Structuring j. Query with Backbone. Java. Script is more important than ever for building highly interactive Web applications.
Libraries and frameworks, such as Backbone. Marionette. js, Ember. Angular. js are popping up and growing quickly in both popularity and features. These libraries and frameworks make it easier to build very complex and powerful applications in a browser. They help usher in a new era of Single Page Applications (SPAs), creating an unprecedented level of interactivity and usefulness on the Web. But not every Web app or every page on a site needs to be built with a SPA framework in order to be interactive. A lot of applications are better suited to a smaller scale of functionality.
In this article, we will try to look at the View classes in Backbone.js and see how view classes help us in updating the relevant parts of the application easily. The biggest problem while writing JavaScript. The event schedule planner template is designed for your help to track all important milestones of your event. The template can be customized according to your.
For these pages, there is a need for a high level of interactivity without the need for client- side routing and other SPA features. With a reduction in functional requirements for smaller pages, there is also a reduction in the list of appropriate frameworks and libraries for building the page. Many developers choose to write code with nothing more than j.
Query when they don. The interactivity provided by j. Query can be easily augmented with plug- ins and add- ons to create further interactions. One of the difficulties in building large j.
Query applications is keeping code organized. It is very easy to get lost in a Christmas tree of doom- a deeply nested list of callback functions that seems to hold every single feature and interaction. The truth is that j. Query does not provide any guidance on organization or structure for code. The good news is that you don't have to choose exclusively between j. Query and well- structured code that SPA libraries and frameworks help you to write.
You can combine the simplicity and interactivity of j. Query- based applications with the building blocks of good structure from Backbone. What is Backbone. Backbone. js is a library of components that helps developers add structure to Java. Script code in Web applications. Models encapsulate the data and associated behavior of data within an application.
Collection: A collection of models. Collections allow groups of related models to be held together and managed as a whole.
Common collection features such as adding and removing, iteration, filtering are provided. View: A generalized collection of methods and the configuration for managing and manipulating the DOM, and for displaying data from Models and Collections. Views provide a well structured approach to using j. Query's DOM events, they allow easy rendering of HTML templates, and more. Events: A minimal yet robust implementation of the observer design pattern for Java.
Script objects. Events glue Backbone. Every object in Backbone. Events system, allowing every Backbone. Router and History: A set of objects that manage the browser's history with URL hash fragments or HTML5's push.
- Backbone.js gives structure to web applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects.
- If you head to your console, you should be able to render the same HTML from the external template that you have done twice so far: . Collections in Backbone are ordered sets of models. You can bind 'change'.
- The EmberJS SPA template is designed to get you started quickly building interactive client-side web apps using EmberJS.
Abstract: Backbone.js is a popular JavaScript framework used in Single Page Applications. In this article we will take a look at Backbone.js and how you can use some of its features. The web development world is changing.
State technology. Routers and the History object allow an application state to be bookmarked or linked, reloading the page to exactly the place where it was left. There are other small parts of Backbone. For a high level overview and for most applications, though, these six objects are the most important. Looking beyond the individual pieces of Backbone.
Backbone. js fits within the Model- View- * (MV*) family of patterns quite clearly. It provides a set of objects that help to organize models and views, after all. But it doesn't quite fit into an MVC pattern, or MVVM pattern, or MVP, or anything else.
Beyond this, it doesn't make much difference what people call it. Building a Contact List. Dozens of application types require the storage and retrieval of contact information for other people, such as a CRM system, a time tracking app, accounting, or any of a number of other things. And although a contact app may not have the most exciting feature set ever, it provides a great example of an app that could use a high level of interactivity, but doesn. You would want to allow multiple phone numbers and email addresses in a real application, but Backbone. This makes it slightly more challenging to handle multiple values or nested objects and collections, although it.
It only needs a list view and a single form to add and edit a contact. Clicking save sends the contact to the server. Clicking cancel clears the form and hides it again. From the list of contacts, clicking the Edit button shows the same form as the Add process, but populates the form with existing contact information. Clicking save sends any edits that were made back to the server. Saving also updates the contact list with the latest information.
Canceling discards any changes that were made and does not update the list. An API Server. Backbone. REST- like API for data.
