Saving one-many-one in nested controllers - angularjs

I've been working on a requirement for a one-many-one relationship in Angular and Breeze and I've tried to apply Ward Bell's recommendation from this post in my solution so far. To see the code I'm using so far, please visit my original question and check the answer I submitted myself.
The problem, I'm now facing is when I want to prepare for saveChanges. The reason being, is that I have used nested controllers. The function that calls the save is in my parent controller and the property that holds my affected one-may-one entities is on the child controller.
In the parent controller...
function save() {
if (!canSave()) {
return $q.when(null);
}
// CODE TO PREPARE THE ONE-MANY-ONE ENTITIES FOR
// SAVING SHOULD GO HERE I'M GUESSING...
vm.isSaving = true;
return datacontextSvc.save().then(function(saveResult) {
vm.isSaving = false;
trapSavedDboardConfigId(saveResult);
}, function(error) {
vm.isSaving = false;
});
}
and in the child controller...
function getBusUnits() {
...
.then(function(data){
vm.busUnits = data;
vm.busUnits.forEach(function(bu){
getBusUnitChannels(bu);
});
});
}
function getBusUnitChannels(busUnit) {
datacontextSvc.dboardConfigs.getBusUnitChannelsById(busUnit.id)
.then(function (data) {
busUnit.busUnitChannelsList = data;
// THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE BUCHANNELS ARRAY IS CREATED
// FOR EACH BUSUNIT AND THE LIST OF BUSUNITS IS ONLY
// CALLED IN THE CHILD CONTROLLER.
// DOES THIS IMPLY I CAN'T HAVE A PROPERTY IN THE PARENT CONTROLLER
// THAT I CAN REFERENCE IN THE CHILD, SO THAT THE PARENT CAN ACCESS
// THE DATA DURING SAVE?
busUnit.buChannels = []; // HOW DO I DEFINE THIS GUY IN THE PARENT?
vm.channels.forEach(function (channel) {
busUnit.buChannels.push(channel);
});
busUnit.busUnitChannelsList.forEach(function (buc) {
busUnit.buChannels.forEach(function (buCh) {
if (buc.channelId === buCh.id) {
buCh.buChannel = buc;
buCh.isSelected = true;
} else {
buCh.isSelected = false;
}
});
});
});
}
The source of the problem is that the call for the one-many-one entity and the creation of an associated item viewmoder array (buChannels) only occurs after i've called for busUnits, and the call for busUnits happens in the child controller. Also, the buChannels array needs to be stored for each busUnit.
Because Angular parent controllers can't read child properties, the normal solution would be to create a property in the parent and reference it in the child. But, since the property I'd want to reference is dependent on an entity that's only fetched in the child, this can't be done.
Or can it? Any ideas or other recommended approaches. I'd really like to avoid only having a parent controller...

