Running functions on an emberjs component - ember.js

I am wondering what is the best way to control behaviour on a component.
In my case I have a {{stop-watch}} component.
I want to start, stop and reset the component via the routes using the {{stop-watch}} in their template. The start and reset function should allow me to somehow pass the number of seconds to run for.
How can this be done when a component only really supports bindings and not the ability to execute behaviour?
This is the only way I can think of doing it. In this case; isStarted,isStopped and isReset would be boolean variables and I would toggle them to control the component.
{{stop-watch start=isStarted stop=isStopped reset=isReset timeout=timoutSeconds}}
Toggle like this for each property binding in the controller
this.set('isStarted', !this.get('isStarted'));
Observe like this for each property in the component
startUpdated : function() {
//start the timer
}.property('start')
In my opinion the above solution is very inelegant and verbose and there must be a better way to achieve this.
Are the any best practices for this scenario?

You should have a model that possesses a state and methods to control the state.
You set up an instance of the model in the route, then you'll be able to control it both in the controller and the stop-watch component.
The component will automatically update its looks based on the properties of the model, and will be able to call methods on the model via actions on the component.

Related

Bind a class to dynamic service property

I have a service which I call state that just handles loading states and I can expand it to whatever I may want in the future. I needed this service so I could have different components talk to each other in a way so they would know if another component is loading or doing something.
Anyway I have this button that I use in different places that just sends an action, and then turns into a spinner until that action is complete.
They way the loading animation works currently is classNameBindings: ['state.working'],
However if I now have two of these buttons on screen at the same time, and I call this.state.set('working',true); all the buttons are now spinning.
I would rather pass in a property name to the button component that tells it what property to watch on the state service to determine if it should add the working class or not
I'm just having some trouble figuring out how to make this work in the component.
How can I have the class binding watch for a dynamic property name that will be passed to the component as something like loadingPropertyName so each button component can watch a different property for it's working class binding.
You can do something like this:
init() {
this.set('classNameBindings', 'state.'+this.get('stateProp'));
this._super();
}

Ember: Call a component action from a controller

I have a component working pretty well and now I need to call it inside a controller.
Scenario: I have an ember application, and I have an update button controller, I did a component that just display a toast(Materializecss) with some message I pass as parameter to the component and both the button and the toast are working well separately. I need to call inside the button controller this component to display to the user if the update was successfully or not using this component I did. Any sugestion of how can I call this component inside the controller? Thanks
have a look at the ember-twiddle I created and see if it fits the bill, in regards to what you want to do ?
You should instead of thinking "calling the component", rather, how can I push updated attributes/data to the component.
Ember relies on the "Data Dow Actions Up" pattern. This implies that you cannot make an explicit call to a component action from a controller. (see https://dockyard.com/blog/2015/10/14/best-practices-data-down-actions-up for example)
Instead, a better design should be to define a service to manage data : messages to be "toasted". Then make this service available by injecting in in your controller. You will be able to call methods to register a new messages and generate new data.
Provide also a component template (to be included in your own templates) that will be in charge to display the new message, etc. Each change in the data managed by the service will lead to a component template update.
You should definitely take a look to https://www.npmjs.com/package/ember-toastr

Prevent error of missing handler in controller

How can we normally prevent Nothing handled the action error in generic view implementation.
Currently I am reopening controller class and adding empty handler but again if I put it directly Ember throws deprecation message Action handlers implemented directly on controllers are deprecated if I add it in action object it is "not working" (probably overridden) and throws error as if it is not in base controller. Any ideas? Thanks.
If you want a somewhat hacky way to do it, you can add the method to the _actions object on the controller. That's where Ember internally keeps all of the actions for an object. Unfortunately, there's no other way to really handle an unused action from a view. This issue suggested a feature that would allow you to, but it hasn't been implemented yet.
Personally, I don't use straight views at all, I only use components. Components allow you to subscribe to particular events (let them bubble up) and ignore the others completely.

