Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices

Swarnendu De

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781783283576
• Topic: Informatica
• Subtopic: Programmazione in JavaScript
• Edition: 1

In Detail

Backbone.js is a super light framework that allows you to structure your JavaScript codes in an MV* fashion. This framework is an excellent tool when it comes to creating an organized and modular code base for web apps of any size or complexity. Although lightweight, Backbone.js results in lots of boilerplate. Learning the best practices and design patterns will help you avoid these problems and allow you to ensure that the best standards are followed.

Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices is packed with examples that will help you work with Backbone.js components. It also gives solutions to common problems faced by developers. It gives a complete overview of plugin development, large scale application architecture, and unit testing as well.

Starting with a discussion of why reducing boilerplate in your JavaScript code is essential, Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices explains how to enforce reusability in your code by creating plugins and mixins. You will learn about patterns and best practices for Backbone views, models, collections, routers, and events.

You will discover solutions to common problems that developers face through simple examples, and delve into the best open source plugins available to solve these problems when they arise. This book is an excellent collection of design and implementation patterns that will help you structure and develop complex Backbone.js applications easily.

Approach

This is a step-by-step guide to design patterns, best practices, and solutions to common problems for Backbone.js-based application development.

Who this book is for

This book is for JavaScript developers who work with Backbone.js and want to learn the best design patterns to develop complex web applications. Basic knowledge of Backbone.js and JavaScript is essential.

Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices

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Table of Contents

Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgments

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Reducing Boilerplate with Plugin Development

Basic components of Backbone.js

Using Underscore.js

Re-using code with extensions

Creating a base class

Developing plugins without extending base classes

Understanding JavaScript mixins

What is a mixin?

Creating classic mixins

Creating functional mixins

Caching mixin functions

Using curry to combine a function and arguments

Summary

2. Working with Views

Basic usage of views

Understanding the el property

Listening to view events

Displaying model data with templates

Partially updating a view

Understanding nested views

Knowing when to use subviews

Avoiding multiple DOM reflow

Re-rendering parent views

Removing parent views

Working with templates

Storing templates in an HTML file

Storing templates in a JavaScript file

Precompiling templates

Avoiding evaluation in templates

Using template helper functions

Understanding automatic model-view data binding

Using Marionette's ItemView, CollectionView, and CompositeView

ItemView

CollectionView

Working with CompositeView

Using Layout Manager

Summary

3. Working with Models

Basic usage of models

Using the defaults property

Avoiding object references in the defaults property

Data interaction with the server

Creating a model

Updating a model

Fetching a model

Deleting a model

Validating the data

Using the Backbone.Validation plugin

Configuring validation rules

Prevalidating a model with the preValidate() method

Serializing models

Understanding the relational data model

Summary

4. Working with Collections

Basic usage of collections

Performing data operations with collections

Fetching data from the server

Saving data to the server

Sorting a collection

Sorting a collection with multiple attributes

Filtering a collection

Performing basic filtering

Filtering a collection with a duplicate collection

Self-filtering with full data pointers

Understanding the collection of multiple model types

Summary

5. Routing Best Practices and Subrouting

Working with routers

Best practices for working with routers

Avoiding large functional code in route methods

Instantiating views in router methods

Using regular expressions for selective routing

Subrouting – a key to organizing complex apps

The all-in-one router

The base router

The Users module router

Summary

6. Working with Events, Sync, and Storage

Understanding custom events

A simple case study on custom events

Using an event dispatcher

Creating multiple event dispatchers

Using different event namespaces

Avoiding memory leaks with the listenTo() method

Overriding the Backbone.sync() method

Offline storage using the Backbone.LocalStorage adapter

Summary

7. Organizing Backbone Applications – Structure, Optimize, and Deploy

Understanding the application directory structure

Working with Asynchronous Module Definition

Adding Require.js to your project

Configuring dependencies

Defining a module

Creating application architecture

Managing a project directory

Organizing code with AMD

Setting up an application

Using the module pattern

Managing objects and module communication

Using the observer/PubSub pattern

Using the mediator pattern

Understanding view management

Understanding other important features

Summary

8. Unit Test, Stub, Spy, and Mock Your App

Understanding why unit testing is important

Testing with QUnit

Performing a basic test case

Understanding the QUnit module (), setup (), and teardown () methods

Testing Backbone.js components with QUnit

Using test spies, stubs, and mocks with SinonJS

Testing with spies

Testing with stubs

Testing with mocks

Difference between mocks and stubs

Summary

A. Books, Tutorials, and References

Books for reference

Tutorials

Unit testing

Other plugins and tutorials

B. Precompiling Templates on the Server Side

C. Organizing Templates with AMD and Require.js

Precompiling with the requirejs-tpl plugin

Index

Backbone.js Patterns and Best Practices

Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: January 2014

Production Reference: 1200114

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78328-357-6

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Manali Mandal (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Swarnendu De

Reviewers

Marc D. Bodley

Florian Bruniaux

Philippe Charrière

Ezekiel Chentnik

Lorenzo Pisani

Acquisition Editors

Mary Jasmine Nadar

Gregory Wild

Lead Technical Editor

Ruchita Bhansali

Technical Editors

Vrinda Amberkar Bhosale

Shubhangi H. Dhamgaye

Shweta Pant

Ritika Singh

Copy Editors

Janbal Dharmaraj

Sayanee Mukherjee

Project Coordinator

Sageer Parkar

Proofreader

Ameesha Green

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Graphics

Abhinash Sahu

Production Coordinator

Arvindkumar Gupta

Cover Work

Arvindkumar Gupta

About the Author

Swarnendu De is the director of Innofied Solution Pvt. Ltd. (http://www.innofied.com), a specialized mobile, web, and game development company. He manages technical operations and leads the JavaScript development team there. For the last seven years, he has been working with numerous JavaScript technologies including Backbone.js, Node.js, ExtJS, Sencha, and so on, and has developed more than 50 complex JavaScript-based applications thus far. He regularly writes at his personal blog, company blog, and the Tuts+ network. He has been working with Backbone.js for the last 2 years and has developed multiple, large, and complex Backbone.js-based applications using this technology.

Swarnendu lives in Kolkata—the city of joy. He loves travelling, photography, and spending time with his family. You can reach him through his website at http://www.swarnendude.com or via Twitter at @swarnendude.

Acknowledgments

Writing such a book is quite hard, especially when you are busy managing the operations and technical team at your own startup. I would like to thank my business partner, Sandip Saha, who shared the workload so that I could spend more time completing this book. Special thanks to my senior, Saikat Sengupta, who did all the editing and proofreading for each chapter—the whole journey wouldn't have been this smooth without his help.

Writing this book would never have been possible without the help of the Backbone community who have contributed to all the technologies that I have used in this...