Related

angular-dialog-service update parent scope data object

I've a template:
<p class="text-right">
<a ng-click="editTherapeuticProposal(meow.accepted_tp)" class="fa fa-pencil"></a>
</p>
which calls the editTherapeuticProposal function defined in its controller, passing it the meow.accepted_tp object (here I use angular-dialog-service: https://github.com/m-e-conroy/angular-dialog-service):
// here tp is equal to meow.accepted_tp
$scope.editTherapeuticProposal = function(tp) {
dialogs.create('surgeon/templates/create_edit_therapeutic_proposal.tpl.html', 'SurgeonCreateEditTherapeuticProposalCtrl', {scope: $scope, tp: tp}, { copy: false });
};
tp is an object.
Then in the dialog controller I display a form in order to let the user modify tp. I do some stuff, the relevant ones are:
// data is the object received by the dialog controller: {scope: $scope, tp: tp}
if(typeof data.tp != 'undefined') {
$scope.therapeuticProposal = angular.copy(data.tp);
}
I copy the object to work on a different object (I don't want data to be updated if not saved)
When pressing the save button in the dialog, the following function runs:
var complete = function(tp) {
data.tp = tp;
//...
}
Ok, the problem is that meow.accepted_tp in the parent scope doesn't get updated. If I do
var complete = function(tp) {
data.tp.title = 'meow';
//...
}
Its title gets updated. There is clearly something wrong with the prototypal inheritance, I know that in order to get variables updated they should be properties of an object, but tp is already passed as an object property (of the data object). Any ideas?
Edit
After re-reading the angular-dialog-service docs, you can pass a result back using modalInstance. It sounds like this is what you want to do.
The reason your binding isn't working is because you're changing the object reference from a child scope, rather than a property on the object bound (which is why data.tp.title = 'meow' works).
Anyway, for your case, try this:
// here tp is equal to meow.accepted_tp
$scope.editTherapeuticProposal = function(tp) {
var dlg = dialogs.create('surgeon/templates/create_edit_therapeutic_proposal.tpl.html', 'SurgeonCreateEditTherapeuticProposalCtrl', {scope: $scope, data: data}, { copy: false });
dlg.result.then(function(tp) {
// Get the result and update meow.accept_tp
$scope.meow.accepted_tp = tp;
});
};
Then in the dialog, when you complete, do:
var complete = function(tp) {
$modalInstance.close(tp);
}
For an example, see http://codepen.io/m-e-conroy/pen/rkIqv, in particular the customDialogCtrl (not customDialogCtrl2) is what you want.

One way binding angularjs

I have a list of employees in a select, where the user can pick an employee and edit its details. Then he triggers an ajax call through a button, so the server can update the record in the DB.
I am binding with ngModel the fields and the data from my list of employees, but it is problematic if the update fails on the database side, because my list of employees is updated through the two way binding.
Is there a way to initialize my fields when the user picks an element in the select and update my employee list only when I get response?
Here is my explicit code from my directive (view):
select(ng-model='selectedEmployee' ng-options="employee.name for employee in employees")
form(role='form')
input(type='input' ng-model='selectedEmployee.userId')
input(type='input' ng-model='selectedEmployee.name')
button (type='button' ng-click='updateEmployee()') update
and the directive
app.directive('employeeList', ['employeeServices',
function(employeeServices) {
var employeeListController = function($scope) {
employeeServices.getEmployees()
.success(function(result) {
$scope.employees = result.data
})
.error(function(err) {
})
$scope.selectedEmployee = null
$scope.updateEmployee = function() {
employeeServices.updateEmployee({
userId: $scope.selectedEmployee.userId,
name: $scope.selectedEmployee.name
})
.success(function(data) {
//I want to update my $scope.employees here
})
.error(function(data) {
//Otherwise I show some error message
})
.then(function() {
$scope.selectedEmployee = {}
})
}
}
return {
...
controller: employeeListController
}
}
])
Solution
So in order to solve the problem I used angular.copy along with ng-change. I've added ng-change to the select, where I copied the selectedEmployee to selectedEmployeeDirty that I supplied as model for my form. Then in the service's callback I updated the selectedEmployee.
Very simple. Object, in javascript, are shared throught a "reference".
In fact, this is a C pointer - or something like that -, how share the memory location of your object.
If you do this:
var a = {},
b = a;
a.toto = true;
console.log(b);
You will see
b = { toto: true }
Keep that in mind.
Now, how can we isolate your edited object, without updating the original one? Make a copy! angular.copy is a friend, and would duplicate every properties of src to the dst.
Use the ng-model as you did, save change, and, only on callback, update the original one :-)

