Can someone tell me how to re fetch a Backbone collection after calling collection's create function when I create a new model?
When I call fetch on my collection after creating new model, sometimes I'm getting that model and sometimes not.
My problem is when I create a new model in my collection, I'm not getting the id back of my model and then I can't update it immediately, I need to refresh the page and then I got the id of the created model.
I tried with listenTo but I can't use it because I need to send more collections to one function.
And that my view for my bootstrap modal, on save I'm creating my model it persists to database and I'm getting all attributes in my console when I create it except models id.
Backbone view:
app.types.EditView = Backbone.View.extend({
tagName: "div",
$container: $('#containerEdit'),
template: _.template($('#itemEdit-template').html()),
events:
{
"click .save": "save",
},
initialize: function(options)
{
this.options = options;
this.$container.html(this.render());
this.start();
this.end();
},
render: function()
{
this.$el.html(this.template());
return this.$el;
},
save: function()
{
console.log("save");
$('#openModal').modal('hide');
var dan = this.model.dan_u_tjednu_usera.datum;
var mjesec = this.model.dan_u_tjednu_usera.mjesecBrojevi;
var godina = this.model.dan_u_tjednu_usera.godina;
var start = $("#start").val();
var end = $("#end").val();
var user_id = this.model.user.id;
this.model.shifts.create({day: dan, month: mjesec, year: godina, time_from: start, time_to: end, user_id: user_id});
this.options.model.el.html($("<td href='#openModal' width='25%' align='center' class='list-group test' scope='row'>" + start + " - " + end + " " + "Admin" + "</td>"));
this.model.shifts.fetch({sync: true});
console.log("test", this.model.shifts);
}
Here you can see that in my response im not getting the id attribute, on create.
And here you can see when i click on my cell i log my collection and i have not the id attribute of the created model here. And im not getting the id attribute it too when i log this.model
This is because the request sent to the server when you call Collection.create is asynchronous, the Javascript code will continue to execute before the server receives and responds to the request.
If you want to have the Model updated with the ID coming back from the server, you can specify {wait: true} in the Collection.create call. This will mean that the Collection will not have the Model added straight away, but instead only when the server responds (successfully).
In this case you should not run the fetch immediately afterwards, as it will also need to wait for the create operation to complete. You should setup any following actions to trigger when the create operation has completed. Here is an example:
var model = collection.create({field: 'abc'}, {wait: true});
model.once('sync', function() { window.alert(model.id); });
Backbone's create
Convenience to create a new instance of a model within a collection.
Equivalent to instantiating a model with a hash of attributes, saving
the model to the server, and adding the model to the set after being
successfully created.
There's no need to fetch a collection after a create, the model id and any other field are automatically merged within its attributes hash.
Fetch after model creation
While mikeapr4 is not wrong, his example could be improved.
The { wait: true } is unnecessary if the only problem comes from the fetch, not from the model already being inside the collection.
Also, once should be avoided as it's the "old" way, and instead listenToOnce should be used. See Difference between ListenTo and on.
If you really want to fetch once a model is created, using events is overkill here, and instead, using the success callback is best:
save: function() {
// ..snip...
this.model.shifts.create({ /* ...snip... */ }, {
context: this,
success: this.onModelCreated
});
},
onModelCreated: function() {
// the model is now created and its attributes are up-to-date
this.model.shifts.fetch();
}
Other notes on your code
There are no sync option in Backbone. Only a "sync" event and a sync function.
Avoid using the global jQuery selector (like $('.class-name')) and instead, whenever the element is within the view's element, use this.$('.class-name').
Also, cache the jQuery element to avoid the costly search of the find method.
Like $("#start") could be cache and reused. Only reset the cached elements when re-rendering.
The Backbone .render function should return this by convention.
Then, your rendering call should look like:
this.$container.html(this.render().el); // el is enough
Related
tl;dr
How to use backbone.stickit with a html form to change an existing model fetched from the server and only PATCH the changed attributes (changed by user input within the html form) to the server?
/tl;dr
I'm using backbone.stickit in a backbone.js application to bind a model to a HTML-form which is part of a backbone view. This works fine so far, but it becomes a little bit complicated if I'm going to save the bound model. This is because I want to use the PATCH-method and only send the changed attributes to the server. I try to illustrate what I've done so far:
Fetching the model from Server
user = new User(); //instatiate a new user-model
user.fetch(); //fetching the model from the server
console.log(user.changedAttributes()); // Returns ALL attributes, because model was empty
The last line indicates my problem, because I thought I can used the changedAtrributes() method later to get the attributes which need a patch on the server. So I tried this workaround which I found here
user.fetch({
success: function (model, response, options) {
model.set({});
}
});
user.changedAtrributes(); //Returns now "false"
Do stickit-bindings
Now I render my view and call the stickit() method on the view, to do the bindings:
//Bindings specified in the view:
[...]
bindings: {
"#username" : "username"
"#age" : "age"
}
[...]
