Ember.Application.create vs Ember.Application.extend - ember.js

I noticed that in the app.js file produced by Ember CLI (v0.1.12), they're using:
var App = Ember.Application.extend({...})
but in the introduction guide, they're using:
window.App = Ember.Application.create({...});
Is there any difference in outcome between these two (create vs. extend) ways of creating an Ember application?

As documented in the Ember documentation extend Creates a new subclass, while
create Creates an instance of a class.
The main difference is that by using extend
you can override methods but still access the implementation of your
parent class by calling the special _super() method
but create does not afford that ability.
The linked docs have good code examples specifically with regards to your question.
See
The create() on line #17 creates an instance of the App.Soldier class.
The extend() on line #8 creates a subclass of App.Person. Any instance
of the App.Person class will not have the march() method.
and the code proceding that quote.

Related

Ember Inject Service into Ember Utility

I know Ember has a logger, but I wanted to create my own for learning purposes. I have a service called logger, and I want to be able to use this service everywhere. I have no problem injecting this service into components, controllers, and etc... I cannot figure out how to inject this service into a Utility I created without passing it through the create function. I don't want to have to pass my logger everywhere I create the utility. When I try to inject it into the object it complains about not being in a container. What's the best way to do this?
Okay, its important to understand what Ember.inject.service actually does! Its like a shorter version for this:
myService: Ember.computed({
get() {
return Ember.getOwner(this).lookup('service:myService);
}
}),
So what is this getOwner? It gives you the owner of an Object. Most of your objects like models, controllers, components, views and so on are created by the Dependency Injection (DI) container. For a class to be available on the DI container it needs to be registered.
Your default classes like controllers, routes, views are automatically registered by the Resolver. After registration you can inject them into other classes automatically when they are created by the container. Also into all instances created by the container the owner is injected.
Because the container itself is private, these public APIs are on the Application. getOwner also returns the application.
If you want to manually lookup an instance on the container you can use lookup.
For your utility class you probably use a normal .create() to get the object. This of course will not automatically couple it to your application, so the owner is not available. Also automatic injection will not work.
You can manually inject the owner with the ownerInjection:
myClass.create(Ember.getOwner(this).ownerInjection(), {...});
Then Ember.inject.service will work because getOwner will return the injected owner.
The other thing you could do is to register your utility objects on the container and then look them up. Then the owner is automatically injected.
Not sure which Ember version initiated this pattern but the Ember documentation contains the answer to that question starting from v4.3:
import { inject as service } from '#ember/service';
import { getOwner, setOwner } from '#ember/application';
class Item {
#service('shopping-cart') cart;
constructor(context) {
setOwner(this, getOwner(context));
}
function addToCart() {
this.cart.add(this);
}
}
// On any framework object...
let item = new Item(this);
item.addToCart();
I hit a similar problem a little while back.
The utilities are of type Ember.Object.
So, all you have to do is inject the service into the Ember.Object class as a property.
Like this:
Ember.Object.reopen({
testService:Ember.inject.service('testService')
});
Et Voila!Now you can literally use your service anywhere

Ember: adding a mixin to a class after it's been created

I want to add a mixin to an Ember class which has already been created. (The class is defined in a library, actually Ember itself; it's LinkView).
I see that we can do mixin.apply(obj), but this applies the mixin to an instance of the class. I want to add the mixin to the class, so it's automatically mixed-in to all newly created objects.
I attempted to override the init method of the class, using reopenClass, and do mixin.apply(this) there, to apply the mixin to the instance, and then call the original init method, but this does not seem to work because the mixin wiring is set up in the init method and it's already too late by the time I can get to it.
reopenClass does not seem to accept a mixin argument like extend does. Its code seems to suggest that it's doing something with mixins, but whatever it is it doesn't work:
a = Ember.Object.extend().reopenClass(Ember.Mixin.create({mixval: 1});
a.create().get('mixval'); // undefined
I know that I could create my own class with MyLinkView = Ember.LinkView.extend(mixin, ..., but unfortunately the original class name is referenced explicitly within the library, so I really would prefer to figure out how to extend that original class with my mixin.
I experimented with Ember.LinkView = Ember.LinkView.extend(mixin, .... This somehow seems dangerous, although it seems to work. But in this particular case it doesn't help me since the reference within the Ember code (in the definition of the {{link-to}} helper) is to an internal version of the class, not the fully qualified Ember.LinkView.
Any ideas?
The solution is simply
Klass = Parent.extend({init: {...}});
Mixin = Ember.Mixin.create({init: {...}});
Klass.reopen(mixin);
Everything works as expected, including the super chain. In other words, a call to Klass.create().init() will call the mixin's init, and a call to super from there will call the original Klass#init.
In the course of researching this question, I discovered something interesting about reopen. Even if the argument is not a mixin, it is treated as one (internally, it actually creates a temporary one). This means that if you do
Klass.reopen({
init: function() {
this._super.apply(this, arguments);
}
});
The call to super is actually calling the original init, not the init in the parent class. In other words, specifying init in a reopen does not replace the existing init on the class, it more or less layers on top of it. I can't see this behavior documented anywhere in the Ember docs, but it does seem useful in the right situation.