Modeling relational data from REST api via angularjs

I'm building an app, that is backed with node-mysql combo, and angularjs on the frontend part. The backend REST service is ready, but I'm struggling with modeling my relational data. There are some questions regarding this like : $resource relations in Angular.js or $resource relations in Angular.js [updated] . Are those approaches still the best approaches, or were there any significant changes in $resource ? Or maybe Restangular is the way to go?
Here is my technique:
I declare a factory called dataService, which is a wrapper around Restangular, extended with some other features.
First let me gave some code and then explain:
.factory('identityMap',
var identityMap = {};
return {
insert: function(className, object) {
if (object) {
var mappedObject;
if (identityMap[className]) {
mappedObject = identityMap[className][object.id];
if (mappedObject) {
extend(mappedObject, object);
} else {
identityMap[className][object.id] = object;
mappedObject = object;
}
} else {
identityMap[className] = {};
identityMap[className][object.id] = object;
mappedObject = object;
}
return mappedObject;
}
},
remove: function(className, object) {
if (identityMap[className] && identityMap[className][id]) delete identityMap[className][id];
},
get: function(className, id) {
return identityMap[className] && identityMap[className][id] ? identityMap[className][id] : null;
},
flush: function(){
identityMap = {};
}
};
}
.factory('modelService', ['Restangular', 'identityMap', '$rootScope', '$log', function(Restangular, identityMap, $rootScope, $log) {
var ENUM1 = {STATE:0, OTHER_STATE:1, OTHER_STATE2: 2},
ENUM2 = {OK:0, ERROR:1, UNKNOWN:2};
function extendModel(obj, modelExtension, modelName){
angular.extend(obj, modelExtension);
obj.initExtension();
obj = identityMap.insert(modelName, obj);
}
function broadcastRestEvent(resourceName, operation, data){
$rootScope.$broadcast(resourceName + $filter('capitalize')(operation), data);
}
var resource1Extension = {
_extensionFunction1: function() {
// ... do something internally ...
if (this.something){
// this.newValue ....
;
}
else {
// ....;
}
},
publicExtensionFunction: function(param1) {
// return something
},
initExtension: function() {
this._extensionFunction2();
extendModel(this.resource2, resource2Extension, 'resource2');
}
};
var resorce2Extension = {
_extensionFunction1: function() {
// do something internally
},
publicExtensionFunction = function(param1) {
// return something
},
initExtension: function(){
this._extensionFunction1;
}
};
var modelExtensions = {
'resource1': resource1Extension,
'resource2': resorce2Extension
};
var rest = Restangular.withConfig(function(RestangularConfigurer) {
RestangularConfigurer.setBaseUrl('/api');
RestangularConfigurer.setOnElemRestangularized(function(obj, isCollection, what, Restangular){
if (!isCollection) {
if (modelExtensions.hasOwnProperty(what)) {
extendModel(obj, modelExtensions[what], what);
}
else {
identityMap.insert(what, obj);
}
if (obj.metadata && obj.metadata.operation) {
broadcastRestEvent(what, obj.metadata.operation, obj);
}
}
return obj;
});
RestangularConfigurer.addResponseInterceptor(function(data, operation, what, url, response, deferred) {
var newData;
if (operation === 'getList') {
newData = data.objects;
newData.metadata = {
numResults: data.num_results,
page: data.page,
totalPages: data.total_pages,
operation: operation
};
data = newData;
}
else if (operation === 'remove') {
var splittedUrl = url.split('/');
var id = splittedUrl.pop();
var resource = splittedUrl.pop();
identityMap.remove(resource, id);
broadcastRestEvent(resource, operation, id);
}
else {
data.metadata = {operation: operation};
}
return data;
});
});
return {
rest: rest,
enums: {
ENUM1: ENUM1,
ENUM2: ENUM2
},
flush: identityMap.flush,
get: identityMap.get
}
}]);
1) Let me explain identityMap (it's the code from this blog post with some extended features):
Let's consider a REST model which looks like this (each resource represents a database table):
resource 1:
id = Integer
field1 = String
field2 = String
resource2s = [] (List of resources2 which points to this resource with their foreign key)
resource 2:
id = Integer
field1 = String
field2 = String
...
resource1_idfk = Foreign Key to resource 1
Resource API is so smart that it returns resource1 relationships with resources2 with GET /api/resource1/1 to save the overhead that you would get with GET to resource2 with some query parameters to resource1_idfk...
The problem is that if your app is doing the GET to resource1 and then somewhere later GET to resource2 and edits the resource2, the object representing the resource2 which is nested in resource1 would not know about the change (because it is not the same Javascript object reference)
The identity map solves this issue, so you hold only one reference to each resource's instance
So, for example, when you are doing an update in your controller the values automatically updates in the other object where this resource is nested
The drawback is that you have to do memory management yourself and flush the identity map content when you no longer need it. I personally use Angular Router UI, and define this in a controller which is the root of other nested states:
$scope.$on("$destroy", function() {
modelService.flush();
});
The other approach I use within the Angular Router UI is that I give the id of the resource which i want to edit/delete within that controller as the parameter of nested state and within the nested state i use:
$scope.resource1instance = modelService.get('resource1', $stateParams.id);
You can than use
resource1.put(...).then(
function(){
// you don't need to edit resource1 in list of resources1
$state.go('^');
}
function(error){
handleError(error);
});
2) When I need to use some new functionality over resources I use `Restangular's setOnElemRestangularized. I think the code above is self explanatory and very similar to the one mentioned in blog post I have mentioned above. My approach is slightly different from the one in that post, that I don't use the mixin initialization before, but after I mix it to the object, so one could reference the new functions in initializer. The other thing I don't use, for example, he creates single factory for every resource, for example Proposal for extended logic and the other factory ProposalSvc for manipulating the instances. For me that's a lot of code you don't have to write and personally I think that Javascript is not suited very well for this object oriented approach, so I return just the whole Restangular object and do operations with it.
3) Another thing I have there is the broadcast of events when something in my model changes with Restangular, this is something I needed when I used ng-table. For example, when the model changed and rows in my table needed to be updated to reference the changes, so in the controller which manages the table I use $scope.on('eventName') and then change appropriate row. These events are also great when you have a multiuser live application and you use websockets for server notifications (code not included here in modelService). For example somebody deletes something in a database, so the server sends a notification to everyone who is alive through websocket about the change, you then broadcast the same event as used in Restangular and the controller does the same edits on its data.
This blog post should help you make your choice http://sauceio.com/index.php/2014/07/angularjs-data-models-http-vs-resource-vs-restangular/
I agree that there are a lot of good practices using http headers in Restangular, but you can pick them in the source and use them directly.
What you have to wonder is, will you be able to wrap your nested resources within a $resource and make instance calls while modifying the parent object. And that's not a given.
Your question seems to be asking whether you should be using ngResource, Restangular or some other framework or drop down to the low-level and use $http directly.
$resource is still widely used because it's included in the official docs and in all the popular tutorials and articles but Restangular is fairly popular.
The website ngModules shows a listing of REST API modules for AngularJS.
If you have a simple REST API, go with $resource for now and then switch to Restangular if you're doing lots of custom coding and filtering. It is a much nicer framework and more extensible.