Observer fires too early

I have three drop-downs in my view. While preparing a controller, I am doing the following:
Pre-set the bound properties (selectedCountry, selectedSubtype, selectedCity) (this.set('selectedCountry', 'DE');)
After the properties are set, I add observers for those properties, so that the drop-downs can be re-configured whenever the user is changing the selection. I am careful to add the observers after I have initialized the properties, so that I am not firing the controllers accidentally.
But, as soon as the view is rendered, the observers are immediately fired. The user has performed no action yet. I do not understand this, but I imagine that, when rendering the view in the DOM, ember sets the bound property in the drop-downs, and this causes the observers to fire. That is:
Ember renders the view
Sees the binding in the template, to the controller property
Sets the DOM element property according to the controller property
And this somehow causes the firing of the observer?!? why!?!?
If this is the case, the only solution that I can think of, would be to configure the observers after the view has been rendered. There is a didInsertElement for Views, but my problem is controller-related. So, I am confused: is the job of the controller to care about rendering issues? I do not think so: that should be the view's responsibility! But the controller is clearly affected by the rendering order! How to solve this in a clean way?

How to make an action affect a sibling view without controller.get('view')?

Quick context:
Application view has 2 outlets. One for a toolbar. The other for the routable "main" view hierarchy.
app -- main
\-- toolbar
I need some buttons in the toolbar to trigger events in the "main" view. Not update any data in any model. I simply instruct it to trigger some changes to a drawing library that the view is presenting. Clearing the canvas, resetting zoom value and such.
In 1.0 pre2 and earlier I have used actions and router.get('someController.view') to get access to the view I want and trigger the action/method/event. Hardly the pinnacle of application design but it worked fine.
This option is now gone and I am at a loss for a good alternative. What mechanism should I use when communicating between views that are not in a child/parent hierarchy? Everything I have come up with is clunky and triggers my sense that "Ember has a better way".
In short I want:
A toolbar-button to trigger an event
The main view to react to this and perform some updates on parts of itself.
The main view to NOT re-render in the Ember sense of the word as would through routing. It uses a drawing library and integrating all it's properties and behavior into Ember models and controllers would not be a lot of fun.
The toolbar and the main view share a parent view but are on different "branches".
Poor Options I am considering:
The toolbar is very much an application level concern but it does have some buttons that need to instruct specific views. One option I see within Ember is to nest the toolbar under the "main" view. This seems wrong for some of it's other functions.
Communication could be handled by a controller (and possibly even a model) that would hold properties that the toolbar sets and the "listening" view reacts to and resets the value of. This sounds like abuse of the controller and model purposes and like a pretty poor event listener setup.
I could make the drawing library an application global as App.Drawing or something but that does also seems bad. It would also mean that the actions still would not be able to make use of any data in the view to update the drawing library with.
Any suggestions?
What mechanism should I use when communicating between views that are not in a child/parent hierarchy?
In a typical ember application this communication should happen between controllers. Otherwise "Poor Option 2" is on the right track:
Communication could be handled by a controller (and possibly even a model) that would hold properties that the toolbar sets and the "listening" view reacts to and resets the value of.
Consider using two controllers. Toolbar actions will target the ToolbarController, which is responsible for maintaining the toolbar's state and for changing main in response to user action. ToolbarController should declare a dependency on MainController via the needs property. For example:
App.ToolbarController = Ember.Controller.extend({
needs: ['main'],
buttonOneGotAllPressed: function() {
main = this.get('controllers.main');
main.turnOffAnOption();
main.makeSomeOtherChange();
}
});
Now MainController can be focused on the state of MainView. It should not be aware of ToolbarController or it's buttons.
This sounds like abuse of the controller and model purposes and like a pretty poor event listener setup.
Agreed it would likely be an abuse of model purposes but it is exactly what controllers are for.
This is definitely not an event-listener setup, but that does not seem a good fit in your case. The toolbar you describe seems to exist only to interact with the main view, so it makes sense to have a toolbar controller that depends on main and interacts with it directly.
If the components are truly decoupled then an observer (Pub/Sub) pattern might be more appropriate. See How to fire an event to Ember from another framework if that's of interest.