//within the render method of the view
this.stickit();
The bindings work fine and my user model gets updated, but changedAttributes() remain empty all the time.
Save the model to the server
If the user has made all required changes, the model should be saved to the server. I want to use the PATCH method and only send the changed attributes to the server.
user.save(null, {patch:true}); //PATCH method is used but ALL attributes are sent to the server
OR
user.save(user.changedAttributes(),{patch : true});
With the second approach there are different outcomes:
if I didn't use the user.set({}) woraround, all attributes get PATCHED to the server
if I use the user.set({}) woraround the return value of changedAttributes() is "false" and all attributes are PUT to the server
if I call a user.set("age","123") before calling save(), then only the age attribute is PATCHED to the server
So outcome 3 is my desired behaviour, but there are 2 problems with this: First stickit doesn't seem to use the set() method on the model to update the attributes if they are changed within the html-form. And second, if you call set() with one attribute and afterwards with another, only the second attributes is returned by changedAttributes().
Maybe I just overseen something in the backbone or backbone.stickit docs, so I didn't get the desired behaviour working. Any ideas about that?
NOTE: As found out the problem wasn't directly related to backbone.stickit, more to backbone itself.
Solved this problem on my own, maybe this helps someone who may stumble upon this question:
Backbone only keep track of unchanged attributes, but not of unsaved attributes. So with
model.changedAttributes();
you will only get the attributes of the model, which was changed since the last
model.set("some_attribute","some_value")
Finally I stumbled upon backbone.trackit which is a backbone.js plugin maintained by the creator of backbone.stickit. With this plugin you can track unsaved attributes (all attributes which have changed since the last model.save()) and then use them in the save-method of a model. Example (my usecase):
Backbone.View.extend({
bindings: {
"#name" : "name",
"#age" : "age"
},
initialize: function () {
this.model = new User();
this.model.fetch({
success: function (model, response, options) {
//this tells backbone.stickit to track unsaved attributes
model.startTracking();
}
});
},
render: function () {
this.$el.html(tmpl);
this.stickit();
return this;
},
onSaveUserToServer: function () {
//first argument: only unsaved attributes, second argument: tell backbone to PATCH
this.model.save(this.model.unsavedAttributes(), { patch: true });
});
});
On a collection, I am using the create function to save a new instance of a model to the server. This POST request is successful and I return the new model.
{id:135, type:tweet, start:08:00:00, end:14:00:00, text:foo, date:2013-04-01}
However, I need to update the collection with the new model.id that has been returned from the server and it appears that the sync method in create does not do this. Should I add a callback to the create function to update the model with it's changed attributes?
var AddScheduleBlock = Backbone.View.extend({
saveScheduleBlock: function (ev){
var text = "foo"
this.model.set({
text: text
});
var block = blockCollection.create(this.model, {
silent: true,
wait: true
});
});
Backbone's Collection create method calls Model save method underneath (code reference). You don't need to set the id yourself, Backbone does that for you.
The Model save method sets the response attributes into the model (code reference)
If the create is not doing the job, you should try debugging it.
I have a form that create a model for a collection. That fires an add event to the collection. I have that binded to a method:
this.collection.bind('add', this.addOne, this)
fires...
addOne: function(tenant) {
var self = this
var collection = this.collection
var view = new TenantView({model: tenant,collection:collection});
self.$el.append(view.render().el);
}
The create syncs it to the database but, the new appended view still isNew to backbone since it hasn't fetched the collection and grabbed the id for the new model.
My question, how can I grab the synced model from the server (that has the id and isn't isNew) without fetching the entire collection then append it?
Use the sync event instead of add...
this.collection.bind('sync', this.addOne, this);
The add event gets fired immediately when calling create; but sync gets fired once the server has responded to the create method, so it should include the correct model id.
You can also wait for the server's response, before adding the model to the collection -- to do that use wait: true in create's options hash: collection.create({ ... }, { wait: true }).
Creating a model will cause an immediate "add" event to be triggered on the collection, as well as a "sync" event, once the model has been successfully created on the server. Pass {wait: true} if you'd like to wait for the server before adding the new model to the collection.
I have some code where I want a NoteCollectionView to add a new Note to the NoteCollection. This is triggered by a function newNote in the NoteCollectionView:
newNote: function(data) {
var note = new Note(data);
this.collection.add(note);
},
I'm still very new to backbone, and I want to make sure this syncs with the server. The concerns I have are:
1) Will simply adding this note to the collection trigger a save() from the server, and update the model with the ID that the server gives it? Or,
2) If the server does not update my model and give me an actual ID, how do I save the model with note.save() and get back an ID from the server?
To address your first question, no, .add will not trigger any kind of call to the server; it will only add a model to a collection.
