Develop Reference

this.model.on change event not firing

The "change" event is not firing in the following code.
var PageView = Backbone.View.extend({
el: $("body"),
initialize: function(){
this.model.on("change:loading", this.loader, this);
},
loader: function(){
if(this.model.get("loading")){
this.$el.find('.loader').fadeIn(700);
}
else
this.$el.find('.loader').fadeOut(700);
},
});
var PageModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
loading: null,
},
initialize: function(){
this.set({loading:false});
},
});
$(function(){
var pageModel = new PageModel({});
var pageView = new PageView({model: pageModel});
})
It works if I'm adding this in the model's initialize function:
setTimeout(function() {
this.set({'loading': 'false'});
}, 0);
I can leave it this way, but this is a bug.

The situation explained
Here's the order the code runs:
the model is created,
model's initialize function is called, setting the loading attribute to false,
then the model is passed to the view,
then a listener is registered for the "change:loading"
The event handler is never called because the event never occurs after it was registered.
Quick fix
First remove the set from the model.
var PageModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
loading: null
}
});
Then, after creating the view, set the loading attribute.
var pageModel = new PageModel();
var pageView = new PageView({ model: pageModel });
pageModel.set('loading', false); // now the event should trigger
Since the listener is now registered before the model's loading attribute is changed, the event handler will be called.
Optimized solution
Use Backbone's best practices:
Favor .listenTo over .on to avoid memory leaks
Cache jQuery objects
Try to avoid setting the el property on the view
A view is an atomic component that should only care about itself and its sub-views.
While in your case, it wouldn't matter much that you use the el property on the view, it still goes beyond the responsibilities of the view. Let the calling code deal with passing the element to use for this view.
var PageView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function() {
this.model = new PageModel();
this.$loader = this.$('.loader');
this.listenTo(this.model, "change:loading", this.loader);
},
loader: function() {
this.$loader[this.model.get("loading")? 'fadeIn': 'fadeOut'](700);
},
render: function() {
this.loader();
return this;
}
});
Put the defaults where they belong.
var PageModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
loading: false
}
});
Here we choose the body as the element to use for the view, using the el option, and then call render when ready.
$(function() {
var pageView = new PageView({ el: 'body' }).render();
});
The event won't be triggered by the listener right away, instead, we use the render function to put the view in its default state. Then, any subsequent changes of the loading attribute will trigger the callback.
I have listed the most useful answers I've written about Backbone on my profile page. You should take a look, it goes from the beginning to advanced and even provides some clever Backbone components that solves common problems (like detecting a click outside a view).

Backbone view events do not fire

I have a simple backbone view as follows:
/**
* Renders a form view for an event object.
*/
APP.EventFormView = Backbone.View.extend({
tagName: 'form',
events: {
'keydown': 'keyPressed',
'focus input': 'inputChanged',
'change select': 'selectChanged',
'change textarea': 'textareaChanged'
},
initialize: function() {
this.template = _.template($('#newevent-form').html());
this.listenTo(this.model, 'change', this.render);
this.listenTo(APP.eventTypes, 'update', this.render);
this.listenTo(APP.selectedEvent, 'update', this.render);
},
render: function() {
var modelJSON = this.model.toJSON();
if ('id' in modelJSON && modelJSON.id !== "") {
this.loadForm();
} else if (!('id' in modelJSON) || modelJSON.id === "") {
this.loadForm();
} else {
this.$el.html('');
}
return this;
},
loadForm: function() {
var templateData = $.extend(this.model.toJSON(),
{"event_types":APP.eventTypes.toJSON()});
this.$el.html('');
this.$el.html(this.template($.extend(this.model.toJSON(),
{event_types: APP.eventTypes.toJSON()})));
$('.ev-main-container').html('').html(this.el);
},
inputChanged: function(e) {
console.log('inputChanged');
},
selectChanged: function(e) {
console.log('selectChanged');
},
textareaChanged: function(e) {
console.log('textareaChanged');
},
keyPressed: function(e) {
console.log('key pressed');
}
});
I initialize this view as follows under document.ready:
// Initialize the form view
APP.selectedEvent = APP.selectedEvent || new APP.Event();
APP.eventFormView = new APP.EventFormView({model: APP.selectedEvent});
APP.eventFormView.render();
But none of the events I have defined are firing for some reason, What is it that I am doing wrong here ?
Update:
Ok, I fugred out if i remove $('.ev-main-container').html('').html(this.el); from the loadForm method and instead intialize the view as follows, it works:
APP.eventFormView = new APP.EventFormView({
model: APP.selectedEvent,
el: $('.ev-main-container'),
});
I was able to resolve it but I still don't understand why this happens, could anyone throw a little light on what's going on and how this works.

