('AuthenticationModel');
So far everything is OK, until the next step:
//Use the configured RestProxy to make a GET request
AuthenticationModel.load('???', {
success: function(session) {
console.log('Login successful');
}
});
The load() method for the Model class is a static call expecting a single unique identifier. Logins typically depend upon two factors, username and password.
So it appears Store proxies are the only way to validate someone's username and password credential combination in ExtJS. Can someone verify and explain? Any help to understand this would be greatly appreciated.

You just need to know the following:
The store will use it's own proxy if you configured one for this
instance and if not he takes the proxy from the model.
So you can easily go with two proxy configurations to enable the multi-CRUD operations on the store and the single-CRUD operations on the Models. Note the the static load method of the Model expects the model id because it is supposed to load a model by just one Id (yes, composite keys are not supported). You will also have to fetch the model instance in the callback (As you did).
Back to your Username/password problem
You may apply your session Model with a custom 'loadSession' method
loadSession: function(username,password, config) {
config = Ext.apply({}, config);
config = Ext.applyIf(config, {
action: 'read',
username: username,
password: password
});
var operation = new Ext.data.Operation(config),
scope = config.scope || this,
callback;
callback = function(operation) {
var record = null,
success = operation.wasSuccessful();
if (success) {
record = operation.getRecords()[0];
// If the server didn't set the id, do it here
if (!record.hasId()) {
record.setId(username); // take care to apply the write ID here!!!
}
Ext.callback(config.success, scope, [record, operation]);
} else {
Ext.callback(config.failure, scope, [record, operation]);
}
Ext.callback(config.callback, scope, [record, operation, success]);
};
this.getProxy().read(operation, callback, this);
}
Now call this instead of load.

I found it in the documentation of sencha App Architecture Part 2
Use proxies for models:
It is generally good practice to do this as it allows you to load and
save instances of this model without needing a store. Also, when
multiple stores use this same model, you don’t have to redefine your
proxy on each one of them.
Use proxies for stores:
In Ext JS 4, multiple stores can use the same data model, even if the
stores will load their data from different sources. In our example,
the Station model will be used by the SearchResults and the Stations
store, both loading the data from a different location. One returns
search results, the other returns the user’s favorite stations. To
achieve this, one of our stores will need to override the proxy
defined on the model.

Related

Store is loaded twice after data.Model.save()

I have a grid with remote data (php/mysql/json) and use a form to insert records or to edit this data.
I use the api configuration of the proxy/store. I use MVC architecture.
So, all very simple (in pseudo code):
get selected model form grid or create model
frm.loadRecord()
frm.updateRecord()
frm.getRecord().save()
and all works fine, but I noticed in the browser console that after the POST (works fine, calls either the url configured with create or the url configured with update), the store calls (GET) the url configured with retrieve twice. These calls are identical.
So functionally all works fine and I could ignore it, but now I've noticed I want it fixed.
Can anyone help me where to look? Thanks in advance.
Details:
It's all really basic:
In the controller of the gridpanel:
updateRow: function (gridpanel) {
var sm = gridpanel.getSelectionModel();
var record = sm.getLastSelected();
this.showForm(record);
}
and
showForm: function (record) {
...
formpanel.show();
var frm = formpanel.getForm();
frm.loadRecord(record);
}
In the controller of the formpanel:
submit: function(frm) {
frm.updateRecord();
frm.getRecord().save();
}
When I remove the save action the GET requests aren't called, so this seems to trigger them.
In the store:
api: {
create: '../php/api/customers.php?request=create',
read: '../php/api/customers.php?request=retrieve&scope=summary',
update: '../php/api/customers.php?request=update',
destroy: '../php/api/customers.php?request=delete'
}
The screenshot:

