My model has a url property defined.
However, when I try to call fetch or save on it, I get the error:
TypeError: Cannot call method 'ajax' of undefined
Any solutions are appreciated.
My backend is only a simple RESTful interface.
You have forgoten to add jquery or zepto.js to your side. Backbone tries to call $.ajax(params); and $ is undefined.
You can do this by including jquery or zepto, but you must remember to include one of these before backbone. The other solution that doesn't force your files to be ordered is to call setDomLibrary at document ready:
Backbone.setDomLibrary(jQuery);
This will bind Backbone to the dom library of your choice.
Related
I am attempting to implement a sample application with Angular that interacts with a backend REST API using $resource objects. However, the backend system does not generate id's for the resources, so these need to be defined on the objects being created on the client. This causes a problem when invoking the $save method on the new'ed resource because it forces the JSON data to be POSTed to the wrong URL, i.e., it POSTs to:
/resources/employees/1234
rather than:
/resources/employees
I would prefer not to have to drop down to using the low level $http service if I can avoid it.
Does anyone know how I can work around this issue?
Thanks.
This is because of the fact that you configured your $resource constructor in this way, for example:
$resource('resources/employees/:employeeId', {
employeeId: #id
});
That means that when you call methods like $save or $delete etc. on the resource objects made by this constructor, the variable :employeeId in the url will be filled with the value id that exist on the object on which you called the method. To avoid this you have to modify the constructor config so that the url variable does not depend on the object id property.
Recently I was thinking about the differences and similarities between Backbone.js and AngularJS.
What I find really convenient in Backbone are the Backbone-Models and the Backbone-Collections. You just have to set the urlRoot and then the communication with the backend-server via Ajax basically works.
Shouldn't it be possible to use just the Backbone-Models and Collections in AngularJS application?
So we would have the best of both worlds two-way data-binding with AngularJS and convenient access to the server-side (or other storage options) through Backbone-Models and Collections.
A quick internet search didn't turn up any site suggesting this usage scenario.
All resources either talk about using either the one or the other framework.
Does someone have experience with using Backbone-Models or Collections with AngularJS.
Wouldn't they complement each other nicely? Am I something missing?
a working binding for example above...
http://jsbin.com/ivumuz/2/edit
it demonstrates a way for working around Backbone Models with AngularJS.
but setters/getters connection would be better.
Had a similar idea in mind and came up with this idea:
Add just a getter and setter for ever model attribute.
Backbone.ngModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
initialize: function (opt) {
_.each(opt, function (value, key) {
Object.defineProperty(this, key, {
get: function () {
return this.get(key)
},
set: function (value) {
this.set(key, value);
},
enumerable: true,
configurable: true
});
}, this);
}
});
See the fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/HszLj/
I was wondering if anyone had done this too. In my most recent / first angular app, I found Angular to be pretty lacking in models and collections (unless I am missing something of course!). Sure you can pull data from the server using $http or $resource, but what if you want to add custom methods/properties to your models or collections. For example, say you have a collections of cars, and you want to calculate the total cost. Something like this:
With a Backbone Collection, this would be pretty easy to implement:
carCollection.getTotalCost()
But in Angular, you'd probably have to wrap your custom method in a service and pass your collection to it, like this:
carCollectionService.getTotalCost(carCollection)
I like the Backbone approach because it reads cleaner in my opinion. Getting the 2 way data binding is tricky though. Check out this JSBin example.
http://jsbin.com/ovowav/1/edit
When you edit the numbers, collection.totalCost wont update because the car.cost properties are not getting set via model.set().
Instead, I basically used my own constructors/"classes" for models and collections, copied a subset of Backbone's API from Backbone.Model and Backbone.Collection, and modified my custom constructors/classes so that it would work with Angular's data binding.
Try taking a look at restangular.
I have not implemented it anywhere, but I saw a talk on it a few days ago. It seems to solve the same problem in an angular way.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGrpnt2VQ3s
Valid question for sure.
Lot of limitations with the current implementation of $resource, which among others doesn't have internal collection management like Backbone.Collection. Having written my own collection/resource management layer in angular (using $http, not $resource), I'm now seeing if I can substitute much of the boilerplate internals for backbone collections and models.
So far the fetching and adding part is flawless and saves code, but the binding those backbone models (or the attributes within, rather) to ng-models on inputs for editing is not yet working.
#ericclemmons (github) has done the same thing and got the two to marry well - I'll ask him, get my test working, and post the conclusion...
I was wondering the same-
This is the use-case:
salesforce mobile sdk (hybrid) has a feature called smartstore/smartsync, that expects backbone models/collection ,which gets saved to local storage for offline access .
And you guessed it right, we want to use angularjs for rest of the hybrid app.
Valid question.
-Sree
You should look at the angularJS boilerplate with parse here. Parse is backbone like, but not exactly backbone. Thats where im starting my idea of a angularJS backboneJS project
I am on way to learning backbonejs.
I am working with the popular todo list tutorial.
I have certain questions about which i am a bit confused:
In one the models i found this function:
toggle: function() { this.save({completed: !this.get(’completed’)});}
The thing that i don't understand is this.save function. How does it work? What does it actually saves and where. And what does the code inside this function means: completed: !this.get and so on.
In one of the views i found this line of code:
this.input = this.$(’#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
So what I'm wanting to do is have Backbone fetch all my collections when the router starts, and then keep all the collections and not have to re-fetch and reload all the collections while moving to different routes in the router. Does anyone know a way to do this?
From Backbone.js docs:
Note that fetch should not be used to populate collections on page
load — all models needed at load time should already be bootstrapped
in to place. fetch is intended for lazily-loading models for
interfaces that are not needed immediately: for example, documents
with collections of notes that may be toggled open and closed.
This is what I meant in my comment:
<script>
define("data", function() {
return <?php echo json here ?>;
});
</script>
Then you can have var data = require("data"); and use it to init Backbone models/collections. I'm not sure this is the right way of doing it.
Well, backbone does this by default. Just add code to your router to create an instance of each collection and call fetch() once on each collection. Then make sure the rest of your app just uses those same collection instances and does NOT call fetch() on them again. It's really that simple.
However, I presume you want other bits of your application to be able to call fetch() and have this silently use cached data if needed. This a considered a hard problem to do correctly, but a naive and simple implementation would be to simply store an isCached flag as a property of your collection and check that in your overridden fetch() method and just return without doing anything if your collection data is already loaded.
I've decided that I am going to try and learn backbone.js by making a web app. This is the first time I have done anything extensive in javascript, so the answer to my problem may be right in front of my face.
I have the web app on github, along with a running version that doesn't work. The javascript console just says that something is undefined when I don't think it should be. Here's the error that chrome gives for line 30 of app.js:
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'el' of undefined
I've sort of been referencing the backbone-fundamentals example modular to-do app, and it doesn't seem to have any issues with a similar thing.
If anyone could point out what I am doing wrong, I would be most appreciative!
Thanks in advance!
Your Machine view render method was missing return this and by default all methods return undefined - that's why chaining didn't work
Edit: and a small tip:
jQuery, Underscore and Backbone register globally - and thanks to that you don't have to define them as dependencies every time - it's enough if you require them in your main script once and after that you can access them from the global scope as you normally would
In my case i was returning this without the return keyword. As i was using javascript and not coffeescript it failed on me. So, if you are using javascript use return this; instead of just this in the last line of the render() function.
I also had a problem when using this.collection.on('reset', this.render(), this). I instead had to use this.collection.on('reset', this.render.bind(this));