Adding custom functions to Ember.js ArrayControllers

I'm trying to figure out Ember.js and keep hitting what seems like basic problems that are not documented in a way I understand.
I want a object to manage a list of stuff. ArrayController seems to make sense. I assume having that controller load the data from the 3rd party server (youtube) makes the most sense. So My plan is to write some custom functions in the controller to load the data.
App.videoController = Ember.ArrayController.extend({
loadSomeVideos() {
console.log("I have run");
}
});
after I run the above code App.testController.someFunction() does not exist. Why not? I feel like I am missing some basic concept.
When you call Ember.ArrayController.extend, you're actually just extending the class not creating a concrete instance, therefore you can't call loadSomeVideos.
There are a few conventions in Ember that can get you stumped if you're unaware of them. As commented by "Unspecified", you should use the following convention to extend the class.
Please note the upper case VideoController and also the way in which I'm defining the loadSomeVideos method:
App.VideoController = Ember.ArrayController.extend({
loadSomeVideos: function() {
console.log("I have run");
}
});
Now, if you want to run this, you need to create an instance of the App.VideoController class. Once again notice the capitalisation:
App.videoController = App.VideoController.create();
So, I use a lower case v for the instance, and an upper case V for the class. I've just created an instance (App.videoController) of the class (App.VideoController).
To call your method, you need to call it from the instance, like this:
App.videController.loadSomeVideos();
Check out the following two pages in the documentation.
This first page gives you some info about extending classes and then instantiating them so you can call their methods:
http://emberjs.com/guides/object-model/classes-and-instances/
The second page goes into a bit of depth about more advanced methods reopen and reopenClass.
http://emberjs.com/guides/object-model/reopening-classes-and-instances/

How to dynamically call a method from a different component by using cfscript?

I'm looking for the best way to dynamically call a method from a different component in cfscript. Notice that it's concerning a method in a different component. So far I've tried 3 different methods, but none of them seem be exactly what I'm looking for:
All cases are written in cfscript inside a component method. Let's say I'm trying to dynamically call the setName(required string name) method in the MyComponent component. All cases have following variables defined:
var myComp = new MyComponent();
var myMethod = "setName";
var args = {"name"="foo"};
use evaluate() for the job
evaluate("myComp.#myMethod#(argumentCollection=args)");
pros: is done with very little code
cons: code is not very 'clean' and use of evaluate() seems to have an 'evil' reputation in the online community. I wouldn't want my code to be evil.
use a cfml wrapper for <cfinvoke>
invoke("MyComponent", myMethod, args);
pros: I can use all functionality of cfinvoke
cons: It creates a new instance of MyComponent with every invoke.
create a dynamicMethod method in MyComponent
myComp.dynamicMethod(myMethod, args);
dynamicMethod of MyComponent:
public any function dynamicMethod(required string methodName, required struct argumentColl){
var cfcMethod = variables[arguments.methodName];
return cfcMethod(argumentCollection=arguments.argumentColl);
}
pros: I can finally call myComp directly. Most comfortable solution so far.
cons: I can now call private methods of MyComponent via dynamicMethod.
(I've also tried the 'function as variable' solution outside of MyComponent, but then the function looses its working context. e.g. if MyComponent would extend a component, the 'super' scope would no longer refer to the extended component).
None of these solutions seem to be perfect, so is there no other way to call a dynamic function from a different controller?
And if there isn't, which one of these is the best solution?
Any advice is welcome, thanks.
Good analysis.
One thing you could do here is to more-closely emulate <cfinvoke> with your wrapper function. <cfinvoke> will take either a component path or a component instance (ie: an object) in that COMPONENT attribute. So your 'con' of 'It creates a new instance of MyComponent with every invoke.' isn't really valid.
ColdFusion 10, btw, adds a invoke() function to achieve just this. I note you're on CF9, so this is no help to you. But it's perhaps relevant for other people who might land on this question.

How should I structure multiple instances of the same Ember.Application sub-class on the same page?

I have a reasonably large Ember.Application ("MyApp"). I wrote it as a standalone ember-controlled page, but now I want to instantiate N-instances of the application hosted inside an existing (non-ember) page.
Ember docs on Ember.Application suggest that the app should be both the class namespace AND the root of a singleton-instance, but in this case, I need one class namespace, and multiple instances. I don't want to load the classes separately per instance, they are actually fairly large and mobile is a major use-case.
Currently I have:
MyApp = Ember.Application.create({ /* app state */); // namespace & instance
MyApp.SomeSupportingClass1 = ...
My impulse is to do:
MyApp = Ember.Object.create(); // namespace
MyApp.MyApp = Ember.Application.extend({ /* app state */ }); // instance class
MyApp.myAppInstances = Ember.ArrayController.create(); // instances of MyApp.MyApp
MyApp.SomeSupportingClass1 = ...
Will this cause problems? Is there a more 'ember-y' way to structure this?
Currently, I believe your only option is "Ember Islands".
However, Godfrey the newest addition to Tilde, inc (Where Tom and Yehuda work), has been doing some work on FastBoot which will include "Application Instances". Once Godfrey's work lands in Ember you will have an official ember way of accomplishing this.
Update: It's also worth taking a look at [Ember Engines] as a way to bring multiple applications together.(http://ember-engines.com/)