ContainerView not connecting childviews and controller properly - ember.js

Question

I have an container view defined below
app.MainView = Ember.ContainerView.extend({
childViews: ['navigationView', 'gutterView', 'mainView'],
elementId: 'master',
navigationView: app.NavView,
gutterView: app.GutterView,
mainView: Ember.View.create({
elementId: 'content',
template: Ember.Handlebars.compile('{{outlet contentOutlet}}')
})
});
app.NavView = Ember.View.extend({
elementId: 'main-menu',
classNames: ['navigationPanel'],
template: Ember.Handlebars.compile('{{controller}}')
});
app.NavController = Ember.ArrayController.extend({
content: [],
});
the problem here is that when I define it like this the controller for app.NavView (app.NavController) does not get connected to the view. if I look at the {{controller}} for the NavView through the template i get the ApplicationController.
But when I define it like this:
app.MainView = Ember.ContainerView.extend({
childViews: ['navigationView', 'gutterView', 'mainView'],
elementId: 'master',
navigationView: Ember.View.extend({
elementId: 'nav',
template: Ember.Handlebars.compile('{{outlet navOutlet}}')
}),
gutterView: app.GutterView,
mainView: Ember.View.create({
elementId: 'content',
template: Ember.Handlebars.compile('{{outlet contentOutlet}}')
})
});
and connect the NavView through the connectOutlet in the router
router.get('applicationController').connectOutlet('navOutlet', 'nav');
I get that the connected controller in NavView is NavController, which is correct!
The question is, what am I missing here? I don't want an outlet here and want it to be created through the mainView.
Why is Ember not connecting the View and Controller properly when I use an ContainerView?

Answer 1

The "connection" between view and controller is not as "automagic" as you believed. using the outlets it's done via the call to
router.get('applicationController').connectOutlet('aOutlet', 'nav');
If you walk through the code of https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js/blob/master/packages/ember-views/lib/system/controller.js#L102 you will see that it's retrieving the controller via naming convention, and then connect the just created view to it.
If you don't want to use outlet here, I suggest you to manually give the controller to the view.
EDIT: To precise why the controller of NavView is Application in the first case:
using the NavView class directly as a child of the mainView, does not bind automatically the NavController to it. So, when you try to get it's controller, it fallbacks to its parentView's controller,.