Develop Reference

How to check if a backbone view is rendered?

I am trying to append a view to an item in Backbone with a following code:
var viewContainer = this.$el.find('.view-container'),
pageWrap = this.$el.nextAll();
FIX
if (viewContainer.empty()) {
this.myView= new ProductsView();
viewContainer.append(application.myView.render().$el),
console.log(myView);
}
I am appending this view to the viewContainer with a toggle function, however, every time I click on the button, myView is appended again and again to the viewContainer instead of of only once. How do I check if the view is already rendered inside it before appending it? Is there a !this.rendered() equivalent I can use?
I found this thread but it is not helping me in this instance.
UPDATE - FROM console.log(viewContainer)
[div.view-container.product-container.active, div#subjects_menu.view-container.product-container.hidden.active, prevObject: p.fn.p.init[1], context: undefined, selector: ".view-container"]

From the looks of it, you want to make sure ProductsView is not created if it already exists.
Simplest way to do this would be:
if(!this.myView) {
this.myView= new ProductsView();
viewContainer.append(application.myView.render().$el),
}
It is better to work with application state than querying DOM. When you remove product view, simply do this.myView = null afterwards.
The only time you'd want to query DOM to know if a view is rendered is probably when you have to integrate an isolated external application over which you have no control that doesn't trigger any event/provide callbacks etc while rendering.

Disambiguating bootstrap-switch state changes in knockout

I'm using bootstrap-switch together with the knockout binding handler referenced from this question shown below:
ko.bindingHandlers.bootstrapSwitchOn = {
init: function (element, valueAccessor, allBindingsAccessor, viewModel) {
$elem = $(element);
$elem.bootstrapSwitch();
// Set intial state
$elem.bootstrapSwitch('setState', ko.utils.unwrapObservable(valueAccessor()));
$elem.on('switch-change', function (e, data) {
// Update the model when changed.
valueAccessor()(data.value);
});
},
update: function (element, valueAccessor, allBindingsAccessor, viewModel) {
var vStatus = $(element).bootstrapSwitch('status');
var vmStatus = ko.utils.unwrapObservable(valueAccessor());
if (vStatus != vmStatus) {
$(element).bootstrapSwitch('setState', vmStatus);
}
}
};
This seems to be working quite nicely and I've mocked up a fiddle to illustrate how I'm using it here:
http://jsfiddle.net/swervo/of0q42j0/5/
However, I have a few issues which I can't seem to solve in a satisfactory manner:
1) If I have an array of items in an ko.observable array I can put a click handler on all of them and have them call a function in the parent view model like this:
data-bind="click: $parent.clickHandler"
Which, when called, passes through the items own view model. This is really convenient for getting properties of the item that was clicked, eg., id. I've put a button in the fiddle above to illustrate how easy this is to do.
However, if I'm using the bootstrap-switch instead of a simple button the switch doesn't seem to know about it's parent and I can't find an elegant way of passing through the view model containing the switch to its parent - like you can with a button. I have tried giving each item in the array a reference to it's parent view model and this does work but creates a circular reference and thus doesn't seem like the correct approach.
2) In the application that I'm building the state of items in a list can be changed on a different clients - and the local state needs to update to reflect these remote clients. Equally the state can also be changed on the local client which is then propagated to other clients. My problem here is how to disambiguate between changes to state that have happened locally (ie., due to the user clicking on the switch), and changes that have happened remotely (ie., due to an update coming from the server). In my actual project I'm using knockout subscribe to listen for changes in the values linked to the switches like this:
viewModel.observableValue.subscribe(function(newValue) {
// test value on server and if it is different update
});
I want to avoid receiving an update from the server and then updating the server again (with the same state) when my switch changes to reflect the new state. At the moment I've fixed this by testing the server state (as implied in the code snippet above) before I send the update and if it is the same as the pending state update I discard it. (I've simulated a server update using a button in the referenced fiddle above).
Neither of my solutions to these problems feel elegant hence the question here.
Any help would be much appreciated.

I'm not sure what you mean by the 'the switch doesn't seem to know about it's parent'. Looking at http://knockoutjs.com/documentation/custom-bindings.html, I can see that init and update both have a 5th param, bindingContext that has the parent information, should you wish to access it.
Ahem, one of the projects we worked on the past had a toggle button that suffered from the same issue and it was fixed is a very simple way. For events that are generated locally, just attach a property to the object, like .local = true; and check for it in the update (or attach it in your REST handler) to distinguish local/vs REST. Don't forget to delete the property from the view model once done in update though.

Backbone View render function getting called multiple times

I have a view that represents a folder. I have bunch of subviews, that this folder view creates, each representing a unique thumbnail in that folder. It turns out that each one of those subview's render method is getting called multiple times (3). Is there a way to find out how view's render method is called. There are different places which could render a trigger event for e.g., if models metadata is changed. It has become a huge mess and I'm looking for a way to debug backbone view's to know what is exactly triggering render method.

