fetching data frm remote server backbone.js - backbone.js

I have an URL to some server resources that should be fetched into my app with backbone.js.
I have this piece of code which I guess will be helpful,
var MyCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
url: "http://anexampleproject/api/players",
model: MyModel
});
var myCollection = new MyCollection();
myCollection.fetch({
success: function(){
},
error: function(){
}
});
but I dont know how to connect this function to the click event of a given html element and how to define a container where the data should be rendered.
If you can help me it'd be great. Thank You in advance

You for handling click event you can use backbone view in your project.
See this:
Backbone.View
And here have examples to create model, collections and how to connect their with view:
backbone-Collection based on JSON + View - Part1
backbone-Creating an App View - Part2
backbone-Creating a Paginated View - part3

Related

Backbone Nested Views & Nested Models

I am a newbie to backbone and trying to start using in our projects.
My requirement is I have something like this
var TextFields = Backbone.Model.extend({});
var TextFieldsCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({});
var Module = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
fields: new TextFieldsCollection()
});
var ModuleCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: CTModule
});
Now I have views defined for TextFields & Modules.
If I change a value in TextFields a event gets fired for the model and I am changing the value in the model but the collection is not getting updated.
I tried to trigger backbone events in the child model but at the collection view I am not able to map to the correct model that triggered the change event.
Any comments are helpful. I am not in a position to use more libraries. Can this be done in Backbone?
I do not know what is full code, but if you do it in a fashion that Backbone apps are usually written everything should work.
Quick tutorial:
var TestModel = Backbone.Model.extend({});
var TestModelCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({ model: TestModel });
// now if you have a view for collection
var TestModelCollectionView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function(opts) {
this.collection = opts.collection;
this.collection.on('change', this.render, this) // so - rerender the whole view
}
});
//execution:
var modelData = { foo: 'bar' };
var collection = new TestModelCollection([modelData]);
var view = new TestModelCollectionView({collection: collection});
view.render();
collection.first().set('your_attr', 'new_value'); // will cause rerender of view
//////
One more thing - if you have collection, which is kept by the model (in your case Modules model, which have collection as one of its attributes), and your view keeps that model, you will have to either bind directly from view to collection via model (this.model.get('fields').on( .... )), or rethrow collection event in your model
I hope I helped at least a bit.
//////
There might be some syntax errors in my code - didn't run it on js fiddle.

BackboneJS How to load more models in collection by using click event

How can I load more models into my Collection by using Backbone's click event method?
I have the following Collection:
MyCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
parse: function(response){
return response.data.posts.slice(0,10);
},
});
this gives me 10 models. So far so good, now I want to load additional 10 models into the collection each time I click a button. How can I achieve this?
inside my view I have added this:
events: {
'click .more': 'showMore'
},
showMore: function(){
// show more functionality
},
What to do next? Please help...
After chat discussion goal is to get first 10 post from API JSON on button click. As response is dynamic we cant parse collection once and then slice it on every click, so one of solution use flag on collection instance to control collection array slice:
MyCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
step: 0,
parse: function(response){
var slice = response.data.posts.slice(this.step*10,(this.step+1)*10)
this.step++;
return slice;
}
});

How does Chaplin.js handle passing a collection to a view?

I can create a simple model like so:
define(["models/base/model"], function(Model) {
"use strict";
var IssueModel = Model.extend({
defaults:{
lastName: "Bob",
firstName: "Doe"
}
});
return IssueModel;
});
And then from my controller I can do this:
this.model = new IssueModel();
And then when I create my view I can pass it my model like so:
this.view = new IssueView({model: this.model});
Finally, in my template I can successfully get properties on the model by doing this:
Hi {{firstName}} {{lastName}}
But when I define a collection using IssueModel and I try to pass the collection to my view (and not the model like I showed previously) I can't figure out how to reference the models in my Handlebars template:
var self = this;
this.collection = new IssueCollection();
this.collection.fetch({
success: function(collection) {
self.view = new IssueView({collection: collection});
console.log(self.collection);
},
error: function(collection, error) {
// The collection could not be retrieved.
}
});
I know fetch properly retrieves 5 models from my Parse.com backend because this is what I get on the console:
My question is this. I know Chaplin.js uses getTemplateData, but when I pass a model I don't have to do anything special in order to reference the properties in my view. How would I reference, specifically iterate, over the collection I passed to my view in my Handlebars template?
{{#each [Model in the collection I passed to the view]}}
{{title}}
{{/each}}
Chaplin will render a collection using a CollectionView, it's basicly an extention of a normal view that listens for changes in your collection and adds/removes subviews accordingly.
this.view = new IssueCollectionView({collection: this.collection});
Also there is no need to wait for success call when using a collection view since it will automaticly render every child item when data is added.

