I'm using Backbone.ModelBinder in a Backbone.js Marionette project. I've a scenario which I can't work out how to use ModelBinder to automatically update my model/UI.
My model has a 'status' string attribute, with multiple states. In this example I'll show the code for two: 'soon', 'someday'
In my UI I have a list on which I use click events to set the model status, and update classes to highlight the relevant link in the UI.
<dd id="status-soon"><a>Soon</a></dd>
<dd id="status-someday" class="active"><a>Someday</a></dd>
events: {
'click #status-soon': 'setStatusSoon',
'click #status-someday': 'setStatusSomeday'
},
setStatusSoon: function () {
this.model.set('status', 'soon');
this.$el.find('.status dd').removeClass('active');
this.$el.find('#status-soon').addClass('active');
},
... etc
It feels like I doing this a long-winded and clunky way! The code bloat increases with the number of states I need to support. What's the best way of achieving the same outcome with ModelBinder?
You could probably simplify things with a data attribute, something like this:
<dd data-status="soon" class="set-status"><a>Soon</a></dd>
<dd data-status="someday" class="set-status active"><a>Someday</a></dd>
and then:
events: {
'click .set-status': 'setStatus'
},
setStatus: function(ev) {
var $target = $(ev.target);
var status = $target.data('status');
this.model.set('status', status);
this.$el.find('.status dd.set-status').removeClass('active');
$target.addClass('active');
}
You might not need the set-status class, just keying things on the <dd>s might be sufficient; I prefer separating my event handling from the nitty gritty element details though.
Unfortunately, it is going to be pretty difficult to do exactly what you want with ModelBinder. The main reason being that ModelBinder wants to provide the same value for all elements that are part of a single selector. So doing this with ModelBinder, while possible, is going to be pretty verbose as well.
The cleanup offered by mu is likely to be better than trying to use ModelBinder. 1) because you need a click handler to do the this.model.set no matter what and 2) you would need individual bindings for ModelBinder because the converter function is called once for a single selector and then the value is set on all matching elements (rather than looping through each one).
But if you do want to try and do something with ModelBinder it would look something like this:
onRender : function () {
var converter = function (direction, value) {
return (value == "soon" ? "active" : "");
};
var bindings = {
status : {selector : "#status-soon", elAttribute : "class", converter : converter}
};
this.modelBinder.bind(this.model, this.el, bindings);
}
This would do what you want. Of course the down side as I said above is that you will need multiple selector bindings. You could generalize the converter using this.boundEls[0] but you will still need the separate bindings for it to work.
In case you want to access to the bound element, it is possible to declare 'html' as elAttrbute, modify the element and return its html with converter function:
onRender : function () {
var converter = function (direction, value, attribute, model, els) {
return $(els[0]).toggleClass('active', value === 'soon').html();
};
var bindings = {
status : {
selector : "#status-soon",
elAttribute : "html",
converter : converter
}
};
this.modelBinder.bind(this.model, this.el, bindings);
}
Related
I'm new to extjs and I'm looking for a way to add some custom message under my combobox field.
Depending on some conditions (eg. value selected) the message needs to have different text and/or style.
I could play with errorEl associated with my combobox and change it's message/style depending on the state, but this doesnt look like a good approach.
Are you aware of any plugin allowing to add such a message, or is there a shorter way to do this?
Thank you for your suggestions. I ended up writing my own plugin, which then I attached to combobox.
I added new element after error element and I changed messages based on proper combobox events.
afterCmpRender : function() {
var me = this, cmp = me.getCmp();
var messageWrapper = {
tag : 'div'
};
var messageEl = cmp.errorEl.insertSibling(messageWrapper, "after");
cmp.messageEl = messageEl;
Ext.Array.each(me.messages, function(message) {
var messageConfig = {
tag : 'div',
style : {
display : 'none'
}
};
var newElement = messageEl.insertSibling(messageConfig, "after");
newElement.setHTML(message.value);
newElement.addCls(message.classes);
me.registerMessageEvents(me, cmp, message, newElement);
});
}
I almost always use multiple elements for this, and would not make an attempt to change the field.
Depending on your context, which you didn't provide, I'd say you could have a look at:
Ext.form.field.Display
Ext.form.Label
Ext.tip.Tip
Ext.tip.QuickTip
I'd work with the class Ext.tip.Tip.
You can create
Ext.create('Ext.tip.Tip', {
id: 'myTip',
header: false
});
and then
var tip = Ext.getCmp('myTip');
tip.update('your custom tip message');
tip.showBy(comboboxComponent);
You could also use showAt(..) instead of showBy.
For more information look into the Docu
Here is a Fiddle link to an example.
Usually I find my self needing to write an object with a specific functionality that it is a set of models.
Finally I extend a collection and add more functions that works with its model.
I think is better show you an example:
My app has a set of permissions, related with the user and/or the version of the platform.
var Permissions = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Permission,
hasAccess: function (moduleCode) {
....
},
allowAccess: function (moduleCode) {
....
},
...
With that methods I change the format of a property of a permission (the model). (My permissions are a concatenation of code with an string that identify the type of permission.)