jQuery's html function has a side effect that many people seem to forget about, from the fine manual:
jQuery removes other constructs such as data and event handlers from child elements before replacing those elements with the new content.
Consider what that means when you do something like this:
container.html(view.el);
container.html(view.el);
Everything will be fine after the first container.html() call. But the second will "remove ... event handlers from child elements" (such as view.el) before adding the new content. So after the second container.html() call, all the events on view.el are gone. Sound familiar?
You have lots of things that will call render on your view and render will eventually do this:
$('.ev-main-container').html('').html(this.el);
Your events will silently disappear the second time that gets called but the HTML will look just fine.
Consider this simplified example (http://jsfiddle.net/ambiguous/otnyv93e/):
var V = Backbone.View.extend({
tagName: 'form',
events: {
'click button': 'clicked'
},
initialize: function() {
this.template = _.template($('#t').html());
},
render: function() {
this.$el.html('');
this.$el.html(this.template());
$('.ev-main-container').html('').html(this.el);
return this;
},
clicked: function() {
console.log('clicked');
}
});
var v = new V;
v.render();
$('#re-render').click(function() {
v.render();
console.log('Re-rendered');
});
and you'll see exactly your problem.
If you make the view's el the .ev-main-container then you'll be using html() to alter the contents of el rather than altering the contents of the element that contains el. Once you're working entirely inside the el you're no longer accidentally re-using an element and no longer accidentally removing the event bindings from that element.
My rules of thumb for preventing event problems with Backbone:
Never attach views to existing DOM nodes, always let views create and own their own el and let the caller put that el in a container.
Call remove on views to dispose of them when they're no longer needed.
Don't try to re-use views, create them when you need them and remove them when you don't need them.
No view references anything outside its el.
There are exceptions (of course) and this approach won't solve everything but it is a good starting point and avoids most of the common problems.

How turn off all events before new view rendering

I have several views.
In some of them I have the similar events like
events: {
'click #save': 'save'
}
When I create and render new view old event listening remains so old algorythm still works when I already change the view.
As I know there is a stopListening() function but how can I activate for all previous views.
So when I change the view/page I want disable all previous events.
How I can do that?

ID's are global, you shouldn't have more than one per page. Append your events to a class instead.
events: {
'click .save-btn': 'save'
}
Also, make sure you're disposing your views once you finished using them:
var MyView = Backbone.View.extend({
events: {
'click .save-btn': 'save'
},
...
dispose: function() {
this.unbind();
this.remove();
}
};
var view = MyView();
...
view.dispose();
Cheers.

try to use el.
var MyView = Backbone.View.extend({
el: '#wrapper_of_save_element',
events: {
'click #save': 'save'
},
save: function() {
...
}
});
so your event is only inside your #wrapper_of_save_element (eg. a wrapper div)
http://backbonejs.org/#View-el

Backbone.js: How to handle selection of a single view only?

I am stuck on the following issue:
I have a model with a property that defines if it is visibly selected or not, which I will call SelectModel for the purpose of this question.
SelectModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults:{
isSelected: false
}
})
Now the first part that I do not really get is how I should handle the selection in general.
If I want to use the observer pattern, my View should listen to the change of the isSelected property. But my view also triggers this in the first place, so I would have.
SelectView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function(){
this.model.bind("change:isSelected", this.toggleSelectionVisually)
},
events: {
"click" : toggleSelection
},
toggleSelection: function(){
this.model.set({"isSelected": !this.model.get("isSelected");
},
toggleSelectionVisually:(){
//some code that shows that the view is now selected
},
})
So this in itself already feels a bit absurd but I guess I just understand something wrong.
But the part which I really fail to implement without making my code horrible is handling the selection for multiple models that only one model is selected at a time.
SelectListView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function(){
this.collection = new SelectList();
},
toggleSelection: function(){
????
}
})
So who should notify whom of the selection change? Which part should trigger it and which part should listen? I am really stuck on this one. For a single View it is doable, for a collection I am sadly lost.

I would have suggested the following simplification for your SelectView until I saw the second part of your question:
SelectView = Backbone.View.extend({
events: {
"click" : toggleSelection
},
toggleSelection: function(){
this.model.set({"isSelected": !this.model.get("isSelected");
//some code that shows whether the view is selected or not
}
});
However, since the isSelected attribute is apparently mutually exclusive, can be toggled off implicitly when another one is toggled on, I think the way you have it is best for your case.
So, using your existing SelectView and, you could have a SelectListView as follows. WARNING: it iterates over your entire collection of models each time one is selected. If you will have a large number of models this will not scale well, and you'll want to cache the previously-selected model rather than iterating over the entire collection.
SelectListView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function(){
this.collection = new SelectList();
this.collection.bind('change:isSelected', this.toggleSelection, this);
},
toggleSelection: function(toggledModel){
//A model was toggled (on or off)
if(toggledModel.get('isSelected') {
//A model was toggled ON, so check if a different model is already selected
var otherSelectedModel = this.collection.find(function(model) {
return toggledModel !== model && model.get('isSelected');
});
if(otherSelectedModel != null) {
//Another model was selected, so toggle it to off
otherSelectedModel.set({'isSelected': false});
}
}
}
});