This is easy to set up in most programming languages, include Ruby on Rails, Node. JS, ASP. NET MVC (with Web. API), Python's Django, various PHP frameworks, and more. The important aspect is not the technology stack that the server uses. Rather, the emphasis is on the REST- like API that is provided for the various resources.
Backbone. js was developed in a Rails world and expects the API it communicates with to look like a Rails- generated API. Any resource that a Backbone. API on the Web server that accepts and returns JSON, and conforms to the Rails URL and HTTP verb conventions. In the case of a contact list, the API might look like this: GET /contacts: Return all contacts. POST /contacts: Create a new contact using the data from the form, posting it as a JSON document. GET /contacts/: id: Get the contact specified by the : id parameter. PUT /contacts/: id: Update an existing contact using form data that was posted as a JSON document.
The contact to update is identified by the : id parameter. DELETE /contacts/: id: Delete the contact specified by the : id parameter.
The contact application built in this article is technology and server framework agnostic, as long as the server conforms to this basic API structure. How you implement the server stack is entirely up to you. The Add Form. The first thing that needs to happen in the Java. Script for this app, is to handle the Add button click.
Add a standard j. Query DOMReady callback function to ensure that the DOM is ready and available.
Then, inside of the DOMReady callback function, add a j. Query selector that finds the #add element and listens to the click event. Call prevent. Default on the event args to make sure the button click doesn't post back to the server.
This function finds the #add- edit- form element and shows it using an animation. Add. Form(). This button exists within the #add- edit- form, but it can also be selected by ID, directly. Within this click handler, grab all of the data from the form input elements and post it to the server to create a new contact. When this is done, update the list of contacts with the new contact information, as shown in Listing 1. When the POST back to the server succeeds, it calls the update.
List and clear. Form functions, which do what you expect (the code for these has been omitted, for brevity). Without completing the functionality for this simple application, you can see that the code is quickly turning into a mash of functions hanging out in the middle of nowhere. This style of loosely structured code is fairly typical for small pages with j. Query. Nearly every Java.
Script and j. Query developer has written similar code, and this style will continue to be popular as it gets the job done for small tasks. It is possible to write well- structured j. Query code, even if you aren. That tends to lead to re- inventing things when you should be focused on getting things done.
Instead of spending time on building underlying structure, use the models, collections, views, and other types that Backbone. From j. Query to Backbone. A Migration. It's tempting to jump straight in to Backbone. Starting from scratch is easy. The real challenge lies in taking existing code and migrating it to something else.
Taking a migration approach to Backbone. Shows that Backbone. Shows the similarities and differences between writing j. Query on its own and using Backbone. Query. The Add form that was built with plain j. Query code will be migrated to Backbone. Before that can happen, though, you'll need to configure Backbone.
Setting up Backbone. Backbone. js technically only has one hard dependency: Underscore. Underscore. js is like Batman's utility belt: an indispensable collection of tools, utilities, and toys that make Java. Script easier to work with.
It brings many features of other languages, and some features from future versions of Java. Script, into existing browsers. Underscore. js, like Backbone. Jeremy Ashkenas, and is maintained in the Document.
Cloud organization on Git. Hub. If you want to use Backbone. View to organize your DOM manipulation and interaction code, though, you also need a DOM manipulation library; j. Query is the natural (and most popular) choice in this case. Lastly, Backbone. Java. Script document format called JSON. All browsers support the JSON format natively these days.
If you need to support older or specialized browsers that don't support JSON directly, you will need to include the JSON2. Douglas Crockford, the creator of the JSON standard. With all of these files downloaded into a /js folder in your project, the script tag references in your HTML will look like this: < script src=. Backbone. js must be listed after j. Query and Underscore.
If you don't get at least this part right, Backbone. Once you have Backbone. HTML, you can get started with the migration. Backbone. View and the Add Form. Backbone. View is the easiest way to introduce Backbone.
At its heart, a Backbone. View is nothing more than a few simple conventions for organizing j. Query code. Of course it allows for much more than just that, but starting with j. Query code organization makes it easy to get going. Getting started with nearly anything in Backbone. If you're familiar with Java, this method name should sound familiar.
If you're familiar with C#, this is the equivalent of . The extend method in Backbone.