How can I use angular-cache in conjunction with the AngularJS LocalStorageModule

I have an application that when it starts gets a list of admin users.
The data looks something like this:
var users =
[
{"id":"527ddbd5-14d3-4fb9-a7ae-374e66f635d4","name":"x"},
{"id":"966171f8-4ea1-4008-b6ac-d70c4eee797b","name":"y"},
{"id":"de4e89fe-e1de-4751-9605-d6e1ec698f49","name":"z"}
]
I have a call that gets this data:
os.getUserProfiles($scope);
and the function:
getUserProfiles: function ($scope) {
$http.get('/api/UserProfile/GetSelect')
.success(function (data, status, headers, config) {
$scope.option.userProfiles = data;
});
},
I would like to avoid the admin users having to continuously issue the requests to get
the user list. I was looking at the $cacheFactory in Angular but this does not really
seem to meet my needs.
The angular-cache that's on github looks interesting but I'm not quite sure how to use
it with objects like this and then have the data stored using the LocalStorageModule.
Can someone give me an example of how they have used this product with the LocalStorageModule.
I would suggest check the extended angular-cache.
As described in documentation: http://jmdobry.github.io/angular-cache/guide.html#using-angular-cache-with-localStorage
app.service('myService', function ($angularCacheFactory) {
// This cache will sync itself with localStorage if it exists, otherwise it won't. Every time the
// browser loads this app, this cache will attempt to initialize itself with any data it had
// already saved to localStorage (or sessionStorage if you used that).
var myAwesomeCache = $angularCacheFactory('myAwesomeCache', {
maxAge: 900000, // Items added to this cache expire after 15 minutes.
cacheFlushInterval: 3600000, // This cache will clear itself every hour.
deleteOnExpire: 'aggressive', // Items will be deleted from this cache right when they expire.
storageMode: 'localStorage' // This cache will sync itself with `localStorage`.
});
});
Or we can inject custom Local storage implementation
storageImpl: localStoragePolyfill // angular-cache will use this polyfill instead of looking for localStorage
I am using this plugin https://github.com/grevory/angular-local-storage, which is really simple to use, while providing full API.
Also check a local storage usage for caching the templates: how to cache angularjs partials?
NOTE: This article Power up Angular's $http service with caching, and mostly the section:
Advanced caching, was for me the reason to move to angular-cache
How to create a custom Polyfill? (Adapter pattern)
As documented here, we need to pass the localStoragePolyfill implementing this interface:
interface Storage {
readonly attribute unsigned long length;
DOMString? key(unsigned long index);
getter DOMString getItem(DOMString key);
setter creator void setItem(DOMString key, DOMString value);
deleter void removeItem(DOMString key);
void clear();
};
angular-cache cares only about these three methods:
setItem
getItem
removeItem
I.e.: Implement a wrapper talking with local-storage API, transforming it to the advanced cache api. That's it. Nothing else

Partial Updates (aka PATCH) using a $resource based service?

We're building a web application using Django/TastyPie as the back-end REST service provider, and building an AngularJS based front end, using lots of $resource based services to CRUD objects on the server. Everything is working great so far!
But, we would like to reduce the amount of data that we're shipping around when we want to update only one or two changed fields on an object.
TastyPie supports this using the HTTP PATCH method. We have defined a .diff() method on our objects, so we can determine which fields we want to send when we do an update. I just can't find any documentation on how to define/implement the method on the instance object returned by $resource to do what we want.
What we want to do is add another method to the object instances, (as described in the Angular.js documentation here) like myobject.$partialupdate() which would:
Call our .diff() function to determine which fields to send, and then
Use an HTTP PATCH request to send only those fields to the server.
So far, I can't find any documentation (or other SO posts) describing how to do this, but would really appreciate any suggestions that anyone might have.
thank you.
I would suggest using
update: {
method: 'PATCH',
transformRequest: dropUnchangedFields
}
where
var dropUnchangedFields = function(data, headerGetter) {
/* compute from data using your .diff method by */
var unchangedFields = [ 'name', 'street' ];
/* delete unchanged fields from data using a for loop */
delete data['name'] ;
delete data['street'];
return data;
}
PS: not sure from memory, whether data is a reference to your resource of a copy of it, so you may need to create a copy of data, before deleting fields
Also, instead of return data, you may need return JSON.stringify(data).
Source (search for "transformRequest" on the documentation page)
We implemented $patchusing ngResource, but it's a bit involved (we use Django Rest Framework on the server-side). For your diff component, I'll leave to your own implementation. We use a pristine cache to track changes of resources, so I can poll a given object and see what (if any) has changed.
I leverage underscore's _.pick() method to pull the known fields to save off the existing instance, create a copy (along with the known primary key) and save that using $patch.
We also use some utility classes to extend the built-in resources.
app.factory 'PartUpdateMixin', ['$q', '_', ($q, _) ->
PartUpdateMixin = (klass) ->
partial_update: (keys...) ->
deferred = $q.defer()
params = _.pick(#, 'id', keys...)
o = new klass(params)
o.$patch(deferred.resolve, deferred.reject)
return deferred.promise
]
Here's the utility classes to enhance the Resources.
app.factory 'extend', ->
extend = (obj, mixins...) ->
for mixin in mixins
obj[name] = method for name, method of mixin
obj
app.factory 'include', ['extend', (extend) ->
include = (klass, mixins...) ->
extend klass.prototype, mixins...
return include
]
Finally, we can enhance our Resource
include TheResource, PartUpdateMixin(TheResource)
resourceInstance = TheResource.get(id: 1234)
# Later...
updatedFields = getChangedFields(resourceInstance)
resourceInstance.partial_update(updatedFields...)
I would suggest using Restangular over ngResource. The angular team keeps improving ngResource with every version, but Restangular still does a lot more, including allowing actions like PATCH that ngResource doesn't. Here'a a great SO question comparing the two What is the advantage of using Restangular over ngResource?