How do you tell when a view is loaded in extjs?

Im working on an extjs application. We're have a page that is for looking at a particular instance of an object and viewing and editing it's fields.
We're using refs to get hold of bits of view in the controller.
This was working fine, but I've been sharding the controller into smaller pieces to make it more managable and realised that we are relying on a race condition in our code.
The logic is as follows:
Initialise the controller
parse the url to extract the id of the object
put in a call to load the model with the given view.
in the load callback call the controller load method...
The controller load method creates some stores which fire off other requests for bits of information using this id. It then uses some of the refs to get hold of the view and then reconfigures them to use the stores when they load.
If you try and call the controller load method immediately (not in the callback) then it will fail - the ref methods return undefined.
Presumably this is because the view doesnt exist... However we aren't checking for that - we're just relying on the view being loaded by the time the server responds which seems like a recipe for disaster.
So how can we avoid this and be sure that a view is loaded before trying to use it.
I haven't tried rewriting the logic here yet but it looks like the afterrender event probably does what I want.
It seems like waiting for both the return of the store load and afterrender events should produce the correct result.
A nice little abstraction here might be something like this:
yourNamespace.createWaitRunner = function (completionCallback) {
var callback = completionCallback;
var completionRecord = [];
var elements = 0;
function maybeFinish() {
var done = completionRecord.every(function (element) {
return element === true
});
if (done)
completionCallback();
}
return {
getNotifier: function (func) {
func = func || function (){};
var index = elements++;
completionRecord[index] = false;
return function () {
func(arguments);
completionRecord[index] = true;
maybeFinish();
}
}
}
};
You'd use it like this:
//during init
//pass in the function to call when others are done
this.waiter = yourNamespace.createWaitRunner(controller.load);
//in controller
this.control({
'SomeView': {
afterrender: this.waiter.getNotifier
}
});
//when loading record(s)
Ext.ModelManager.getModel('SomeModel').load(id, {
success: this.waiter.getNotifier(function (record, request) {
//do some extra stuff if needs be
me.setRecord(record);
})
});
I haven't actually tried this out yet so it might not be 100% but I think the idea is sound