The way that I always debug events is:
view.on('all', function(eventName){
console.log('Name of View: ' + eventName);
});
You could do this on views, models or collections.
example:
http://jsfiddle.net/CoryDanielson/phw4t/6/
I added the request and sync methods manually to simulate how backbone would actually perform. The rendered event is custom -- nothing listens to it. Just to show you how/when it happens.

So as you requested, here's an example of how to override the trigger method. Note that you'll have to override it for all types of classes (Model, View, Collection, Router).
var trigger = Backbone.Model.prototype.trigger;
Backbone.Model.prototype.trigger = Backbone.View.prototype.trigger = Backbone.Collection.prototype.trigger = Backbone.Router.prototype.trigger = function(name) {
trigger.apply(this, arguments);
console.log(this, 'triggered the event', name, '.').
}
You could be more specific by overriding each method individually to add the type of object in the log. But you got the general idea.

You might what to give backbone.debug a try. Should give you some insight into what events are being fired.

rivets.js: prepopulate model with data from view on init

Perhaps this seems a bit backwards, but I have a view bound with Rivets.js for which I'd like the view to populate the model on initialization.
The usecase is that I'm using server-side rendering to return a snippet (the view) including rivets' data-attributes. So NO JSON is returned from server to client.
Now, by pressing 'edit' a user may put the content in 'edit'-mode, and start editing at will. (Using contenteditable, but this is out of scope here I guess).
So how to make sure the model is populated with values from the view on init?

I know that this question is a little outdated but I recentry tried rivets and I came across the same problem.
The solution:
// In your rivets configuration you disable preload:
rivets.configure({
templateDelimiters: ['[[', ']]'],
preloadData: false
});
// you bind your data
var binding = rivets.bind($('#auction'), {auction: auction});
// you manually publish it once to populate your model with form's data
binding.publish();
And that's it. I still don't know how to disable prelaod per bind

From the example on Rivets website (assign to 'rivetBinding')
var view = rivets.bind($('#auction'), {auction: auction});
doing rivetBinding.publish(); will bootstrap the model with values from the view for all bindings that have 'publishes = true'.

This question is old but it still has no accepted answer, so here goes:
You need to disable the preload configuration so rivets doesn't override whatever is in the input with what you have in your model at the time you do the binding. This can be done via the preloadData=false configuration, either globally (rivets.configure(...)) or view-scoped (third param to rivets.bind(...)).
After the binding, you need to publish the view (pull the values to your model). You also need to set up the observers via sync() call, otherwise your binded methods won't be triggered.
Using the same example as the previous answers:
var view = rivets.bind($('#auction'), { auction: auction }, {
preloadData: false
});
view.publish();
view.sync();

How to clear/remove observable bindings in Knockout.js?

I'm building functionality onto a webpage which the user can perform multiple times. Through the user's action, an object/model is created and applied to HTML using ko.applyBindings().
The data-bound HTML is created through jQuery templates.
So far so good.
When I repeat this step by creating a second object/model and call ko.applyBindings() I encounter two problems:
The markup shows the previous object/model as well as the new object/model.
A javascript error occurs relating to one of the properties in the object/model, although it's still rendered in the markup.
To get around this problem, after the first pass I call jQuery's .empty() to remove the templated HTML which contains all the data-bind attributes, so that it's no longer in the DOM. When the user starts the process for the second pass the data-bound HTML is re-added to the DOM.
But like I said, when the HTML is re-added to the DOM and re-bound to the new object/model, it still includes data from the the first object/model, and I still get the JS error which doesn't occur during the first pass.
The conclusion appears to be that Knockout is holding on to these bound properties, even though the markup is removed from the DOM.
So what I'm looking for is a means of removing these bound properties from Knockout; telling knockout that there is no longer an observable model. Is there a way to do this?
EDIT
The basic process is that the user uploads a file; the server then responds with a JSON object, the data-bound HTML is added to the DOM, then the JSON object model is bound to this HTML using
mn.AccountCreationModel = new AccountViewModel(jsonData.Account);
ko.applyBindings(mn.AccountCreationModel);
Once the user has made some selections on the model, the same object is posted back to the server, the data-bound HTML is removed from then DOM, and I then have the following JS
mn.AccountCreationModel = null;
When the user wishes to do this once more, all these steps are repeated.
I'm afraid the code is too 'involved' to do a jsFiddle demo.

Have you tried calling knockout's clean node method on your DOM element to dispose of the in memory bound objects?
var element = $('#elementId')[0];
ko.cleanNode(element);
Then applying the knockout bindings again on just that element with your new view models would update your view binding.

