RestAdaptor and API Structure - ember.js

Question

I'm a newbie to Ember Data and all I've done to date is FIXTURE data but today I'm trying to graduate to the real deal and am realising that I don't know enough about how to connect the model and the API's call signature.
Specifically I'd like to be able to call an endpoint GET /activities/[:user_id]/[date]. This would load an array of "Activity" objects but only those for a given date. I know that I can offset the API's directory with:
DS.RESTAdapter.reopen({
namespace: 'api'
});
In my case the api prefix is appropriate. I think I should also be able to get the date component solved by setting up a route something like this:
this.resource('activities', { path: '/activities' }, function() {
this.route('by_date', {path: '/:target_date'});
});
The above is just an educated guess because I'm completely at a loss on how to get the user_id component into the URL signature. Can anyone help? Are there any good tutorials or examples of basic Ember Data use cases?
Also, because I know I'm going to run into this next ... how does one add parameters to the url string (aka, GET /foobar?something=value) versus parameters to the URL itself (like above)?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
UPDATE
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I've implemented the suggestions from #intuitivepixel but am still having some problems ...
First off I tried to hard code the values for userId and dateBy:
Router:
this.resource('activities', { path: '/activities' }, function() {
this.route('by_date', {path: '/:user_id/:by_date'});
});
Route:
App.ActivitiesByDateRoute = Ember.Route.extend({
serialize: function(activity) {
return {
userId: 1,
dateBy: "2013-07-01"
};
}
});
Sadly that did not work. I think I understand why -- although I don't have a quick way to fix this -- but more disturbing for me was that when I manually put in the parameters into the URL: http://restful.service.com/api/activities/1/2013-07-01. The results are quite surprising to me:
Initially the debugging messages suggest a success:
This however, is not correct as no network requests are actually made
If you reload the browser, it will now go out and get the Activities but to my surprise it also goes out to find the specified user. Hmmm. That's ok, the user 1 is pulled back successfully.
The Activity, however, is just a GET /activities call which fails because this endpoint needs the user and date qualifier to work. Why weren't these included in the request?

Answer 1

I know that I can offset the API's directory with:
You can also set a different URL of our API if it's the case:
DS.RESTAdapter.reopen({
url: 'http://myapihost.com',
namespace: 'api'
});
This would produce a URL like http://myapihost.com/api/
The above is just an educated guess because I'm completely at a loss on how to get the user_id component into the URL signature.
Following your example and adding the user_id dynamic segment, let's say you have this router map definition:
this.resource('activities', { path: '/activities' }, function() {
this.route('byDate', {path: '/:user_id/:target_date'});
});
and this is your {{linkTo}} helper:
{{#each activity in model}}
{{#linkTo 'activities.byDate' activity}}
{{/each}}
then to build your url out of multiple dynamic segments you could hook into your route's serialize function and returning a hash composed out of the dynamic segments your URL needs:
App.ActivitiesByDateRoute = Ember.Route.extend({
serialize: function(activity) {
return {
user_id: activity.get('userId'),
target_date: activity.get('targetDate')
}
}
});
The code above will generate a URL like /activities/[userId]/[targetDate] when the {{linkTo}} link is clicked. The example assumes that the properties you need to build your URL are available in your Activity model.
Also, because I know I'm going to run into this next ... how does one add parameters to the url string (aka, GET /foobar?something=value) versus parameters to the URL itself (like above)?
This kind of URL queries are not yet supported by the ember framework, but the are good workarounds/projects that try to deal with that missing feature like: https://github.com/alexspeller/ember-query, and if this PR get's merged some day then you will have them also soon in ember, but for the time beeing you could use the above mentioned library to have support for custom queries. For the current status whether the lib get's merged or not have look here: http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/query-string-support-in-ember-router there is a discussion going on.
Hope it helps.