% -*- Mode: poly-noweb+coffee; -*- \documentclass{article} \usepackage{noweb} \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} \usepackage{hyperref} \begin{document} % Generate code and documentation with: % % noweave -filter l2h -delay -x -html backbonestore.nw | htmltoc > backbonestore.html % notangle -Rstore.js backbonestore.nw > store.js % notangle -Rindex.html backbonestore.nw > index.html \section{Introduction} This is version 2.0 of \textbf{The Backbone Store}, a brief tutorial on using [[backbone.js]]. \nwanchorto{http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/}{Backbone.js} is a popular Model-View-Controller (MVC) library that provides a framework for creating data-rich, single-page web applications. It provides (1) a two-layer scheme for separating data from presentation, (2) a means of automatically synchronizing data with a server in a RESTful manner, and (3) a mechanism for making some views bookmarkable and navigable. There are a number of other good tutorials for Backbone (See: \nwanchorto{http://www.plexical.com/blog/2010/11/18/backbone-js-tutorial/}{Meta Cloud}, \nwanchorto{http://andyet.net/blog/2010/oct/29/building-a-single-page-app-with-backbonejs-undersc/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter}{\&Yet's Tutorial}, \nwanchorto{http://bennolan.com/2010/11/24/backbone-jquery-demo.html}{Backbone Mobile} (which is written in \nwanchorto{http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/}{Coffee}), and \nwanchorto{http://joshbohde.com/2010/11/25/backbonejs-and-django/}{Backbone and Django}. However, a couple of months ago I was attempting to learn Sammy.js, a library very similar to Backbone, and they had a nifty tutorial called \nwanchorto{http://code.quirkey.com/sammy/tutorials/json_store_part1.html}{The JsonStore}. In the spirit of The JSON Store, I present The Backbone Store. \subsection{Literate Program} A note: this article was written with the \nwanchorto{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming}{Literate Programming} toolkit \nwanchorto{http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/noweb/}{Noweb}. Where you see something that looks like \\<\\\\>, it's a placeholder for code described elsewhere in the document. Placeholders with an equal sign at the end of them indicate the place where that code is defined. The link (U->) indicates that the code you're seeing is used later in the document, and (<-U) indicates it was used earlier but is being defined here. \subsection{Revision} This is version 2.0 of \textit{The Backbone Store}. It includes changes to the store based upon a better understanding of what Backbone.js can do. This version uses jQuery 1.6.2 and Backbone 0.5.2. \subsection{The Store} To demonstrate the basics of Backbone, I'm going to create a simple one-page application, a store for record albums, with two unique views: a list of all products and a product detail view. I will also put a shopping cart widget on the page that shows the user how many products he or she has dropped into the cart. I'll use jQuery's [[fadeIn()]] and [[fadeOut()]] features to transition between the catalog and the product detail pages. \subsection{Models, Collections, and Controllers} Backbone's data layer provides two classes, [[Model]] and [[Collection]]. To use the Model, you inherit from it, modify the subclasss as needed, and then create new objects from the subclass by constructing the model with a JSON object. You modify the object by calling [[get()]] or [[set()]] on named attributes, rather than on the Model object directly; this allows Model to notify other interested objects that the object has been changed. And Model comes with [[fetch()]] and [[save()]] methods that will automatically pull or push a JSON representatino of the model to a server, if the Model has [[url]] as one of its attributes. Collections are just that: lists of objects of a specific model. You extend the Collection class in a child class, and as you do you inform the Collection of what Model it represents, what URL you use to push/pull the full list of objects, and on what field the list should be sorted by default. If you attempt to add a raw JSON object to a collection, it constructs a corresponding Model object out of the JSON and manipulates that. I will be getting the data from a simplified JSON file that comes in the download; it contains six record albums that the store sells. (Unlike the JSON store, these albums do not exist; the covers were generated during a round of \nwanchorto{http://elfs.livejournal.com/756709.html}{The Album Cover Game}, a meme one popular with graphic designers.) For our purposes, then, we have a [[Product]] and a [[ProductCollection]]. A popular convention in Backbone is to use concrete names for models, and Name\textbf{Collection} for the collection. Models are duck-typed by default; they do not care what you put into them. So all I need to say is that a [[Product]] is-a [[Model]]. The Collection is straightforward as well; I tell it what model it represents, override the [[initialize()]] method (which is empty in the Backbone default) to inform this Collection that it has a url, and create the comparator function for default sorting. <>= var Product = Backbone.Model.extend({}) var ProductCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({ model: Product, initialize: function(models, options) { this.url = options.url; }, comparator: function(item) { return item.get('title'); } }); @ For the shopping cart, our cart will hold [[Item]]s, and the cart itself will be an [[ItemCollection]]. Shoppings carts are a little odd; the convention is that an [[Item]] is not a single instance of a product, but a reference to the products and a quantity. One thing we will be doing is changing the quantity, so I have provided a convenience function for the Item that allows you to do that. Now, no client classes such as Views need to know how the quantity is updated. Also, it would be nice to know the total price of the Item. <>= var Item = Backbone.Model.extend({ update: function(amount) { this.set({'quantity': amount}, {silent: true}); this.collection.trigger('change', this); }, price: function() { console.log(this.get('product').get('title'), this.get('quantity')); return this.get('product').get('price') * this.get('quantity'); } }); @ The [[ItemCollection]] is a little trickier. It is entirely client-side; it has no synchronization with the backend at all. But it does have a model. The [[ItemCollection]] must be able to find an Item in the cart to update when a view needs it. If the Item is not in the Collection, it must create one. The method [[getOrCreateItemForProduct]] does this. It uses the [[detect()]] method, a method [[Collection]] inherits from Backbone's one dependency, Underscore.js; [[detect()]] returns the first [[Item]] in the [[ItemCollection]] for which the function returns [[true]]. Also, when I have to create a new Item, I want to add it to the collection, and I pass the parameter [[silent]], which prevents the Collection from notifying event subscribers that the collection has changed. Since this is an Item with zero objects in it, this is not a change to what the collection represents, and I don't want Views to react without having to. Finally, I add two methods that return the total count of objects in the collection (not [[Items]], but actual [[Products]]), and the total cost of those items in the cart. The Underscore method [[reduce()]] does this by taking a function for adding progressive items, and a starting value. <>= var ItemCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({ model: Item, getOrCreateItemForProduct: function(product) { var i, pid = product.get('id'), o = this.detect(function(obj) { return (obj.get('product').get('id') == pid); }); if (o) { return o; } i = new Item({'product': product, 'quantity': 0}) this.add(i, {silent: true}) return i; }, getTotalCount: function() { return this.reduce(function(memo, obj) { return obj.get('quantity') + memo; }, 0); }, getTotalCost: function() { return this.reduce(function(memo, obj) { return obj.price() + memo; }, 0); } }); @ \subsection {Views} Backbone Views are simple policy objects. They have a root DOM element, the contents of which they manipulate and to which they listen for events, and a model or collection they represent within that element. Views are not rigid; it's just Javascript and the DOM, and you can hook external events as needed. More importantly, a View is sensitive to events \textit{within its model or collection}, and can respond to changes automatically. This way, if you have a rich data ecosystem, when changes to one data item results in a cascade of changes throughout your datasets, the views will receive ``change'' events and can update themselves accordingly. I will show how this works with the shopping cart widget. To achieve the [[fadeIn/fadeOut]] animations and enforce consistency, I'm going to do some basic object-oriented programming. I'm going to create a base class that contains knowledge about the main area into which all views are rendered, and that manages these transitions. With this technique, you can do lots of navigation-related tricks: you can highlight where the user is in breadcrumb-style navigation; you can change the class and highlight an entry on a nav bar; you can add and remove tabs from the top of the viewport as needed. <>= var _BaseView = Backbone.View.extend({ parent: $('#main'), className: 'viewport', @ The above says that I am creating a class called \texttt{BaseView} and defining two fields. The first, 'parent', will be used by all child views to identify into which DOM object the View's root element will be rendered. The second defines a common class we will use for the purpose of identifying these views to jQuery. Backbone automatically creates a new [[DIV]] object with the class 'viewport' when a view constructor is called. It will be our job to attach that [[DIV]] to the DOM. In the HTML, you will see the [[DIV\#main]] object where most of the work will be rendered. <>= initialize: function() { this.el = $(this.el); this.el.hide(); this.parent.append(this.el); return this; }, @ %$ The method above ensures that the element is rendered, but not visible, and contained within the [[DIV\#main]]. Note also that the element is not a sacrosanct object; the Backbone.View is more a collection of standards than a mechanism of enforcement, and so defining it from a raw DOM object to a jQuery object will not break anything. Next, we will define the hide and show functions: <>= hide: function() { if (this.el.is(":visible") === false) { return null; } promise = $.Deferred(_.bind(function(dfd) { this.el.fadeOut('fast', dfd.resolve)}, this)); return promise.promise(); }, show: function() { if (this.el.is(':visible')) { return; } promise = $.Deferred(_.bind(function(dfd) { this.el.fadeIn('fast', dfd.resolve) }, this)) return promise.promise(); } }); @ \textbf{Deferred} is a new feature of jQuery. It is a different mechanism for invoking callbacks by attaching attributes and behavior to the callback function. By using this, we can say thing like ``\textit{When} everything is hidden (when every deferred returned from \textbf{hide} has been resolved), \textit{then} show the appropriate viewport.'' Deferreds are incredibly powerful, and this is a small taste of what can be done with them. Before we move on, let's take a look at the HTML we're going to use for our one-page application: <>= The Backbone Store <> <> <>