A workmate tells me that it is wrong. In .NET he creates a class and he adds a private list and makes the changes to it. He does not inherit the list and changes it.
He would make a model and inside it he would add a collection property
this.set("permissionsCollection", new Backbone.Collection.extend({model: Permission}))
[Comment: I don't understand why he creates properties of everything, I think in his case it is not needed.] -> But this is another question
I think in a different way. I know the Collection has internally that list. I have a great potencial in Backbone.Collections, why do I have to use a model that it is not necessary? If I don't need that encapsulation... I think that it is not necessary, he is overprogramming in my opinnion.
Am I wrong? Did I not know how to use BackboneJS Collections?
Thank you in advance.
At the beginning I had something called helper with similar methods:
findAttr: function (model, name) {
var attrs = model.get('app_attrs');
if (attrs !== undefined) {
return this.findByAttrName(attrs, name);
}
},
findByAttrName: function (array, name) {
return _.find(array, function(a) {
if (a.attrName === name) {
return a;
}
});
}
The view code was more awkward:
render: function () {
var attr = helper.findAttr(this.model, 'user');
...
return this;
}
The only logical solution was to move these methods into the model (this.model in the above case). After refactoring I've got:
render: function () {
var attr = this.model.findAttr('user');
...
return this;
}
which is of course more readable than the previous solution.
The problem is I want to render option elements with the value attribute set as well as the text node.
So setting tagName to option in my ItemView does not just do this. The solution I have at the moment is to set it to option and then use the following code in the ItemView constructor to set the value attibute:
onRender: function () {
this.$el.attr('value', this.model.get('name'));
}
This works.
But is there any other way?
What I'd really like to do is just tell Marionette not to output an element at all and then in my ItemView template have this:
<option value="<%= name %>"> <%= name %> </option>
Is this possible?
It's possible but a bit fiddly, by default Backbone always uses a wrapper element (definable by using tagName) but you'd have to expressly populate the attributes (as you are doing above).
It is however possible to circumvent the wrapper element using a slightly convoluted setElement approach and this will enable you keep all markup in a template with attributes on the root node populated from the model. I like this approach as well since I personally think it keeps a clearer separation of concerns.
Take a look here for an example - Backbone, not "this.el" wrapping
Not sure if Marionette has a build in mechanism for doing this.
I am not sure you should from all different kind of reasons.
But I understand that in the use case of a single tag view, the way Marionette/Backbone work you either create another tag and have a view, or you use onRender and query to update the single tag that was already generated for you.
You could have this Object that will extend ItemView, lets call it SingleTagView. Basicly I am extending ItemView and using overrunning it's render function with one change.
Instead of doing:
this.$el.html(html);
I am doing:
var $html = $(html);
this.$el.replaceWith($html);
this.setElement($html);
Here is the code:
var SingleTagView = Marionette.ItemView.extend({
render: function() {
this.isClosed = false;
this.triggerMethod("before:render", this);
this.triggerMethod("item:before:render", this);
var data = this.serializeData();
data = this.mixinTemplateHelpers(data);
var template = this.getTemplate();
var html = Marionette.Renderer.render(template, data);
// above is standart ItemView code
var $html = $(html);
this.$el.replaceWith($html);
this.setElement($html);
// this code above replaced this.$el.html(html);
// below is standart ItemView code
this.bindUIElements();
this.triggerMethod("render", this);
this.triggerMethod("item:rendered", this);
return this;
}
});
If you are going to use this kind of angle, make sure you test the behavior properly (event handling, Dom leaks, different flows with before:render events).
I would try:
var optionTag = Marionette.ItemView.extend({
tagName: "option",
initialize: function(){
this.attributes = {
value: this.model.get('name');
}
}
}
Backbone should then do the rest (i.e. putting the content of attributes into the HTML tag)...
In my router I require a view like this:
require(['views/business-detail-view'],
function(BusinessDetailView) {
var businessDetailView = new BusinessDetailView({collection: businessOverviewCollection.models[id], id: id});
businessDetailView.render();
}
);
and in the view I'm binding events like this:
events: {
'click #about-btn' : 'aboutHandler',
'click #contact-btn' : 'contactHandler',
'click #deals-btn' : 'dealsHandler',
'click #map-btn' : 'mapHandler'
},
Now the issue is that if the view gets rendered the first times the callbacks are invoked ones. But if the view needs to be rendered again in some other place the callbacks are invoked twice and so on.
How can I prevent this or am I doing something wrong?
UPDATE:
In the meantime I have changed the code in my router to:
if ( !businessDetailView ) {
require(['views/business-detail-view'],
function(BusinessDetailView) {
businessDetailView = new BusinessDetailView({collection: businessOverviewCollection.models[id]});
businessDetailView.render();
}
);
}
else {
businessDetailView.collection = businessOverviewCollection.models[id];
businessDetailView.render();
}
which seem to solve the issue, but I'm still to new to backbone this know whether this is a valid pattern.
