Backbone view based on model from collection, how to update view? - backbone.js

I am looking for a bit of direction I am still fairly new to Backbone and am currently creating a test application to learn more.
My problem is this, I am populating a backbone view with a underscore template. I load a collection of models, then I find the model I need and populate these values into the template. There can be many pages based on the template so I have a dynamic route that accepts an id.
My problem is I want to add a next feature, that would change the current page and reload the template with the new model.
I have tried a crude method along the lines of :
Backbone.history.navigate(newLocation)
However this did'nt work, please note newLocation is actually populated with the route and the id I want to navigate to.
I will add some code from my view below, I won't include the full code however if it is needed please ask.
Any help or a push in the right direction would be great.
Thanks in advance

You need to use your router object's navigate method rather than than history's class method, and you need to pass it the option `{trigger: true} in order to invoke the corresponding route function.

Related

Cordova - Angular - <select> tag open a new view

I have an Angular/Cordova app and I'm trying to figure out how should I handle the HTML SELECT tag. What I would like to do is to open a new window with all the options in a list, the user picks one and returns with that value.
The problem is when I do that I lose all the data I had in the first screen as I am closing it when I move to the second one.
I am using Angular's UI.ROUTER. One thing, which I am not too convinced to do, is to save all data entered into StateParams, and when I return, place it back.
What would be the best approach?
It really depends on the use case. If you need to be able to "deep link" to the view where a link loads the view with the pop-up active then using ui-router and stateparams makes the most sense. If deep linking isn't a concern and the user must always select something then you can just use a service/factory/value/provider in order to share the data between the controllers during the lifetime of the app.

Where to put a function to create a pdf

I have an application which deals with projects evolving according to a process defined by a series of status transitions. I have a button to set a project to the next status. The button calls a function in the ProjectsController. This function calls another function in the Project model, where I search for the correct transition, depending on the current status, the user_group and some other parameter, and set the new status. After everything successfully accomplished, I return to the original page with 'return $this->redirect($this->referer());' from the controller.
Some of the transitions have side effects. One is to create a PDF, save it on the server and add a new entry to the 'documents' table referenced to the current project.
Problem: where should I put the function to create the PDF? I would like to put it to the Model. But I need some View Files to first render a html page and then convert it to the PDF. I could put it to the Controller. But then I have a controller function which should not be called directly an doesn't render a view.
The functions all work, but where to put them? Is there another possibility? Would it be possible to use a component?
Implement it as PdfView that will render any (pdf) view for you as Pdf. There is already a plugin that does this, search for CakePdf on Github.
A component is clearly the wrong place. A Pdf is output, so it's a kind of view. Model gets you the data, controller sets it, view renders it.

is it right to do using ui-router to activate menu items. Any advices to help me understand this?

What I did is:
When a menu item is clicked, a action will be done, like deleting a user, sending emails to a group, etc. To this end, for each menu item, I define a ui-router state, and use the state url to activate the state via sref. I thought that a menu action is just a UI component for user to let users to do something, which is just a state of UI.
I was advised that I was using ui-router in a wrong way as a state url can not identify an action. For example, to delete a group of users, the state url can not tell you what group of users have been deleted.
In short, I agree with your manager while being an angular newbie myself. Angular routes are designed for managing different views of your app. I.e. define a route and corresponding view template for each view. If you add application logic into the routes, your application structure gets quickly a mess and difficult to keep clear.
To me it is much more natural that the views are managed by the routes, and each action in each view is handled by the controller of that view. If the actions grow "big", then it is worth refactoring parts of the controller into separate services. If you require some sort of "dynamic HTML" depending on the action, e.g. bootstrap modals are handy for doing that within the current view (see http://angular-ui.github.io/bootstrap/).
E.g. in my current project, I don't actually manually edit the routes at all but let yeoman angular generator to do that for me free of charge - i.e. I instantiate each new view in my dev.env using the following command (more info on this from https://github.com/yeoman/generator-angular)
yo angular:route myNewView
More info on angular philosophy can be read from angular documentation for developers: https://docs.angularjs.org/guide/concepts
You should probably be doing this actions via a method on $scope.
$scope.deleteItem = function (items) {
Service.delete(items);
};
// which is the same as:
$scope.deleteItem = Service.delete;
<a ng-click="deleteItem(item)">Delete This Item</a>
Having it in the URL just seems wrong. I mean what does that look like? www.mysite.com/delete/users?