@ It's not much to look at, but already you can see where that [[DIV\#main]] goes, as well as where we are putting our templates. The [[DIV\#main]] will host a number of viewports, only one of which will be visible at any given time. Our first view is going to be the product list view, named, well, guess. Or just look down a few lines. This gives us a chance to discuss one of the big confusions new Backbone users frequently have: \textit{What is \texttt{render()} for?}. Render is not there to show or hide the view. \texttt{Render()} is there to \textit{change the view when the underlying data changes}. It renders the data into a view. In our functionality, we use the parent class's \texttt{show()} and \texttt{hide()} methods to actually show the view. That call to [[\_super\_]] is a Backbone idiom for calling a method on the parent object. It is, as far as anyone knows, the only way to invoke a superclass method if it has been redefined in a subclass. It is rather ugly, but useful. <>= var ProductListView = _BaseView.extend({ id: 'productlistview', template: $("#store_index_template").html(), initialize: function(options) { this.constructor.__super__.initialize.apply(this, [options]) this.collection.bind('reset', _.bind(this.render, this)); }, render: function() { this.el.html(_.template(this.template, {'products': this.collection.toJSON()})) return this; } }); @ %$ That \texttt{\_.template()} method is provided by undescore.js, and is a full-featured, javascript-based templating method. It's not the fastest or the most feature-complete, but it is more than adequate for our purposes and it means we don't have to import another library. It vaguely resembles ERB from Rails, so if you are familiar with that, you should understand this fairly easily. And here is the HTML: <>= @ %$ One of the most complicated objects in our ecosystem is the product view. It actually does something! The prefix ought to be familiar, but note that we are again using [[\#main]] as our target; we will be showing and hiding the various [[DIV]] objects in [[\#main]] again and again. The only trickiness here is twofold: the (rather hideous) means by which one calls the method of a parnt class from a child class via Backbone's class heirarchy (this is most definitely \textbf{not} Javascript standard), and keeping track of the itemcollection object, so we can add and change items as needed. <>= var ProductView = _BaseView.extend({ id: 'productitemview', template: $("#store_item_template").html(), initialize: function(options) { this.constructor.__super__.initialize.apply(this, [options]) this.itemcollection = options.itemcollection; this.item = this.itemcollection.getOrCreateItemForProduct(this.model); return this; }, @ %$ There are certain events in which we're interested: keypresses and clicks on the update button and the quantity form. (Okay, ``UQ'' isn't the best for ``update quantity''. I admit that.) Note the peculiar syntax of ``EVENT SELECTOR'': ``methodByName'' for each event. Backbone tells us that the only events it can track by itself are those that jQuery's ``delegate'' understands. As of 1.5, that seems to be just about all of them. <>= events: { "keypress .uqf" : "updateOnEnter", "click .uq" : "update", }, @ And now we will deal with the update. This code ought to be fairly readable: the only specialness is that it's receiving an event, and we're ``silencing'' the call to [[cart.add()]], which means that the cart collection will not publish any events. There are only events when the item has more than zero, and that gets called on [[cart_item.update()]]. In the original tutorial, this code had a lot of responsibility for managing the shopping cart, looking into it and seeing if it had an item for this product, and there was lots of accessing the model to get its id and so forth. All of that has been put into the shopping cart model, which is where it belongs: \textit{knowledge about items and each item's relationship to its collection belongs in the collection}. Look closely at the [[update()]] method. The reference [[this.\$]] is a special Backbone object that limits selectors to objects inside the element of the view. Without it, jQuery would have found the first input field of class 'uqf' in the DOM, not the one for this specific view. [[this.\$('.uqf')]] is shorthand for [[$('uqf', this.el)]], and helps clarify what it is you're looking for. %' <>= update: function(e) { e.preventDefault(); this.item.update(parseInt(this.