For a project I'm working on, I wrote a simple ko.unapplyBindings function that accepts a jQuery node and the remove boolean. It first unbinds all jQuery events as ko.cleanNode method doesn't take care of that. I've tested for memory leaks, and it appears to work just fine.
ko.unapplyBindings = function ($node, remove) {
// unbind events
$node.find("*").each(function () {
$(this).unbind();
});
// Remove KO subscriptions and references
if (remove) {
ko.removeNode($node[0]);
} else {
ko.cleanNode($node[0]);
}
};

You could try using the with binding that knockout offers:
http://knockoutjs.com/documentation/with-binding.html
The idea is to use apply bindings once, and whenever your data changes, just update your model.
Lets say you have a top level view model storeViewModel, your cart represented by cartViewModel,
and a list of items in that cart - say cartItemsViewModel.
You would bind the top level model - the storeViewModel to the whole page. Then, you could separate the parts of your page that are responsible for cart or cart items.
Lets assume that the cartItemsViewModel has the following structure:
var actualCartItemsModel = { CartItems: [
{ ItemName: "FirstItem", Price: 12 },
{ ItemName: "SecondItem", Price: 10 }
] }
The cartItemsViewModel can be empty at the beginning.
The steps would look like this:
Define bindings in html. Separate the cartItemsViewModel binding.
<div data-bind="with: cartItemsViewModel">
<div data-bind="foreach: CartItems">
<span data-bind="text: ItemName"></span>
<span data-bind="text: Price"></span>
</div>
</div>
The store model comes from your server (or is created in any other way).
var storeViewModel = ko.mapping.fromJS(modelFromServer)
Define empty models on your top level view model. Then a structure of that model can be updated with
actual data.
storeViewModel.cartItemsViewModel = ko.observable();
storeViewModel.cartViewModel = ko.observable();
Bind the top level view model.
ko.applyBindings(storeViewModel);
When the cartItemsViewModel object is available then assign it to the previously defined placeholder.
storeViewModel.cartItemsViewModel(actualCartItemsModel);
If you would like to clear the cart items:
storeViewModel.cartItemsViewModel(null);
Knockout will take care of html - i.e. it will appear when model is not empty and the contents of div (the one with the "with binding") will disappear.

I have to call ko.applyBinding each time search button click, and filtered data is return from server, and in this case following work for me without using ko.cleanNode.
I experienced, if we replace foreach with template then it should work fine in case of collections/observableArray.
You may find this scenario useful.
<ul data-bind="template: { name: 'template', foreach: Events }"></ul>
<script id="template" type="text/html">
<li><span data-bind="text: Name"></span></li>
</script>

Instead of using KO's internal functions and dealing with JQuery's blanket event handler removal, a much better idea is using with or template bindings. When you do this, ko re-creates that part of DOM and so it automatically gets cleaned. This is also recommended way, see here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15069509/207661.

I think it might be better to keep the binding the entire time, and simply update the data associated with it. I ran into this issue, and found that just calling using the .resetAll() method on the array in which I was keeping my data was the most effective way to do this.
Basically you can start with some global var which contains data to be rendered via the ViewModel:
var myLiveData = ko.observableArray();
It took me a while to realize I couldn't just make myLiveData a normal array -- the ko.oberservableArray part was important.
Then you can go ahead and do whatever you want to myLiveData. For instance, make a $.getJSON call:
$.getJSON("http://foo.bar/data.json?callback=?", function(data) {
myLiveData.removeAll();
/* parse the JSON data however you want, get it into myLiveData, as below */
myLiveData.push(data[0].foo);
myLiveData.push(data[4].bar);
});
Once you've done this, you can go ahead and apply bindings using your ViewModel as usual:
function MyViewModel() {
var self = this;
self.myData = myLiveData;
};
ko.applyBindings(new MyViewModel());
Then in the HTML just use myData as you normally would.
This way, you can just muck with myLiveData from whichever function. For instance, if you want to update every few seconds, just wrap that $.getJSON line in a function and call setInterval on it. You'll never need to remove the binding as long as you remember to keep the myLiveData.removeAll(); line in.
Unless your data is really huge, user's won't even be able to notice the time in between resetting the array and then adding the most-current data back in.

I had a memory leak problem recently and ko.cleanNode(element); wouldn't do it for me -ko.removeNode(element); did. Javascript + Knockout.js memory leak - How to make sure object is being destroyed?

Have you thought about this:
try {
ko.applyBindings(PersonListViewModel);
}
catch (err) {
console.log(err.message);
}
I came up with this because in Knockout, i found this code
var alreadyBound = ko.utils.domData.get(node, boundElementDomDataKey);
if (!sourceBindings) {
if (alreadyBound) {
throw Error("You cannot apply bindings multiple times to the same element.");
}
ko.utils.domData.set(node, boundElementDomDataKey, true);
}
So to me its not really an issue that its already bound, its that the error was not caught and dealt with...

I have found that if the view model contains many div bindings the best way to clear the ko.applyBindings(new someModelView); is to use: ko.cleanNode($("body")[0]); This allows you to call a new ko.applyBindings(new someModelView2); dynamically without the worry of the previous view model still being binded.

<div id="books">
<ul data-bind="foreach: booksImReading">
<li data-bind="text: name"></li>
</ul>
</div>
var bookModel = {
booksImReading: [
{ name: "Effective Akka" },
{ name: "Node.js the Right Way" }]
};
ko.applyBindings(bookModel, el);
var bookModel2 = {
booksImReading: [
{ name: "SQL Performance Explained" },
{ name: "Code Connected" }]
};
ko.cleanNode(books);
ko.applyBindings(bookModel2, books);