Do we need multiple controllers to implement routes in angularjs?

There is chance that I might not be able to explain my problem properly. Let me try.
I am developing a single page application using angular. This app basically displays the episodes of an online novel series. There is a navigation bar, which has query menus (Like, latest episode, episode of a particular date, episodes with a particular tag, etc). For each of these queries, i want a separate url.
/latest - should display the latest episode
/tag/:tagname - should return all episodes with that tag.
For all these queries, the resultant view is the same (list of episodes). So I will be using the same partial for all routes.
My question is, Should I actually create a new controller for each query? like, LatestEpisodeController, TagController?
Is there anyway I can use the url to determine what the user wants and run that query from within the same controller?
Ofcourse you can use same controller in routing definition, the question is what is the purpose of that? It will be worse to debug it later, if you have a shared functionality it's better to turn it into a factory or service and then use in controllers.
But the answer is YES, you can use same controllers and implement different behaviour basing on i.e. $location.path()
yes you can use single controller for multiple routing..
you can create different functions in controller and in each function do the according job.
In my case I have created different html page for different url and registered same controller for the html pages and in the html page I have called controller method using ng-init in div portion.
You can use same controller and same views as you wish...
$location can help you to get current path or full url if you want and you can call your service depends on your path...
here I write a little example for you to get the idea
PLUNKER

this.save in backbone

I am on way to learning backbonejs.
I am working with the popular todo list tutorial.
I have certain questions about which i am a bit confused:
In one the models i found this function:
toggle: function() { this.save({completed: !this.get(’completed’)});}
The thing that i don't understand is this.save function. How does it work? What does it actually saves and where. And what does the code inside this function means: completed: !this.get and so on.
In one of the views i found this line of code:
this.input = this.$(’#new-todo’);
Now what does this.input means? And i also don't understand the sytnax this.$('#new-todo');
Let me know if more code is needed for comprehension. Also if anyone could point me to great learning resources for backbone, it will be awesome. Currently i am learning from 'Backbone Fundamentals' by addyosmani.
Backbone Model and Collection both have url properties.
When set properly backbone will make a HTTP POST request with the model as a payload to the url when saved for the first time (id property has not peen set). I you call save and the models id has been already set, backbone will by default make PUT request to the url. Models fetch function generates a GET request and delete a DELETE request.
This is how backbone is made to work with RESTfull JSON interfaces.
When saving a model you can define the actual model to save like it's done in the example.
Read the Backbone.js documentation. It's ok!
http://backbonejs.org/#View-dollar
this.$('#new-todo') // this.$el.find('#new-todo')
toggle: function() { this.save({completed: !this.get(’completed’)});}
Its basically saving inverse value to "completed" attribute of model. so if model's current attribute is true, it would save it to false !
regarding this.input = this.$(’#new-todo’);
Its basically saving/caching DOM with id "new-todo" from current VIEW's 'el' to view instance's 'input' property. so that we do not have to call jQuery methods for getting the same element when we need in future.
hope this helps.
:)
I too am a backbone newbie and i had been in search of good tutorials that gave good insights into the basics and i found after around 3-4 days of searching. Go through backbonetutorials.com and there is a video compiled which gives exactly what we need to know about Routers, Collections, Views and Models.
The sample working can be found at : http://backbonetutorials.com/videos/beginner/
Although this tutorial is a very basic one, you need to have basic jquery, javascript knowledge. Keep http://www.jquery.com opened in another tab as well when you go through the sample codes. Documentation is extremely useful.
Once you have good knowledge of jquery then if you go through the tutorials, you will understand and pick it up a lot better. And once you get hold of the MV* pattern of backbone you'll love it.
p.s : Do not copy paste codes or functions if you need to learn, type them.!!..
Cheers
Roy
toggle: function() { this.save({completed: !this.get(’completed’)});}
Backbone Model have a url property, when you set a property backbone makes a HTTP request to that url to save that value to the data source.
Here it is setting the value of "completed" attribute with inverse of earlier "completed" value, which will be saved to the data source

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