At some point in your view you probably clear out the existing HTML on the page and replace it with new HTML. When you clear out old HTML you should also clear out old event handlers so they aren't laying around. For example, in your view when you want to render your newHtml you could do:
#$el.off().html(newHtml)
I can successfully do this:
App.SomeCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
comparator: function( collection ){
return( collection.get( 'lastName' ) );
}
});
Which is nice if I want to have a collection that is only sorted by 'lastName'. But I need to have this sorting done dynamically. Sometimes, I'll need to sort by, say, 'firstName' instead.
My utter failures include:
I tried passing an extra variable specifying the variable to sort() on. That did not work. I also tried sortBy(), which did not work either. I tried passing my own function to sort(), but this did not work either. Passing a user-defined function to sortBy() only to have the result not have an each method, defeating the point of having a newly sorted backbone collection.
Can someone provide a practical example of sorting by a variable that is not hard coded into the comparator function? Or any hack you have that works? If not, a working sortBy() call?
Interesting question. I would try a variant on the strategy pattern here. You could create a hash of sorting functions, then set comparator based on the selected member of the hash:
App.SomeCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
comparator: strategies[selectedStrategy],
strategies: {
firstName: function () { /* first name sorting implementation here */ },
lastName: function () { /* last name sorting implementation here */ },
},
selectedStrategy: "firstName"
});
Then you could change your sorting strategy on the fly by updating the value of the selectedStrategy property.
EDIT: I realized after I went to bed :) that this wouldn't quite work as I wrote it above, because we're passing an object literal to Collection.extend. The comparator property will be evaluated once, when the object is created, so it won't change on the fly unless forced to do so. There is probably a cleaner way to do this, but this demonstrates switching the comparator functions on the fly:
var SomeCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
comparator: function (property) {
return selectedStrategy.apply(myModel.get(property));
},
strategies: {
firstName: function (person) { return person.get("firstName"); },
lastName: function (person) { return person.get("lastName"); },
},
changeSort: function (sortProperty) {
this.comparator = this.strategies[sortProperty];
},
initialize: function () {
this.changeSort("lastName");
console.log(this.comparator);
this.changeSort("firstName");
console.log(this.comparator);
}
});
var myCollection = new SomeCollection;
Here's a jsFiddle that demonstrates this.
The root of all of your problems, I think, is that properties on JavaScript object literals are evaluated immediately when the object is created, so you have to overwrite the property if you want to change it. If you try to write some kind of switching into the property itself it'll get set to an initial value and stay there.
Here's a good blog post that discusses this in a slightly different context.
Change to comparator function by assigning a new function to it and call sort.
// Following example above do in the view:
// Assign new comparator
this.collection.comparator = function( model ) {
return model.get( 'lastname' );
}
// Resort collection
this.collection.sort();
// Sort differently
this.collection.comparator = function( model ) {
return model.get( 'age' );
}
this.collection.sort();
So, this was my solution that actually worked.
App.Collection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model:App.Model,
initialize: function(){
this.sortVar = 'firstName';
},
comparator: function( collection ){
var that = this;
return( collection.get( that.sortVar ) );
}
});
Then in the view, I have to M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E it like this:
this.collections.sortVar = 'lastVar'
this.collections.sort( this.comparator ).each( function(){
// All the stuff I want to do with the sorted collection...
});
Since Josh Earl was the only one to even attempt a solution and he did lead me in the right direction, I accept his answer. Thanks Josh :)
This is an old question but I recently had a similar need (sort a collection based on criteria to be supplied by a user click event) and thought I'd share my solution for others tackling this issue. Requires no hardcoded model.get('attribute').
I basically used Dave Newton's approach to extending native JavaScript arrays, and tailored it to Backbone:
MyCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
// Custom sorting function.
sortCollection : function(criteria) {
// Set your comparator function, pass the criteria.
this.comparator = this.criteriaComparator(criteria);
this.sort();
},
criteriaComparator : function(criteria, overloadParam) {
return function(a, b) {
var aSortVal = a.get(criteria);
var bSortVal = b.get(criteria);
// Whatever your sorting criteria.
if (aSortVal < bSortVal) {
return -1;
}
if (aSortVal > bSortVal) {
return 1;
}
else {
return 0;
}
};
}
});
Note the "overloadParam". Per the documentation, Backbone uses Underscore's "sortBy" if your comparator function has a single param, and a native JS-style sort if it has two params. We need the latter, hence the "overloadParam".
Looking at the source code, it seems there's a simple way to do it, setting comparator to string instead of function. This works, given Backbone.Collection mycollection:
mycollection.comparator = key;
mycollection.sort();
This is what I ended up doing for the app I'm currently working on. In my collection I have:
comparator: function(model) {
var methodName = applicationStateModel.get("comparatorMethod"),
method = this[methodName];
if (typeof(method === "function")) {
return method.call(null, model);
}
}
Now I can add few different methods to my collection: fooSort(), barSort(), and bazSort().
I want fooSort to be the default so I set that in my state model like so:
var ApplicationState = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
comparatorMethod: "fooSort"
}
});
Now all I have to do is write a function in my view that updates the value of "comparatorMethod" depending upon what the user clicks. I set the collection to listen to those changes and do sort(), and I set the view to listen for sort events and do render().
BAZINGA!!!!