BackboneJS - same el for many views

I am using same el for more than 1 view like below. I'm not facing any problem till now. Is this good approach or should i do any changes?
<div id="app">
<div id="app-header"></div>
<div id="app-container"></div>
<div id="app-footer">
</div>
App View:
{
el: "#app",
v1: new View1(),
v2: new View2(),
render: function () {
if (cond1) {
this.v1.render();
} else if (cond2) {
this.v2.render();
}}
}
View 1:
{
el: "#app-container",
render: function (){
this.$el.html(template);
}
}
View 2:
{
el: "#app-container",
render: function (){
this.$el.html(template);
}
}
By reading your question, I do not really see what advantages you could possibly have using this approach rather than having the different div elements being the root el for your views 1, 2, 3 and using
this.$el.html(template)
in the render method.
Your approach could work for a small application, but I think it will become really hard to maintain as the application grows.
EDIT
I still do not really get your point, you could only initialize everything only once in both cases.
Here is a working Fiddle.
By the way I am changing the content by listening to the click event but this is to simplify the example. It should be done by the router.
I do use a mixin to handle such situation, I call it stated view. For a view with all other options I will send a parameter called 'state', render will in-turn call renderState first time and there after every time I set a 'state' renderState will update the view state. Here is my mixin code looks like.
var setupStateEvents = function (context) {
var stateConfigs = context.getOption('states');
if (!stateConfigs) {
return;
}
var state;
var statedView;
var cleanUpState = function () {
if (statedView) {
statedView.remove();
}
};
var renderState = function (StateView) {
statedView = util.createView({
View: StateView,
model: context.model,
parentEl: context.$('.state-view'),
parentView:context
});
};
context.setState = function (toState) {
if (typeof toState === 'string') {
if (state === toState) {
return;
}
state = toState;
var StateView = stateConfigs[toState];
if (StateView) {
cleanUpState();
renderState(StateView);
} else {
throw new Error('Invalid State');
}
} else {
throw new Error('state should be a string');
}
};
context.getState = function () {
return state;
};
context.removeReferences(function(){
stateConfigs = null;
state=null;
statedView=null;
context=null;
})
};
full code can be seen here
https://github.com/ravihamsa/baseapp/blob/master/js/base/view.js
hope this helps
Backbone Rule:
When you create an instance of a view, it'll bind all events to el if
it was assigned, else view creates and assigns an empty div as el for that view and bind
all events to that view.
In my case, if i assign #app-container to view 1 and view 2 as el and when i initialize both views like below in App View, all events bind to the same container (i.e #app-container)
this.v1 = new App.View1();
this.v2 = new App.View2();
Will it lead to any memory leaks / Zombies?
No way. No way. Because ultimately you are having only one instance for each view. So this won't cause any memory leaks.
Where does it become problematic?
When your app grows, it is very common to use same id for a tag in both views. For example, you may have button with an id btn-save in both view's template. So when you bind btn-save in both views and when you click button in any one the view, it will trigger both views save method.
See this jsFiddle. This'll explain this case.
Can i use same el for both view?
It is up to you. If you avoid binding events based on same id or class name in both views, you won't have any problem. But you can avoid using same id but it's so complex to avoid same class names in both views.
So for me, it looks #Daniel Perez answer is more promising. So i'm going to use his approach.

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