$('.uqf').val())); }, updateOnEnter: function(e) { if (e.keyCode == 13) { return this.update(e); } }, @ %$ The render is straightforward: <>= render: function() { this.el.html(_.template(this.template, this.model.toJSON())); return this; } }); @ The product detail template is fairly straightforward. There is no [[underscore]] magic because there are no loops. <>= @ So, let's talk about that shopping cart thing. We've been making the point that when it changes, when you call [[item.update]] within the product detail view, any corresponding subscribing views sholud automatically update. <>= var CartWidget = Backbone.View.extend({ el: $('.cart-info'), template: $('#store_cart_template').html(), initialize: function() { this.collection.bind('change', _.bind(this.render, this)); }, @ %$ And there is the major magic. CartWidget will be initialized with the ItemCollection; when there is any change in the collection, the widget will receive the 'change' event, which will automatically trigger the call to the widget's [[render()]] method. The render method will refill that widget's HTML with a re-rendered template with the new count and cost, and then wiggle it a little to show that it did changed: <>= render: function() { this.el.html( _.template(this.template, { 'count': this.collection.getTotalCount(), 'cost': this.collection.getTotalCost() })).animate({paddingTop: '30px'}) .animate({paddingTop: '10px'}); } }); @ And the HTML for the template is dead simple: <>= @ %$ Lastly, there is the [[Router]]. In Backbone, the Router is a specialized View for invoking other views. It listens for one specific event: when the [[window.location.hash]] object, the part of the URL after the hash symbol, changes. When the hash changes, the Router invokes an event handler. The Router, since its purpose is to control the major components of the one-page display, is also a good place to keep all the major components of the sytem. We'll keep track of the [[Views]], the [[ProductCollection]], and the [[ItemCollection]]. <>= var BackboneStore = Backbone.Router.extend({ views: {}, products: null, cart: null, @ There are two events we care about: view the list, and view a detail. They are routed like this: <>= routes: { "": "index", "item/:id": "product", }, @ Like most Backbone objects, the Router has an initialization feature. I create a new, empty shopping cart and corresponding cart widget, which doesn't render because it's empty. I then create a new [[ProductCollection]] and and corresponding [[ProductListView]]. These are all processes that happen immediately. What does not happen immediately is the [[fetch()]] of data from the back-end server. For that, I use the jQuery deferred again, because [[fetch()]] ultimately returns the results of [[sync()]], which returns the result of an [[ajax()]] call, which is a deferred. <>= initialize: function(data) { this.cart = new ItemCollection(); new CartWidget({collection: this.cart}); this.products = new ProductCollection([], { url: 'data/items.json'}); this.views = { '_index': new ProductListView({ collection: this.products }) }; $.when(this.products.fetch({reset: true})) .then(function() { window.location.hash = ''; }); return this; }, @ %$ There are two things to route \textit{to}, but we must also route \textit{from}. Remember that our two major views, the product list and the product detail, inherited from [[\_BaseView]], which has the [[hide()]] and [[show()]] methods. We want to hide all the views, then show the one invoked. First, let's hide every view we know about. [[hide()]] returns either a deferred (if the object is being hidden) or null. The [[_.select()]] call at the end means that this method returns only an array of deferreds. <>= hideAllViews: function () { return _.select( _.map(this.views, function(v) { return v.hide(); }), function (t) { return t != null }); }, @ Showing the product list view is basically hiding everything, then showing the index: <>= index: function() { var view = this.views['_index']; $.when(this.hideAllViews()).then( function() { return view.show(); }); }, @ %$ On the other hand, showing the product detail page is a bit trickier. In order to avoid re-rendering all the time, I am going to create a view for every product in which the user shows interest, and keep it around, showing it a second time if the user wants to see it a second time. Not that we pass it the [[ItemCollection]] instance. It uses this to create a new item, which (if you recall from our discussion of [[getOrCreateItemForProduct()]]) is automagically put into the collection as needed. Which means all we need to do is update this item and the item collection \textit{changes}, which in turn causes the [[CartWidget]] to update automagically as well. <>= product: function(id) { var product, v, view; product = this.products.detect(function(p) { return p.get('id') == (id); }) view = ((v = this.views)['item.' + id]) || (v['item.' + id] = ( new ProductView({model: product, itemcollection: this.cart}).render())); $.when(this.hideAllViews()).then( function() { view.show(); }); } }); @ %$ Finally, we need to start the program <>= $(document).ready(function() { new BackboneStore(); Backbone.history.start(); }); @ %$ \section{The Program} Here's the entirety of the program: <>= (function() { <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> }).call(this); @ And that's it. Put it all together, and you've got yourself a working Backbone Store. This code is available at my github at \nwanchorto{https://github.com/elfsternberg/The-Backbone-Store}{The Backbone Store}. \end{document}