Using backbone with sequelize/postgres

I'm working on creating a model in backbone to interact with my postgres database. I'm using backbone.js for the client side and node.js/sequelize.js for the server side. The code given in the backbone tutorial says this:
var UserModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
urlRoot: '/user',
defaults: {
name: '',
email: ''
}
});
Here they are interacting with a users sql database using a RESTful url (I have no idea what that is). Does anyone have any ideas how I can refer to my postgres table? I am beyond confused and have no idea what's going on (this is all really new to me)
Thanks.
A RESTful URL is just a URL for a webservice that uses RESTful principles. Google can explain that better than I can here, but the basic idea is to integrate the various REST "verbs" (GET, POST, DELETE, etc.) in to the API. For instance, here's a set of RESTful verbs + urls for an imaginary user API:
GET /user - returns a list of users
POST /user - creates a new user
DELETE /user/5 - deletes the user with ID 5
PUT /user/5 - updates/edits the user with ID 5
Backbone works particularly well if your server-side is designed similarly, but it's not a requirement.
If your server-side API isn't RESTful, you just need to override certain methods on your Models and Collections (most likely destroy, fetch, save, url, parse, sync, and toJSON) to do whatever is appropriate for your server.
For instance, you might want to override the url method of your model to make it return your server's (unRESTful) URL:
url: function() {
return 'www.example.com/some/very/not/RESTful/' + this.id + '/URL/example';
}
Or, if your server returns your objects with an "envelope", for instance:
{
type: 'envelope',
payload: {
type: 'user',
name: 'Bob',
id: 5,
}
}
you can modify parse to strip it out:
parse: function(original) {
return original.payload;
}
As for "how do I refer to my postgres table", if you override the appropriate methods, then call the appropriate Backbone action methods (fetch/save/destroy) on your models and collections, Backbone will make AJAX requests to the URL you define in your url override. Your server can then use any language you want to interpret that request and perform the appropriate operation on your PostgreSQL database.

Writing store updates back to server

I have read the Sencha tutorials, API, and forums for awhile but am hitting a brick wall. I have a mySQL/PHP backend that is storing a web application's data. I have the following Sench/ExtJS construct:
App.stores.user = new Ext.data.Store({
model: 'User',
proxy: new Ext.data.AjaxProxy({
url: 'app/stores/scripts/connect.php',
extraParams: {
method:'user',
user_id: 3
},
reader: {
type:'json',
root:'root'
}
}),
autoLoad:true
});
Data is loaded into the store fine, but I have a form that directly updates a User instance.
App.controllers.account = new Ext.Controller({
save: function (options) {
options.user.set(options.data);
options.user.save(); // Generates error: Uncaught Error: You are using a ServerProxy but have not supplied it with a url.
}
});
How can I successfully implement/hook the functions to write the dirty records back to the server? How is the request prepared and passed?
Thank you.
Uptil Ext Js 3.3.1 the store needs to be configured with a writer when performing CRUD operations. It isn't needed for read only. That's why your store is loaded but you're getting an error during write operations. In your case you'll have to specify a JsonWriter. Also, if you're not using the store in a restful manner, then you'll also need to specify a HttpProxy object to tell the store at which url to publish the create/update/delete on the store.
Check the docs for Ext 4. I should be something similar here too.

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