I would recommend that your model not keep track of this, but rather the view.
In my mind the model has nothing to do with its display, but rather the data that you're tracking. The view should encapsulate all the info about where and how the data is displayed to the user
So I would put isSelected as an attribute on the view. Then it's trivial to write a method to toggle visibility. If you then need to explain the other views that a specific view is selected you can attach a listener $(this.el).on('other_visible', toggle_show) which you can trigger on your toggle_visibility method with $(this.el).trigger('other_visible')

Very close to the solution suggested by #rrr but moving the logic from the View to the Collection where I think it bellows to:
SelectsCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
initialize: function() {
this.on( "change:selected", this.changeSelected );
},
changeSelected: function( model, val, opts ){
if( val ){
this.each( function( e ){
if( e != model && e.get( "selected" ) ) e.set( "selected", false );
});
};
},
});

There are different ways you could do it. You could trigger an event on the collection itself and have all the SelectModel instances listen for it and update themselves accordingly. That seems a bit wasteful if you have a lot of SelectModel instances in the collection because most of them won't end up doing any work. What I would probably do is keep track of the last SelectModel in your View:
SelectListView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function(){
this.collection = new SelectList();
this.lastSelectedModel = null;
},
toggleSelection: function(){
// populate newSelectedModel with the SelectedModel that you're toggling
var newSelectedModel = getNewSelectedModel();
if (!newSelectedModel.get('isSelected')) {
// if the SelectModel isn't already selected, we're about to toggle it On
// so we need to notify the previously selected SelectModel
if (this.lastSelectedModel) {
this.lastSelectedModel.set({isSelected: false});
}
this.lastSelectedModel = newSelectedModel;
} else {
// if the newSelectedModel we're about to toggle WAS already selected that means
// nothing is selected now so clear out the lastSelectedModel
this.lastSelectedModel = null;
}
newSelectedModel.set({isSelected: !newSelectedModel.get('isSelected')});
}
})

Backbone.js views - binding event to element outside of "el"

The 2nd answer to this question nicely explains how event declarations in Backbone.js views are scoped to the view's el element.
It seems like a reasonable use case to want to bind an event to an element outside the scope of el, e.g. a button on a different part of the page.
What is the best way of achieving this?

there is not really a reason you would want to bind to an element outside the view,
there are other methods for that.
that element is most likely in it's own view, (if not, think about giving it a view!)
since it is in it's own view, why don't you just do the binding there, and in the callback Function,
use .trigger(); to trigger an event.
subscribe to that event in your current view, and fire the right code when the event is triggered.
take a look at this example in JSFiddle, http://jsfiddle.net/xsvUJ/2/
this is the code used:
var app = {views: {}};
app.user = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: { name: 'Sander' },
promptName: function(){
var newname = prompt("Please may i have your name?:");
this.set({name: newname});
}
});
app.views.user = Backbone.View.extend({
el: '#user',
initialize: function(){
_.bindAll(this, "render", "myEventCatcher", "updateName");
this.model.bind("myEvent", this.myEventCatcher);
this.model.bind("change:name", this.updateName);
this.el = $(this.el);
},
render: function () {
$('h1',this.el).html('Welcome,<span class="name"> </span>');
return this;
},
updateName: function() {
var newname = this.model.get('name');
console.log(this.el, newname);
$('span.name', this.el).text(newname);
},
myEventCatcher: function(e) {
// event is caught, now do something... lets ask the user for it's name and add it in the view...
var color = this.el.hasClass('eventHappened') ? 'black' : 'red';
alert('directly subscribed to a custom event ... changing background color to ' + color);
this.el.toggleClass('eventHappened');
}
});
app.views.sidebar = Backbone.View.extend({
el: '#sidebar',
events: {
"click #fireEvent" : "myClickHandler"
},
initialize: function(){
_.bindAll(this, "myClickHandler");
},
myClickHandler: function(e) {
window.user.trigger("myEvent");
window.user.promptName();
}
});
$(function(){
window.user = new app.user({name: "sander houttekier"});
var userView = new app.views.user({model: window.user}).render();
var sidebarView = new app.views.sidebar({});
});

Update: This answer is no longer valid/right. Please see other answers below!
Why do you want to do this?
Apart from that, you could always just bind it using regular jQuery handlers. E.g.
$("#outside-element").click(this.myViewFunction);
IIRC, Backbone.js just uses the regular jQuery handlers, so you're essentially doing the same thing, but breaking the scope :)