backbone.js - how can i fetch local or server data

I am very new to backbone.js, to try it out I made a function to append an element using my array. But I don't know how to fetch the same from server or my local path.
I tried with some tutorial but still I couldn't get any good result. Can any one correct my function to fetch the data from local folder or server?
code :
this is my local path: '..data/data.json'
(function($){
var student = [
{name:'student1'},
{name:'student2'},
{name:'student3'}
]
var model = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults:{
name:'default name'
}
});
var collection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model:model
});
var itemViews = Backbone.View.extend({
tagname:'li',
render:function(){
this.$el.html(this.model.get('name'));
return this;
}
})
var view = Backbone.View.extend({
el: $("#contacts"),
initialize:function(){
this.collection = new collection(student);
this.render();
},
render:function(){
var that = this;
_.each(this.collection.models, function(item){
that.renderName(item);
})
},
renderName:function(item){
var itemView = new itemViews({model:item});
this.$el.append(itemView.render().el);
}
});
Collections have the url property which links to the url where the models can be fetched (in a proper JSON format of course).
If you have a RESTful API you can tie them directly to a collection on your backend.
In your case you can modify the collection definition as follows
var collection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model:model,
url: '..data/data.json' //OR WHATEVER THE URL IS
});
Then when instantiating your collection you have to call the fetch() method to fill in the collection.
myCollection = new collection();
myCollection.fetch();
For more information see this post
Backbone will call GET, POST, DELETE, etc on that same url depending on what needs to be sent or received from the server. So if you are building the REST api, your controller or router should route the appropriate functions to those methods. See below for exact mapping:
create → POST /collection
read → GET /collection[/id]
update → PUT /collection/id
delete → DELETE /collection/id
As a side note, if you have no control over the JOSN that is returned from the server, you can format it in any format you like in the parse function.
parse: function(response) { return response.itemYouWantAdded; }
This would be the case if your server is returning an object within an object, such as twitter feeds.
Or you could simply populate the model from the response manually in the parse function
parse: function(response) { var tmpModel = {
item1:response.item1,
item2:response.item2
};
return tmpModel; }
Hope this helps.
You can set a URL for your model or for your collection. Then when you run fetch it will read your JSON straight into either a single model or a collection of models. So in your case, your collection might look like
var collection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
url: '..data/data.json',
model: model
});
collection.fetch(); // Could also use collection.reset()
You just need to make sure your JSON is formatted properly to match your model's attributes.

Backbone.js - fetch data and display

I'm just beginning out on Backbone.js. Here's my code.
$(function(){
//Backbone Model
var Cat = Backbone.Model.extend({});
// create a collection
var CatCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Cat,
url: 'http://localhost/cats/index.php/cats/index'
});
var catCollection = new CatCollection();
catCollection.fetch();
// Backbone view
var CatView = Backbone.View.extend({
el: $("#contents"),
initialize: function() {
this.render();
},
render: function() {
this.el.html(catCollection);
}
});
var catView = new CatView();
});
What I am doing is.
Create a backbone model
Create a collection using the model I created.
Fetch data from MySQL database - this returns a JSON data object.
Display the fetched data in the div "#contents".
On google Chrome, I can see that the "fetch()" method works, because I can see my JSON object returned as
[{"id":"1","name":"stella","age":"5"},{"id":"2","name":"Max","age":"2"}]
But if I do "alert(catCollection)" after the fetch, it displays "[object] [object]".
What is the best way of displaying this?
You should use the templates in JST array.
$(this.el).html($(JST["comments/item"](model.toJSON())));
"comments\item" is the template path and name
If you are using Rails, just use the Jammit and write templates with ERB (default) or Jade
The backbone.js documentation give an example like so:
alert(JSON.stringify(catCollection));
http://backbonejs.org/#Collection-toJSON
Use console.log.

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