However, you do have a couple options. One would be to create the new note model, save it to the database, and then add it to the collection:
newNote: function(data) {
var note = new Note(data);
note.save();
this.collection.add(note);
}
The second option is to simply use Backbone's collection.create method. Give it a hash of attributes and it will
Create the model
Save it to the database
Add it to the collection
All in one fell swoop, like so:
newNote: function(data) {
return this.collection.create(data);
}
collection.create also returns the newly created model, illustrated by my return statement above.
Im starting to build a new app and I would like to use Backbone as my framework. Below is a basic workflow that this (and most apps) follow.
What is the correct/best model to use with Backbone?
Old Way
User navigates to a page.
Selects "Create New widget"
User is presented with a form filled with inputs
At this point I would probably take the values entered (after passing basic validation), wrap them up and send them to the server via an ajax request
Request comes back as "OK" and the user is taken somewhere else (This step isn't entirely important)
Some basic pseudo-code
// Grab values
var userName = $('.UserName').val(),
dateOfBirth = $('.DateOfBirth').val();
...
...
...
$.ajax({
url: "/Webservices/ProcessStuff",
success: function(result){
if (result) {
// Render something or doing something else
} else {
// Error message
}
},
error: function () {
// Error message
}
});
Backbone way
Using the same example as above; I assume I'd have a model for the user information and a view to display the inputs. However, processing the actual call to the web service is one of the things I'm confused about. Where does this need to go? In the model or in the view click of some "Go" button?
Model.UserInformation = Backbone.Model.extend({ username: null, dateOfBirth: null });
Maybe also have a collection of these UserInformation models?
UserInformations = Backbone.Collection.extend({ model: Model.UserInformation' });
So bottom line what I'm asking is...
What is the best way to achieve this functionality?
What is the proper way to actually perform CRUD? Where to put the actual call to delete/update/create/etc?
You have the right idea and Backbone should make it easy for you to get things done using the same basic high level overview of your workflow. Note that you're still going to be using jQuery for this functionality - you'll just be doing it through the organizational aspects of Backbone's types.
There are a couple of key items that you'll want in place, most of which you already mentioned:
A backbone View to coordinate the HTML elements with your Javascript code
A backbone Model to store all of the data that the user input into the HTML elements
A back-end server that can handle RESTful JSON calls via AJAX requests from jQuery
I think the only thing you are missing is that the model has a save method on it, which wraps up all of the logic to call the create / update routes on your back-end server. The model also has a delete method to handle deletion from the server.
As a very simple example, here's a form that renders an HTML template to the screen, gathers the user input in to the model and then saves it to the server.
An HTML template:
<script id="myTemplate" type="text/x-jquery-tmpl">
First name: <input id="first_name"><br/>
Last Name: <input id="last_name"><br/>
<button id="save">Save!</button>
</script>
The code to run this:
MyModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
urlRoot: "/myModel"
});
MyView = Backbone.View.extend({
template: "#myTemplate",
events: {
"change #first_name": "setFirstName",
"change #last_name: "setLastName",
"click #save": "save"
},
initialize: function(){
_.bindAll(this, "saveSuccess", "saveError");
},
setFirstName: function(e){
var val = $(e.currentTarget).val();
this.model.set({first_name: val});
},
setLastName: function(e){
var val = $(e.currentTarget).val();
this.model.set({last_name: val});
},
save: function(e){
e.preventDefault(); // prevent the button click from posting back to the server
this.model.save(null, {success: this.saveSuccess, error: this.saveError);
},
saveSuccess: function(model, response){
// do things here after a successful save to the server
},
saveError: function(model, response){
// do things here after a failed save to the server
},
render: function(){
var html = $(this.template).tmpl();
$(el).html(html);
}
});
myModel = new MyModel();
myView = new MyView({model: myModel});
myView.render();
$("#someDivOnMyPage").html(myView.el);
This will give you a quick start for a form that saves a new model back to the server.
There are a couple of things your server needs to do:
Return a valid HTTP response code (200 or some other response that says everything was "ok")
Return the JSON that was sent to the server, including any data that the server assigned to the model such as an id field.
It's very important that your server do these things and include an id field in the response. Without an id field from the server, your model will never be able to update itself when you call save again. It will only try to create a new instance on the server again.
Backbone uses the id attribute of a model to determine if it should create or update a model when pushing data to the back end. The difference between creating a new model and saving one is only the id attribute. You call save on the model whether it's a new or an edited model.
A delete works the same way - you just call destroy on the model and it does a call back to the server to do the destroy. With some HTML that has a "delete" link or button, you would attach to the click event of that HTML element the same as I've shown for the "Save" button. Then in the callback method for the delete click, you would call this.model.destroy() and pass any parameters you want, such as success and error callbacks.
Note that I included a urlRoot on the model, as well. This, or a url function are needed on a model if the model is not part of a collection. If the model is part of a collection, the collection must specify the url.
I hope that helps.
If the "el" of the view is the form tag, then you could probably use the built in event object to bind a function to submit, but if the root of the view is something else, then you'll need to attach the click handler in the render function.